“We’re expected to be human shields”: Teachers are unprotected — and scared

The day after the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, Elizabeth, a first grade teacher at a school across the state, looked down at the sidewalk to read what one of her students had scribbled in chalk at the entrance to their school: “If you have a gun, get out pleas.” The child’s message, innocent with its spelling error, was decorated with the drawing of a little white heart.

That day, Elizabeth started locking both doors in her classroom. She told her students not to congregate in the...