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He had heard about the shooting in Parkland, Florida, and about the shooting three weeks later of 17-year-old听听at her high school in Birmingham, Alabama.

So when his middle school in Birmingham went on lockdown, Javon thought he might die. On loose-leaf paper, in pencil, he listed his possessions.

鈥淚 love you my whole Family you mean the most to me,鈥� Javon听. 鈥淵ou gave me the clothes on my back, you fed me, and you were always by my side.鈥�

Javon made it home that day, but too many kids do not. And many others are traumatized by school shootings.听The Washington Post听released a powerful report this week finding that, since Columbine,听听have been on campuses during a shooting at their school. The majority are children of color.

Black students are three times as likely 鈥斕齛nd Hispanic students, nearly twice as likely 鈥斕齛s white students to experience gun violence at school.

They are also more likely to attend a school with on-campus police. That does not make them safer.

School resource officers were present during four of the five worst school shootings. The shootings happened anyway. Only one time before this month had a school resource officer ever gunned down an active shooter.

But if on-campus police rarely deter school shootings, they do reinforce the听school-to-prison pipeline听鈥� the same pipeline that excludes black children across the country from school at three times the rate of their white peers, despite research showing that children of all races misbehave at similar rates.

We know that racial bias is present in our schools.听Arming educators won鈥檛 help us dismantle it, and, some evidence suggests, it would听.

鈥淚f law enforcement professionals with extensive training to handle firearms make mistakes with them,鈥� ask John Woodrow Cox and Steven Rich听听蹿辞谤听The Washington Post, 鈥渨hat might go wrong if educators with far less training carry the same lethal weapon?鈥�

Today, Parkland students will lead the听听in Washington, DC. They鈥檙e demanding that lawmakers act to end gun violence and stop the plague of mass school shootings.

But keeping students safe means more than enacting sensible restrictions on who can own guns and how lethal those weapons can be. It also means making sure that racial bias doesn鈥檛 push students of color into the school-to-prison pipeline 鈥� or in front of armed school officials.

The Editors.

P.S. Here are some other pieces we think are valuable:

• 听for Richard Martyn-Hemphill and Henrik Pryser Libell for听The New York Times
• 听by Dilshad D. Ali for听The Atlantic
• 听by Sara Saedi for听Lenny Letter
• 听by Michael Edison Hayden for听Newsweek

澳彩开奖鈥檚 Weekend Read听is听a weekly summary of the most important news reporting and commentary from around the country on civil rights, economic and racial inequality, and hate and extremism.听Sign up to receive the Weekend Read听every Saturday morning.