Lexington School District 1 had a bad week coming out of Thanksgiving.

On Monday, Nov. 29, Lexington County sheriff’s deputies charged a male student and a female student at White Knoll High School they said they found with a gun and a knife, respectively, after students reported to staff that a student brought a handgun on campus.

On Thursday, Dec. 2, deputies responded to Gilbert Middle School and charged two girls in an incident involving a stolen $20 and a knife getting pulled. That same day, at Gilbert High School, a 14-year-old student was charged after a classmate accused him of threatening to show up in a trenchcoat the next day and shoot up Gilbert’s middle and elementary school.

A common refrain from the district, from principals and from Lexington County Sheriff Jay Koon through all three incidents was praising the students who came forward and the schools for acting quickly.

“This situation is another example of how we must work together to keep each other safe,” reads part of a district message to Gilbert-area families sent out after the Gilbert High School incident. “We take threats seriously and take swift and stern action against those making threats against our schools.”

But with two instances of weapons on campus plus another threat hitting the district in a span of four days, the district owes the parents and guardians who send their kids to its schools more than reassurances that it did the best it could. The district owes them answers about how these weapons were allowed to make their way on campus and what measures it’s considering to make such incidents less likely moving forward.

WIS television news reports speaking with an anonymous teacher who expressed her concerns with the situation after Monday’s White Knoll lockdown was followed a day later by a mass shooting at Oxford High School in Michigan in which four students were killed.

“This teacher is expressing worry that if Lexington One leaders don’t respond with more urgency about weapons on campus, a similar situation could happen in South Carolina,” WIS reports.

“Because a lot of what I hear in the hallways is, ‘Eh, we’ll get away with it,’” the teacher is quoted. “And it only takes one kid to copycat and then we have a massacre on our hands, and nobody wants that.”

The WIS story quotes District 1 Board Member Jada Garris, saying she agrees the district is often too reactive and not proactive when it comes to issues like these. And while the story quotes district spokesperson Kathryn McPhail pushing back against this sentiment, saying they “continuously review and update security measures at all of our schools,” there is no specific mention of what is being done to improve the situation.

WIS also references an email sent to staff by White Knoll principal Ted Daughtrey in which he said he sent Superintendent Greg Little a request for “a number of security measures, including two additional hall monitors, updated cameras and to pilot the implementation of a random inspection process to deter weapons and illegal substances from being brought on campus.”

After a week of events that couldn’t help but shake parents, guardians, students, faculty and staff, the district owes them more than continuing to say it did a good job once the weapons and threats became known. They deserve concrete discussion of why these incidents were possible and what is being done to make them less likely in the future.

Because even if the district is doing a good job once weapons make their way on campus, that doesn’t mean it’s always going to end up as well as it did last week.

This article is the opinion of the Chronicle editorial board. To comment, email lexingtonchronicle@gmail.com.