Calls_for_Safe_Schools
EdPro Need To Know
The Florida School Shooting
What Education Leaders & Advocates Need To Know:
Calls for Action in the Wake of the Parkland, Florida School Shooting Not Only Raise New Concerns But Rekindle Stubborn Debates About Fundamental Student Discipline Practices
On February 14, 2018, a mass shooting occurred at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Seventeen people were killed and seventeen more were wounded, making it one of the world's deadliest school massacres...
SOURCE: Wikipedia
In this Need To Know...
I recap recent calls for action to make schools safe in the wake of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas HS incident. I will do my best to sift through crucial facts, highlight partisan flash points in the political discourse, and then, in a spirit of (not too partisan) pragmatism, humbly suggest some core insights to guide engaged education advocates seeking to take positive action.
(Note to reader: the comments and opinions in this post are those of the author and not pretending to be authoritative but offered to help education advocates identify practical perspectives and strategies for making schools safer and school communities more united.)
Since the incident at Marjory Stoneman Douglas HS...
President Trump announces formation of high level committee on school safety, led by Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.
Betsy DeVos , in a CNN Op-Ed, calls for various reforms (see below)
Unexpectedly perhaps (or not?) day-to-day school discipline practices suddenly become a renewed focus of political debate after some key lawmakers see the gun safety movement as an opportunity to push back on Obama-era reforms. This maneuvering is politically charged because it is silent on gun controls and targets measures meant to address racial bias and the so-called schools-to-prison pipeline, while (presumably) rekindling interest in zero-tolerance type discipline practices.
Later in this post...In Thinking It Through...I will focus on…
Key considerations for education leaders with regard to each of the action items in De Vos’ CNN Op Ed: Are these recommendations “no-brainers”...or are there gaps or new risks that education advocates need to reckon with?
Renewed debates on best practices for school discipline emerging in the wake of Trump’s call for a school safety commission--what are some key takeaways education leaders and advocates should consider to help make an end run around divisive and polarizing school discipline debates in order to foster community, inclusion, and consensus, while driving dialogue and deliberation with data rather than ideology?
Initial Thoughts
In the wake of other recent active shooter tragedies, the catastrophic incident at Marjory Stoneman Douglas HS made a few realities sorrowfully evident:1. School shootings are more frequent, and it is a reminder of the obvious...that schools are SOFT, HIGH-RISK TARGETS. And, unfortunately, there is little reason to assume another school tragedy might not be just around the corner...2. The job profile we call SRO, School Resource Officer, is a questionable safeguard and one perhaps in need of examination--an armed school resource officer was on active duty at Marjory Douglas when the shooting occurred, but did not take effective action.3. The Marjory Stoneman Douglas HS incident, and other recent active shooter incidents (whether at schools, concerts, movie theaters, offices, or night clubs) underscore the fact that a national mental health crisis along with risks of terrorist activity in conjunction with easy access to assault weapons are fostering a climate of fear and unpredictable risk.4. Based on initial reports, the outstanding public safety failure in the Parkland Florida school incident actually occurred in the weeks and months leading up to the tragedy, when multiple tips to local and federal authorities about the looming danger failed to trigger the needed alarm and needed interventions.5. Some new dilemmas loom as advocates consider options for making schools safer...issues I will offer comments on further down in this post.6. Although we may be presently galvanized by the incident in Parkland, Florida, education leaders and advocates in many communities realistically need to frame the issue of guns and school safety in terms of larger issues to contend with--that include gun deaths and other risk factors that may impact their school community and the students they seek to serve on an annual basis.
Recent events...Calls for action...in the wake of the Parkland, Florida tragedy:
Students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas HS begin to demonstrate, speak out, organize…including a major day of protest culminating in a mass march on Washington and smaller demonstrations across the US and internationally
In early March, President Trump announces a School Safety Commission to be led by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, whose mission is to issue actionable and concrete proposals in the near term
On March 14th, NY Times reports in a front page article (“Trump Finds Unlikely Culprit in School Shootings) that formal petitions from Senator Marco Rubio appear to be intended to prompt the DeVos commission to scrutinize Obama-era guidance that sought to counter racial bias in school discipline enforcement and reduce the numbers of students being funneled into what is commonly referred to as the schools-to-prisons pipeline
On March 16th, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos issues a CNN Op-Ed: “On School Safety, Inaction Is Not An Option” (CNN Online, Friday March 16th, 2018). DeVos’ opinion piece outlines four anticipated school safety committee proposals:
Expand powers for court-ordered mental health treatment and review coordination between mental health agencies, schools, and law enforcement for more effective and timely interventions (more below…**)
Identify and promote best practices for keeping alienated students healthy and connected to schools and communities
Strengthen National Instant Criminal Background Check reporting systems and encourage all states to adopt Extreme Risk Protection Orders allowing court ordered removal of firearms from individuals who pose a demonstrated public safety threat
Train (and recruit as necessary from ranks of military and police veterans) school protection personnel
[**According to the NY Times article I mentioned, De Vos’ action item number one--increase powers and coordination for referrals between schools, mental health providers, and law enforcement--took a rhetorical turn after Florida Senator Marco Rubio suggested the active shooter incident at Marjory Douglas HS was fallout from Obama-era guidance designed to help reduce racially biased discipline inequalities and reduce law enforcement interventions by encouraging alternative, non-exclusionary discipline practices and proactive school climate measures.
Readers might ask how an incident with a lone white male shooter would prompt Senator Rubio to invoke concerns about broad school discipline policies...Well according to the Times’ article, the letter Senator Rubio sent to Ms. Devos and Attorney General Sessions suggested that Obama-era directives were the cause of the failure to intervene against the shooter--the implicit assertion being that school personnel deferred making referrals to law enforcement because of the directives, or out of fear of resorting to suspension and expulsion measures in general because of the directives…
If you think that’s strange logic, you might be right in this case, because it’s public knowledge that the shooter had indeed been referred multiple times to law enforcement, both to local authorities and in reports to the FBI. Furthermore, the same shooter was not “protected” from traditional exclusionary discipline measures, instead he had been expelled and was under expulsion orders when he returned to the school with firearms.]
March 25th: Demonstrations calling for action on gun violence and school safety take place in cities across the US and in other nations, including a large mass demonstration in Washington D.C. (Former Senator Rick Santorum gets attention in the press for stating that student demonstrators would be better served learning how to administer CPR than spending time protesting for gun control. On March 27th, he apologizes for the comments.) [see NY Times, March 28, Front Page]
Thinking It Through…
What follows is a recap of each action proposed by Education Secretary DeVos followed by some commentary that hopefully will help education advocates think through what might be the best next steps for school safety, for positive school discipline practices, and for considering new risks that some proposals might entail...
De Vos Proposal 1
Expand powers for court-ordered mental health treatment and review coordination between mental health agencies, schools, and law enforcement for more effective and timely interventions
No Brainer?... New Risks?...
In my humble opinion, this qualifies on the surface as a no brainer...So, what’s the rub?...It’s not clear that any lack of powers in these areas underlies (therefore would have prevented) the Marjory Stoneman incident. The student perpetrator had been expelled by school administrators for prior incidents. Then, prior to the shooting rampage, both local and federal law enforcement authorities had been alerted of potential risks and had ample time to intervene. If the failure by authorities to intervene is due to statutory limitations on their powers, then this proposal might target a potential legal remedy, while needing to contend with civil rights issues that might arise. To the best of my knowledge, however, the reports to the FBI did not result in any intervention, primarily because they simply went unheeded. That kind of apparent systemic issue or accountability failure does not seem to be addressed or called out in this proposal.
De Vos Proposal 2
Identify and promote best practices for keeping alienated students healthy and connected to schools and communities
No Brainer?... New Risks?...
This is a no-brainer right?…Or is it…?On this one, we have to go in the weeds, but it’s worth a good look!While a single, alienated student may indeed be the most at-risk profile for a potential active shooter incident this proposal is preventative and defines guidelines for sweeping policies that would affect large numbers of students, so the proposal opens school communities to debates about school discipline policies at large--taking us rather far afield from a focus on extreme active shooter scenarios but impacting schools broadly, so education advocates should monitor these action proposals going forward!An immediate area of concern to education advocates is that De Vos’ proposal, although framed in positive terms (“keeping alienated students healthy and connected”) when issued against the backdrop of larger school safety issues in general and in the shadow of shooting rampages can, as Senator Rubio’s letter demonstrates, quickly become a lightning rod for fear-mongering, and for flaming partisan debate and racial tensions, rather than for uniting communities for sustained, inclusive problem solving driven by empirical data.As far as fomenting divisive debate goes...I present as evidence this extract from the March 14th NY Times article I referred to above:
At a briefing hosted by the United States Commission on Civil Rights, dozens of policy experts, researchers, educators and parents sounded off on the Obama-era discipline policy in a meeting that became so racially charged that some black attendees walked out. Since the [Obama-era] discipline guidelines were issued, conservatives have blamed the document for creating unsafe educational environments by pressuring schools to keep suspension numbers down to meet racial quotas… [and claimed] teachers who sought suspensions or expulsions of minority students were painted as racists...But proponents [of Obama-era reforms] argued that racial bias was well documented… [For example] When the guidance was issued, federal data found that African-American students without disabilities were more than three times as likely as their white peers without disabilities to be expelled or suspended, and that more than 50 percent of students who were involved in school-related arrests or who were referred to law enforcement were Hispanic or African-American…
(NY Times, March 14, 2018, from page A10. Note: I added the words in brackets for clarification.)The ire of the black attendees who walked out of the meeting is a reminder that communities of color often perceive schools as structurally white institutions, with mostly white administrators who if not explicitly biased are assumed to be “implicitly” (unconsciously) biased in discipline and other practices and attitudes when it comes to race and/or class.At the same time, many school employees and advocates struggle with HOW to effectively connect with struggling students. Cycles of frustration and perceived futility may lead them to conclude that efforts to “connect” to all students are misguided and cost schools too much in terms of impacts on larger school climate, on instruction, and on critical school safety concerns.Hence the Marco Rubio letter...which warns against policies that are perceived as hindering traditional administrative interventions such as suspension, expulsion, and referrals to law enforcement--does so despite the actual facts in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooter incident...The irony here is that Senator Rubio calls for supporting schools in excluding non-compliant students, while at the same time the Marjory Stoneman shooter actually might be taken to illustrate the dangers of excluding students--the Marjory Stoneman shooter had already been expelled…and hence was all the more alienated and disconnected in the months leading up to his crime. In any event--whatever one concludes from the terrible Parkland, Florida incident--evaluating best practices by reference to isolated and emotionally charged incidents is also probably not an effective way to promote long term school safety.Lasting and inclusive reforms will (in my humble opinion) require:1. A commitment to deliberative processes underpinned by objective empirical data. This principal seems a prerequisite for replacing factionalism with facts, unmasking distorted claims and ad hominem attacks, and for forging consensus around positive interventions with regular monitoring for equity. Allowing our schools and school debates to devolve further into innuendo and race baiting will likely not serve our local communities or students.2. Education leaders and advocates must realize that broad directives on discipline guidance will, by themselves, never provide the sought after fix. Obama-era type directives may not enjoy widespread support nor provide any easy solutions for school personnel, but they do (in my opinion) pressure schools to experiment with new approaches instead of relying on excluding students, thus driving schools to look deeper and try harder… a push that seems needed, but is potentially unfair to already overburdened schools since these directives can be seen as tantamount to a mandate for schools to somehow fix something no one is sure HOW to fix.The rub is...doing away with that guidance neither pressures schools to adopt or explore change...so “traditional” discipline practices (for which we have abundant data that the outcomes are statistically not promising) are likely to serve as the default...In this scenario, the path of apparent least resistance is likely to be a reliance on exclusion (suspension, expulsion, law enforcement referrals…) which further alienates and “disconnects” the most vulnerable, and potentially most volatile students. When racial inequalities arise in these contexts, they also divide and damage local and internal school constituents.The bottom line is that dealing with school discipline involves more than following a progressive discipline policy because the solution cannot be found in a quick fix or one right directive.Addressing school discipline issues and exclusion issues constructively and in a sustained and inclusive fashion involves confronting, acknowledging, and healing damage from structural inequalities in schools and from the fallout of structural inequalities in the larger community and society (structural racism, cultural bias, racial enmity, police misuse of force or mere distrust of police bias, socio-economic stresses…).Success in this kind of endeavor may partly culminate in identified practices or new models, but these WON’T BE SIMPLE ONE-STEP FIXES (technical fixes)... To succeed requires institutional inquiry and honesty that drive deliberative processes allowing for ongoing, iterative changes and informed by transparent data collection and monitoring, and big picture (inclusive) problem solving (i.e. requiring a focus on ADAPTIVE CHANGES and sustained leadership for strengthening school culture and structures).These practices don’t come by decree nor do they “stick” UNLESS they grow out of institutional self-reflection, conversations across social divides, and practices that keep a relentless focus on positive outcomes for students and communities.Rather than clearing the way for school leaders to suspend and expel students, more effective federal interventions and school advocacy measures might include:1. Gathering findings from schools with the most successful outcomes for students with regard to discipline interventions and positive school climate (prevention of discipline issues) to index model practices for the education community2. Collecting findings on outcomes from emerging alternative practices, such as restorative practices and other approaches that experiment with alternatives to suspension and expulsion3. Funding purchases of and effective use of school discipline data software tools in conjunction with best practices for deliberative processes (i.e., involving diverse school stakeholders in analysis of the data and in problem solving efforts and proposals)4. Considering a broad deployment of properly trained SRO personnel within a well-defined framework:
Support positive police and community relations
Engage in positive educational and guidance roles
Have thorough and specific training for the most rare and serious school safety threats--i.e. something like an active shooter situation or bomb threat or terrorist threat.
Do NOT assist regular school personnel with day-to-day type discipline referrals or incidents...such as defiant or disruptive classroom behaviors, drug or alcohol possession, possession of a pocket knife--referrals and incidents which school counselors and administrators should already be more than adequately trained to handle on their own
De Vos Proposal 3
Strengthen National Instant Criminal Background Check reporting systems and encourage all states to adopt Extreme Risk Protection Orders allowing court-ordered removal of firearms from individuals who pose a demonstrated public safety threat
No Brainer?... New Risks?...
Second Amendment Rights advocates notwithstanding, this seems like a sensible no brainer.As for the Second Amendment and for civil rights advocates worried about citizen rights, the words “extreme risk” and “demonstrated...threat” seem to point to limitations on possible overreach and abuse. Given how deadly guns can turn in the hands of demonstrably mentally disturbed individuals it seems worth the while to put this kind of proposal to work within our existing framework of judicial checks and balances.….Given the strength of gun advocacy in the US, will this proposal really be backed and delivered? Can it be delivered?….And, what if there are noteworthy loopholes, like excluding internet sales and sales at trade show events...then what are we left with?
De Vos Proposal 4
Train (and recruit as necessary from ranks of military and police veterans) school protection personnel
No Brainer?... New Risks?...
Some people are inherently frightened by the idea of having staff at school with guns and others inherently find it a source of security. Both might be right...after all, we have many schools currently with SRO on staff that the community generally trust and find a source of safety but we also have frequent news reports of armed protection personnel in our communities, the people we call police, abusing the use of force or power and sometimes in larger contexts that involve allegations of racial bias or racial profiling or broader systemic issues of police corruption or racial enmity.With regard to recruiting from the ranks of the military veteran pool--and with all due respect to veterans and their past service in combat--I can hardly think of a more high-risk potential pool of candidates, resulting from traumatic memories and from traumatic stress disorders, and from training in combat as the primary mode of action, response, and intervention. I personally find that any general plan to recruit from military veterans, and to some extent for the same reasons from police veterans, a proposition calling for much forethought and caution. I in no way mean to disparage either group of recruits, I just question whether this role in schools in particular is the best fit from the perspective of a broad recruitment policy.Lastly, if we are going to actively recruit and locate INSIDE our schools, persons equipped with and trained in the effective use of firearms, we better have a pretty airtight system for NOT recruiting any bad actors or any unstable actors…If we recruit and train and hire such school safety officers who are not teachers, then we do have the issue of hiring and paying staff we are unlikely in most cases ever to needIf we use teachers whom we equip with supplemental protection training that might make more sense, especially if we recruit from educators who have proven records of supporting students positively and being dedicated to student welfare--after all I don’t think we want unknown quantities on our school campuses carrying firearms.Finally, with regard to this proposal, I would reiterate the suggestion I made in my comments following Proposal 2, that constructive federal action might include:Considering a broad use of properly trained SRO personnel within a well defined framework--to support positive police and community relations, engage in positive educational and guidance roles, and have thorough and specific training for the most serious school safety issues (i.e. something like an active shooter situation or bomb threat--but NOT for intervening in ordinary discipline referrals or incidents--interventions for which school counselors and administrators should already be more than adequately trained
Final Thoughts on Guns and School Safety:
Some will say broad actions are an overreaction given that a student is much more likely to die of a car accident or suicide than a school shooting, but given that schools are, as the President has said, very “soft” targets and given the horror of the carnage itself that results...it may be that many Americans will agree with the survivors of the incident at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and with their resolute calls for action (even when there is disagreement over the extent to which new gun control measures should be part of the answer).
Active shooter situations in schools are high profile but still statistically quite rare, so seeing them as an extension or result of overly “lenient” school discipline practices in general, or of Obama-era directives on equity and school discipline in particular, seems like quite a stretch, especially given the fact that the shooter at Marjory Douglas HS had effectively been expelled prior to causing harm.
Although some lawmakers are using the public response to school shootings to rekindle debate around broad school discipline practices that may not have much direct relation to active shooter incidents, the debate about school discipline practices itself--whenever it arises and for whatever reason--impacts schools and students deeply. Education leaders need to engage that debate and seek positive, inclusive practices with sustainable outcomes based on site-based empirical data and built on deliberative processes that allow for community input and forge community consensus. Schools should persevere in implementing and evaluating alternatives to expulsion and suspension, should evaluate models for alternative practices (such as restorative practices for example), and should not rely on exclusionary discipline as a default fix.
I insisted that addressing local school safety and school discipline practices cannot be resolved by broad federal policy directives or any “quick fix” solution. Key principles that might serve as helpful guidelines for school advocates and other concerned leaders working on school safety include:
Improving school cultures through support for strong data-driven processes that are inclusive and deliberative and designed to foster continuous improvement of discipline practices and school climate initiatives, where success is measured to a large degree in terms of positive outcomes for all students
Carefully considering the potential risks of ANY proposal for increasing armed personnel on school campuses, with one idea being a clear, reformed framework for defining the roles School Resource Officers play on school campuses
Gathering and disseminating empirical findings around any systemic failures related to past school shootings and seeking remedies to address those kinds of failures (in the case of Marjory Stoneman Douglas HS such apparent failures include the lack of timely intervention by local and federal authorities in the wake of tips prior to the shooting incident, and the failure of the armed protection officer on duty, the SRO, to take action against the shooter in real time)
Exploring due justice oriented policies for effectively preventing mentally unstable individuals from possessing and accessing firearms