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The community at Thomas S. Wootton High School in Rockville, Maryland is processing a frightening reality today — a student was shot inside one of the most highly regarded public high schools in the country. Our thoughts are with the injured student, their family, and the entire Wootton community as they begin to recover.
What makes this incident particularly sobering for administrators and families nationwide isn't the specifics of what happened — it's what it represents. Wootton is located in one of the wealthiest counties in the United States. It's consistently ranked among the top academic high schools in Maryland and across the country. If there's a school that, on paper, seems like it would be insulated from this kind of event, this is it.
And that's exactly the point.
School safety isn't correlated with funding, test scores, or zip codes.
The instinct after an incident like this is to ask, "Could this happen at our school?" For administrators, the harder — and more productive — question is: "How prepared are we to detect and respond to a threat in real time?"
The gap between cameras and awareness
Most schools have security cameras. In fact, the vast majority of K-12 schools in the U.S. have some form of video surveillance in place. But having cameras and having awareness are two very different things. Industry estimates suggest that more than 99% of camera feeds go unwatched at any given moment. Cameras capture footage. They don't, on their own, detect threats, alert staff, or accelerate response.
In a situation like the one at Wootton — where police were dispatched at 2:15 PM for shots fired and a student was found with a gunshot wound in a hallway — every second between the moment a weapon is visible and the moment the right people are notified matters enormously.
Questions worth asking about your school's current security posture
Rather than reacting to this event with fear, administrators can use this moment to have a candid, proactive conversation with their security teams. A few questions to start with:
If a weapon were visible on our campus right now, how long would it take for the right staff to be notified? Is that notification automated, or does it depend on someone watching a monitor at the right time? Once an incident is in progress, does our system help responders understand where the threat is and where it's moving — or are they working blind? Do we have clear reunification protocols, and have they been practiced recently? Are we relying solely on reactive measures like lockdowns, or do we have layers that allow for earlier detection and intervention?
These aren't trick questions designed to make anyone feel inadequate. They're the kinds of questions that separate schools operating with blind spots from schools actively working to close them.
Moving from reactive to proactive
The Wootton incident followed a pattern we've seen repeated across the country — an event occurs, a lockdown is initiated, law enforcement responds, and a reunification process begins. Every step of that response is critical and necessary. But increasingly, school leaders are asking whether there are ways to shift the timeline — to identify a threat before shots are fired, not after.
That's where the conversation around AI-powered security technology becomes relevant. Not as a silver bullet, but as one layer in a comprehensive approach that can include trained security personnel, anonymous reporting systems, mental health resources, and clear emergency response protocols.
The goal isn't to replace any of those elements. It's to augment them with technology that watches when humans can't, detects what the eye might miss, and alerts the right people in seconds rather than minutes.
Resources for school administrators and security professionals
If this incident has prompted your team to reevaluate your current approach, these resources provide a deeper look at the technologies and strategies available:
📘 School Shooting Prevention Technology Resource Center → https://volt.ai/resource-center-school-shooting-prevention-technology
📘 Gun and Weapon Detection Resource Center → https://volt.ai/resource-center-gun-and-weapon-detection
Understanding what's available isn't a commitment — it's preparation. And preparation is the one thing that separates the schools that are ready from the ones that hope they'll never have to be.