On May 18, 2018, 10 people died and at least 10 others were injured at a school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas. This is the 22nd U.S. school shooting since the beginning of the year.

To date, more students and staff have been killed in school shootings this year than soldiers killed in active combat.

We, as a society, must do better to protect our students from gun violence both inside and outside of schools. Here are three things you can do right now:

• Write Congress. The reality is that if we really want to stop gun violence, Congress needs to pass comprehensive legislation. We must demand our elected representatives take every step necessary to keep our schools, students, and educators safe from gun violence.
• Organize a voter registration drive at your high school or in your community. The young people standing up to demand change in the wake of the shooting in Parkland have been nothing short of incredible. We must be sure to equip them with one of the most powerful tools of change: the vote.
• Download NEA’s School Crisis Guide. This comprehensive document helps schools prevent, prepare for, respond to, and recover from tragedies such as school shootings.

To call last week’s shooting heartbreaking, senseless, or tragic does not do it justice.

We’ve had wake-up call after wake-up call, shooting after shooting, death after death, and Congress has done nothing to protect students from gun violence.

So, until students no longer have to practice active shooter drills, until parents no longer have to fear if their child will return home from school alive, and until it is no longer necessary for educators to face the horror of standing between their students and a gunman, we need to keep fighting.