UCSD Parents/Guardians and Staff,

Providing our students and staff in the Urbandale Community School District with a safe educational environment remains one of our top priorities. On February 19, the UCSD Board of Education approved a resolution for gun safety as well as this letter informing families of various resources and information for securely storing firearms in order to keep guns out of the hands of children.

We are all aware of incidents of gun violence in our surrounding communities, and across the nation. A national survey found that 57 percent of teens are concerned that there will be a shooting in their school.

Studies of all types of school-based gun violence across decades all point to the same significant point of intervention—addressing students unauthorized access to guns in the home. For example, a recent Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center study of targeted school violence incidents from 2008 to 2017, found that 76 percent of the firearms were obtained from the home of a parent or close relative.

Unsecured guns in the home pose a risk to students beyond gun violence in schools. Every year, 350 children under the age of 18 unintentionally shoot themselves or someone else. That’s roughly one unintentional shooting per day. Gun suicide among children has reached the highest rate in more than 20 years. In the overwhelming majority of these incidents, the gun used was one that belonged to someone in their home.

One study found that 70 percent of parents believe their teen cannot access the gun(s) in their home. Yet, the study also found that half of teens said they could gain access to a loaded gun in their home in under an hour, including one-third who said they could do so in under five minutes. Research shows that secure firearm storage practices are associated with up to an 85 percent reduction in the risk of self-inflicted and unintentional firearm injuries among children and teens. Storing firearms securely protects any child in the home as well as students throughout the school district and community.

Iowa state law imposes penalties on adults when a child gains unsupervised access to unsecured stored firearms.

You can learn more and download helpful resources; including a secure storage fact sheet, talking to your children about guns, and facts and resources on child firearm suicide, at BeSMARTforKids.org/resources. You can also get free gun locks at the Urbandale Police Station or Urbandale Public Library.

Thank you for your commitment to keep our students safe.

Dr. Rosalie Daca

Superintendent

Jason Menke

Board President

Rachel Kent

Board Vice President

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