A sign along Highway 141 in Granger, Iowa, shows support for the neighboring community of Perry on Friday, Jan. 5, 2024, following a shooting at the Perry Middle School and High School building the previous day. (AP Photo/Bryon Houlgrave)

As a native Iowan, I was vigilantly reading the news on Thursday, trying to stay updated on the latest developments of the school shooting at Perry High School. One time zone and several states away, I was innately concerned about students I’d never met in a community I’d never been to in a state I hadn’t lived in nearly 25 years with no desire to ever return.

As I try to reconcile Iowa’s failures in the past with the latest news, I’ve put my swirling internal questions to this public forum. Instead of repeating or ignoring history, I hope the answers can provide a stronger foundation to change Iowa’s future for the better, especially for children who naturally have so few life choices already.

What duty of care do we human beings owe each other? Can we agree that we have a moral obligation to mutually care for each other? Why isn’t a duty of care to one another an intuitive behavior anymore? How can we expect to survive as a species if we repeatedly choose powerful leaders who do nothing to stop devastating outcomes for our society? When did we start constantly putting ourselves first as individuals and stop seeing our collective communities as greater than the sum of our parts?

What message do we send to Iowa’s children when we choose to focus on nicknames, book titles, or bathrooms at the cost of providing a safe learning environment where every student has the opportunity to succeed in the classroom and in life? Why do the demands of a select few, most of whom do not regularly walk the halls of Iowa’s public schools, outweigh the needs of the many who have no say in how their daily lives are run?

Are we self-aware enough to realize that we automatically follow the same script and set of actions anytime a tragedy occurs, regardless of the scale?

Why do we prioritize the desire to possess inanimate objects over the physical and mental welfare of human beings? Why do we continually separate ourselves into arbitrary and artificial categories? Are we aware that any imposed social division is self-inflicted? Why do we place so much value on irrational labels like a ZIP code, religion (or lack thereof), race, gender, age, occupation, housing, education level (or lack thereof), income level, home ownership, social media followers, physical appearance, intelligence, physical ability, mental ability, or relationships?

Do we understand that the status quo is no mistake and powerful people took very intentional actions to get us to where we are today?

After the media outlets leave, after law enforcement has sorted out the details, and after the national attention has died down, where does Iowa go from here?

The capacity to improve the lives of Iowa’s children exists, and the people in positions of authority have the ability to make those improvements. Those two statements have always been true. Will this latest incident be different? For every present and future Iowa student, I hope so.

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Maria Reppas is a freelance writer who lived in Iowa from 1978 to 1999. Visit her website at www.mariareppas.com.