Fentress Blog

Focusing on a parent’s role in school security has been a top priority for me in recent years as I have taken on the role of motherhood. Having a stepson in middle school and a toddler who will soon be school aged, I look for ways parents can be involved in making the school environment as safe as...

As a child growing up on a farm in a small rural area, I was very limited when it came to being around my friends and other peers. I lived almost a mile away from the nearest road, which meant no neighbors, no spontaneous bike riding with friends through the neighborhood, and no last-minute...

It seems that our children’s summer vacations are getting (or feeling) shorter these days. As we enter another school year, the feelings today’s parents have are likely very different than those our parents or grandparents may have had as they watched their own children step onto the bus or walk...

As mass shootings – and school shootings in particular – have become commonplace across our nation, the need to improve security in our schools has perhaps never been so urgent. Many school boards and administrators want to improve school security but do not have adequate budgets to implement...

"Mr. Getty needs red construction paper.” Those six words seem so innocent. But for my wife, who taught in a public elementary school for ten years, those six words signaled an active shooter drill. 

And then the rundown would begin. Lock the doors…lock the windows…pull down the shades…hide the...