SEATTLE — Ingraham High School’s athletic director and students want a new way for runners to take off at a track meet after a shooting on campus last year.
“I was at the school last year when the shooting happened,” said Mike Wentzel, Ingraham High School athletic director.
On Nov. 8, 2022, a deadly shooting inside Ingraham High School sits in the back of the minds of students and staff and immediately came to the forefront when Mike Wentzel moved into his office in the fall.
“I was moving into my office in early September and trying to get things organized. I opened up a drawer and there was a box with a gun in it. That alerted me, I was a little put back at first,” Wentzel said.
He quickly realized it was a starter pistol for track and field meets and started thinking about his students and co-workers who were still coping with trauma.
“The idea that we would fire off over and over during the track meet and hear that continuous gunshot over our entire campus and throughout our neighborhood, to me is just unacceptable,” Wentzel said.
Instead of a pistol firing off blanks to tell runners to go, Wentzel is trying to get an electronic starting system that sets off a tone and flashes lights.
The price tag for one is around $7,000 and Wentzel wants one for Ingraham, Chief Sealth, Nathan Hale and Rainier Beach High School so every runner in the district can use it.
This comes as the school district faces a more than $100 million budget shortfall.
Saeran Dewar, an Ingraham High School senior and co-founder of Ingraham for Gun Safety, is one of the students helping to raise $27,000.
“I think it is wholly inappropriate for any kind of school, but especially at a school where students are startled by the sound of a balloon popping or a locker door slamming shut in the hallway. I thought that was absolutely something that we would have to change,” Dewar said.
Ingraham for Gun Safety is a group that started in 2022 following the Uvalde school shooting. Students have been working on gun reform and taking their efforts to lawmakers in Olympia with plans to lobby for more permits to purchase and youth mental health legislation.
Before that, they, along with the Seattle Student Union and other gun violence prevention groups, are taking on track pistol starter initiative.
“I will just really urge people to remember this issue, although it may seem like just a small component and might potentially seem trivial. It is really fundamental to student mental health and that the sound and visual of a gun on campus can be incredibly triggering for anybody but especially an Ingraham student,” Dewar said.
Wentzel said he’s gotten support from Ingraham students and parents and some mixed reviews.
“Some outside comments are different about fear of guns, but to me, it's really about what our kids are going through the trauma they're overcoming. What's going to help them heal?” Wentzel said.
Wentzel explained the sound from something like a whistle isn’t loud enough to trigger a timing system, something that’s crucial in a sport where every second counts.
“The electronic starting systems are so at the time that you basically push the button that triggers the tone, it also starts the timing system, so our timing will be very precise,” Wenzel said.
Wentzel said state meets still use the pistol starter and likely won’t change until most athletes use the electronic system, but he is hoping this could help move that along.
He said it can also help athletes in the future as the NCAA is moving towards the electric system.
Wentzel and students hope to raise funds and have the new system in place by the spring.
KING 5 contacted the Seattle Public Schools District to see if they would help fund this effort and is waiting to hear back.
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