Part II: Does CT have safe schools? No!

Part Two: 53 Reasons Why Schools Are Not Safe!

Part One was an executive summary about the issue of safe schools and the climate plan problems, but what has to be understood and appreciated are the various reasons why school plans do not make schools ultimately safe. Because administrators realize that this issue is important to parents, staff and students, they know it must be addressed, at least on paper—“yes, we have a safe school climate plan so all is well.” But “all is not well”!

According to Campus Security, since 1970 there have been 1,970 discharges of a firearm on school property resulting in 637 people who have died, hundreds more have been injured, and thousands more, who were present when the shootings occurred, have suffered trauma and mental health issues.

What is significant is that the shootings are happening more often and have been more deadly in the past few years. This despite safe school plans and hardening school buildings along with more attention to the problem.

In blunt terms, there is no evidence that even one plan or other efforts (legislation, policies, regulations, studies, reports, surveys, etc.) have prevented any shootings, and that’s where the emphasis has been to make school safe. To say it another way, of the estimated 14,000 districts, using a 90% rate of districts having a plan, over 12,600 district plans have been written and not one has been known to stop a school shooter.

In other words, among thousands of the staff involved in developing the plans, not one has developed an effective plan. Rather incredible to say the least. But that should not come as any surprise as will be seen in the reasons to follow.

In contrast, I was able to spend 20 months studying this problem to develop a plan that will make it a shooters worst nightmare and it will be discussed in a future article. The effort required sifting and sorting through hundreds of articles, reports, studies, etc. relating to the topic to see what was really happening. I had another advantage as well, I looked beyond just school shootings, but violence in general not just in the U.S. but globally as well. More importantly, I also audited what non-educators who were publishing and sharing their thoughts about the problem.. The chapter dealing with this one topic took over 40 pages because a lot of details are included. Unfortunately, that cannot be duplicated in an article, so all that can be done is to give the prime reason for each with very little, if any, details.

However, I think it will be enough to understand why the safe school effort and the plans have not been effective in stopping a shooter. And that’s really only the first step to make schools safe. Again, that’s where the effort has been and is being made, but

just stopping a shooter will not make schools ultimately safe. The entire school environment has to be considered and addressed, meaning not only the school climate, but practices, procedures, policies and politics well.

53 Reasons Why Schools Are Not Safe (there are many more)

1. Although safe schools are supposedly the number one concern of school administration, they are not priority number one; there are too many other necessary competing priorities like maintaining discipline, daily instruction, administrative functions, etc. This is not excusing them from dealing more effectively with this responsibility, but they are considered mitigating circumstances to help explain behaviors.
2. The first unwritten priority of schools is to protect its image, no matter how many red lines need to be crossed to indicate that they anything but safe, caring, and a welcoming place for children to attend. How could they say otherwise, even if it was not true?
3. Despite thousands of pages written with studies and reports about safe school climate plans, there is no model plan nor is there even an accepted definition of what constitutes a safe school.
4. The plans were primarily legislated by politicians who knew nothing about safe school plans so they left the details to the districts to develop their own plan usually leaving it up to the state department of education to guide the districts. In other words, the blind leading the blind.
5. As a result, no one has been trained to develop a safe school plan or even to think about what a safe school requires to be considered as “safe.”
6. Lack of law enforcement involvement. Only 13 states require them to be included in developing safe school plans. They are the first responders and they are not required to participate in developing the school plan.. This isn’t stupidity, it is insanity.
7. The legislated requirements were not designed to stop a shooter on site by isolating and disabling him to use a weapon, but rather to deal with bullying and guns as causes rather than how to stop a shooter.
8. Part of the safe school scene are school threats that are made ahead of any shootings, but they have been given no effective attention in terms of using threat assessment models to audit the threats.The best is from the U.S. Secret Service.
9. There are no consequences for administrators who (a)do not heed the warnings (b) fail to follow the laws or (c) even the intent of the laws, and this is also true of BOE policies.
10. Because there is a safe school plan, there is “A FALSE SENSE OF SECURITY,” cited by Safe and Sound Schools, 2019 State of School Safety Report.
11. Administrator’s lie, not my words, but those of the prior U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan” who published a book that started with “schools run on lies.” In other words, whatever they say must be verified as truthful and not fabrication of facts such as hiding true graduation rates, dropout rates, bullying incidents, test data, disciplinary incidents, etc. In fact a survey of School Resource Officers over a period of 4 years indicated that an average of 88% of schools were underreporting school crimes.
12. Not a single school building has been designed or remodeled that has incorporated self-defense strategies to isolate and disable a shooter.
13. There is no political will to do what is necessary; just look at the latest midterms and try to find one politician who had a safe school agenda as part of their platform. In fact, in a prior election, the brother of a Sandy Hook victim, ran for a state senate seat with safe schools as his platform, and he lost.
14. Media Malaise, asleep at the wheel concept, when it comes to really informing the public and parents about the safe school issues. If they harped on it as they do with other issues, it would get the needed attention.
15. BOE members in general do not ask the superintendent to report on the progress or issues with safe school plans. In fact, it would be interesting to know how many of them have even read the school plan and know its contents.
16. Freedom of Information requests (FOI) are not so free. Getting the information needed to understand what is actually being done in the schools i is too often like pulling teeth without Novocain. The process involved is like looking at a coding app for a computer with dozens of laws involved. Parents and the public need ready access to information such as why is law enforcement excluded from the plan process?
17. No one is really in charge of monitoring the plan. Some of the state laws are very specific about having a district director, but the assignment is given to an administrator who already has a full agenda. This would be like having a principal also act as a superintendent (that to has been done).
18. The state associations for superintendents and school boards have not been very helpful in keeping their members thoroughly informed about the various laws involved. For example, in CT there is an All Hazard Plan by the Dept of Emergency Services (PA 13-3 section 86) that has been virtually ignored by every district except one. It incorporates and complements the safe school plan making it an all hazards community plan.

20. Too often due diligence research is not followed in education such as learning what has already been published about what is known about school shootings and shooters. Would it be a surprise to learn that most shootings do not take place in the classroom? Yet, that is where the concentration has been and still is.
21. The administrators and the BOE members do not know all of the laws involved relating to safe schools. Just ask them at a BOE meeting to indicate how many laws there are or have them name 3 such laws? If it’s not important to them, why should the staff be concerned (even though they are the victims, not the BOE members).
22. School plan safety audits are not required to determine if the plans are being followed with only a dozen states requiring an audit. In other words, what is on paper may not be followed in practice, but it seems better not to know.
23. The required number of school of security practice drills are not followed; furthermore, the results of those that are conducted are not analyzed, or done under different scenarios.
24. There are no standards for School Resource Officers, their purpose, training requirements, or even their specific duties. Ask if they are even evaluated. An added fact is that not one has stopped a shooter but that doesn’t seem to matter.
25. Most SRO’s have not taken advantage of the training by their own association; that’s one reason they are ineffective.
26. No one asks for an evaluation to determine the performance of SRO’s. The fact is that they are acting more like disciplinarians rather than protecting staff and students.
27. Armed school staff have not stopped a shooter, but this is where a lot of money is being spent ineffectively, but it looks good on paper.
28. Although some school buildings have been hardened like having metal detectors, better locking systems, ID procedures, etc. none of these hardening efforts have been known to stop a shooter.
29. School building facility audits are not typically done (ask the BOE and they will likely not even know what you are talking about). There is a very comprehensive and free school facility audit resource to regularly examine the buildings in terms of safety and security needs. Yes, it is time consuming, but absolutely necessary to do.
30. Bullying and access to guns are given as the prime causes of school shootings. Yet bullying has been part of the education landscape since its beginning. and gun access was far easier 25 years ago, so why are they now the cause? They are not the causes of shootings, yet that is where the overwhelming effort is for prevention. They are certainly instigators causing the violence, but what is or are the causes that lead to such a violent act?
31. Early warning signs have always preceded the actual shooting, but the shootings occur because the warning signs were not heeded by the administrators; no administrator has ever been charged for negligence in not following through with a threat assessment to analyze a warning sign.
32. Lawmakers or policy makers do not follow through to determine whether their laws are being followed; they have no mechanisms to do so. Yet there is an attorney general that is supposed to ensure that state laws are followed.
33. The literature indicates that all stakeholders should be involved in developing school safety plans, but like so many other requirements, they too are often ignored. For example, in Guilford, CT the plan was developed only by school administrators.
34. Parents, students and staff are not informed effectively about the safety plan. Just publishing the details is not enough, the plans need to be explained and discussed with these stakeholders. If there is any doubt, just ask them (various staff and students) what their role is in case of a shooting.
35. Many of the plans that were accessed indicated that the plan should be part of the student handbook; but how do you make a 49-page plan on letter-size paper part of a pocket-sized student handbook? You can’t, even though the law may require it. That’s part of the stupidity that is involved in too much of safe school plans.
36. Students are not provided with the safe school information plan according to their grade level ability and skills. They are given the same plan as everyone else, even though they may not have the reading ability to understand it. For example, in Guilford, 14% of students are not proficient in reading, so what is being done for such children, and even whose with special education needs?
37. The state is to provide the training that the district staff needs, but only if money is allocated. In CT, flush with excess and surplus funds, no such funds have been allocated. Is this speaking with a forked tongue?
38. Safe school plans are typically of one dimension, the district level, but there should be (and it is in some districts) a plan for each building. Each building is different and has different features that either add too and detract from safe schools, so one district plan cannot do the job required.
39. First responders generally do not know the safe school plan details; therefore, they have to hesitate before acting since they don’t know what is supposed to happen or even what their role is. Also, they are not provided with the information they need such as floor plans and keys.
40. The plans do not delineate the various roles each member of the staff must play. For example what is the student role except to run, hide and fight (fight with what?). The International Association of Police Chiefs has such a plan with the roles each staff must play, but it is not part of any accessed plan. For example, what does each one do during and after such an event?
41. State approval has been given to plans even though they may not meet the requirements of the law, yet the districts are supposed to follow the laws; and even if they don’t, there are no consequences.
42. Parents in general do not know how to access the safe school plan even though it is readily available on the BOE website. Ask any parent (or student, or staff) if they know the plan details, and don’t be surprised if there are no answers.
43. Physical bullying is against the law, and it is the law that should respond to it, not the staff. But thedefinition includes physical violence, and it states that the any bullying actions must be repeated to be classified as a bullying act. Yet, I was informed by law enforcement that they do not get involved with bullying issues, but is that what SRO’s believe? This is the kind of confusion that exists in safe schools planning.
44. Social media is a prime source of school threats, yet there is nothing in the plans that provide for any monitoring of social media (there are private companies that do that job).
45. Administrators express the belief that they have the safe school situation under control, but that is not what parents, and students believe and, more importantly, know. Administrators are in denial, but parents and students see and believe the reality. Of course, can administrators say they do not have it under control? Of course not, but that how the system works.
46. The actual extent of school violence and chaotic discipline are really unknown except that it is a far worse than administrators report since they underreport such data. How then are parents and policymakers to know what needs to be done for interventions if they are not given accurate information?
47. Common with every shooter is that they have two known features—anger and hate; both are mental health issues that are now a leading problem among students (even some staff). The extent of the problem is unknown because it is underreported by administration; without having accurate information, it is impossible to provide effective interventions. Understanding its importance will require a separate article, however, the next reason starts to get at the problem.
48. Although regular (every two years) school climate surveys should be required (it is in some plans) in each building, actual results may not get reported. As an example, Guilford does not report the required surveys by building; instead, it is done by grade levels—1-4 and 5-12 that hides the climate of each building. Why? Obviously, there is something to hide. Again and again, if the information and data are not forthcoming in terms of accuracy and truthfulness, it’s impossible for parents or policymakers to be active participants.
49. There is supposed to be a school safety committee in each building, is this true in your school district? If asked in Guilford, they will respond “yes.” As explained previously, any such information must be verified because administrators are not truthful. Verification reveals something is amiss because apparently in Guilford a committee consists of one (modern math at work) because only the social worker in each elementary building was reported to me (by a request I made for this information) as “the committee.” Could this tongue twister also be true in your district?
50. I do not like saying this, but ENOUGH parents are not doing what is necessary to turn the darkness of the safe school problem into daylight. It’s not because they are not interested or concerned (although many are not), but rather because they do not know what to do. Although it is a mitigating factor, it is not an acceptable excuse. For example, how difficult is it to access and read the safe school plan that is readily and easily available on the BOE website? Knowledge is power, but only if it is used effectively. The power can only be exercised if it is organized as a group of parents eager to become knowledgeable first and then use their knowledge to propel them to action as has been done by over 164 parent organizations with many of them having charter groups such as No Left Turn in Education. It only took the initiative of one parent to start a NLT chapter in Guilford. How many parents have joined or started such a group in their district? If the administrators and BOE aren’t interested in keeping up to date with safe schools (in fact, the Guilford plan written in 2011 has had no updates), it should not provide any solace for parents that the district is not a prime candidate for a shooting. This is especially true in Guilford that had an obvious and noticeable warning sign by a student who wore a gas mask that was not evaluated with a formal threat assessment. When parents show determination in getting needed answers that’s how the administration and BOE can be lax in their oversite responsibilities..
51. In fact, Guilford has not used any committees in the development of the plan. The only exception was the use of administrators only in developing the plan; neither has there been any committees used to monitor the safe school plan implementation. How likely this is true in other districts is hard to say. But as an example, state law PA 10-220 (e) clearly states that the BOE is required to establish a District Curriculum Committee to handle all curriculum matters. Since the safe school plan impacts students and staff it is “curriculum” and should have gone though that committee to be developed, but the BOE has yet to establish the committee. Check in your own district whether such a committee exists. Ask about the committees that are supposed to be in place under safe school laws. To help read #52.
52. The national PTA provides a parent resource of 20 questions to ask of the administration that are related to the safe school issue. For example, question #4, what kind of building safety measures are in place? These questions have not been asked of the Guilford BOE and likely most other BOE’s. Ignorance cannot be blamed since all schools likely have a PTA and they must know about the questions. Why aren’t they being asked of the administration?

Unfortunately, it shows that ENOUGH parents are not as involved as they should be even though their children are at risk since they could be targets of the next shooter; and there will be more shootings.

20. This next reason sums it all up as to why more parents need to be involved because it explains why they fail to provide the safety and security plans are supposed to provide:

“A common thread across the majority of school safety litigation cases is that they involve allegations of failures of people, supervision, training, policies, procedures, and/or related human factors. They typically do not involve allegations focused on security hardware equipment and related technology.”

This is saying that the safe school plan needs constant monitoring and that’s something most systems prefer not to do because of the disruptions it causes to the school day and other pressing priorities. But it does mean that someone must be in charge who has the time and training to monitor the implementation of the safe school plan, not just in the district, but within each building.

The plan I have developed provides Designated Defenders at no cost to monitor the plan; it will be explained with the details involved in future articles thanks to the Continental Tribune, and no thanks to the popular media malaise of the established media.