SCHOOL VIOLENCE Why Schools Must Be Extra Vigilant During April
Measures to Prevent Violence in Schools Fall Short, Experts Say
Teaching students alternatives to violence and improving their access to mental health services are among the best ideas officials say they have for preventing the kind of bloodshed that has struck a long list of schools. But they say progress on arresting school violence nationwide has been hamstrung by a lack of funding, deployment of school-safety programs that haven't worked and a failure to properly train school staff and students. "We're 15 years after Columbine, and you'd have thought we would have solved that problem," said John Matthews, executive director of the Community Safety Institute. A new study suggests that teaching younger students conflict- resolution skills -- to think before they act -- could be more effective than other techniques for reducing violence. Researcher Manny Sethi said it may be necessary to teach those problem-solving skills before the high school years. Demand is also growing for improved mental health services in and out of school. Like Dr. Sethi, Beverly Kingston, director of the Center for the Study of the Prevention of Violence at the University of Colorado, said the earlier that kids are helped, the better. "We need to put in place social- emotional learning programs, starting in preschool," she said.
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Most School Threats Via Social Media False How should law enforcement respond to a threat issued to a school via Facebook, Twitter or other social media platform that says a bomb is set to go off in the high school cafeteria or that an angry student is headed to the campus armed to the hilt? Should law enforcement rush in, evacuate the school and lock down other facilities in the area? That may seem reasonable, but those types of threats increasingly are false—or are ploys to divert law enforcement. Often, while police are busy trying determining if there’s a problem at the school, criminals carry out a crime on the other side of town. More than one-third of 315 documented violent threats to schools in 43 states since the beginning of the 2013-14 school year were delivered by social media, according to a study by National School Safety and Security Services. Most of them were false, the study found.Whether to respond with full force is an important question, according to Kenneth Trump, president of the consulting firm. Updated threat-assessment protocols are the answer, and too few school districts have them. Automatically evacuating a school because of false threat can put students in danger, he said.
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Pass a copy of this edtion of The Wokrplace Violence Prevention eReport to a colleague in Human Resources, Security, Safety and Risk Management.
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April has become one of the deadliest months for school massacres and homegrown terrorist activities in the U.S. When it comes to publicizing mass, serial, or spree violence the fear of copycat behavior is always a grave concern. The 24-hour news cycles of many of today’s media outlets crave news to the point that anniversaries of tragic events result in lengthy reports of the original coverage. Social media – including Facebook, Twitter and blog sites – are full of posts reminding the more impressionable among us of the planning these young men put into their deeds. That leaves us with only one realistic choice; prepare for the worst.Whether we are talking about schools or other areas where large numbers of people congregate, we have to get past the idea that “it can’t happen here.” If we don’t act, our concern is that we will see the copycat individuals who are trying to make history at the expense of others. In the long run, we need to create minimum federal standards for school security. Some schools have made good efforts, some have taken a few steps in the right direction and others have done virtually nothing to protect their students.
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Campus Violence - Observations After Crisis The world watched in horror as another instance of school violence occurred at Franklin Regional High School in Murrysville, PA when a teen allegedly rampaged through the school's hallways, stabbing wildly with two kitchen knives. This attack, like so many others, is complex in motivation and response management.
The school had trained for crisis - it is this training and "muscle memory" that helps response in a completely random and unplanned scenario.
While gun violence is at the top of the threat list for many schools, in the past 12 months, there have been at least 10 reported stabbings at schools across the country. Most recently, on March 26, a 19-year-old student stabbed another at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, a public high school in Cambridge, Mass. A day before that, in Ontario, California, a 16-year-old student stabbed another student at Valley View High School, resulting in three local schools being placed on lockdown.
Schoolsmust test for multiple scenarios - arson, chemicals, weapons, poisoning, and yes, even Zombie attacks if that engages students and fosters learning retention.
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