School Safety is a Global Issue

April 24, 2012 by

I just returned from a seven-day vacation in Mexico.  Most of my time was spent in a remote area with no telephone or Internet access.  A doctor from Indiana had to perform an emergency surgical procedure on a local man’s eye to prevent him from losing it, as the nearest medical care was an hour and a half away.  Though the wound would not have posed a major threat in most regions of the United States, the physician was pretty sure the man would lose the eye if he did not act promptly.  Using a paper clip, a safety pin and a pair of nail clippers, he worked expertly to remove a sliver of a thorn from the man’s eyeball.  I was deeply impressed and also grateful that I have medical jet evacuation insurance due to the number of trips our analysts take to places like Rwanda, the Congo, Honduras, Vietnam and Bolivia.  In some areas, you can quickly die from things that would rarely be life-threatening in the United States.

Though the level of violence in Yucatan Peninsula is far lower than in places like Ciudad Juarez, passing through a checkpoint with four of five police officers or soldiers armed with M-4 rifles, tactical shotguns and Uzi submachine guns is not an unusual occurrence in the region.

These dramatic societal differences also demonstrate school safety challenges that would be rather unique for schools in most parts of the United States.  Contrary to popular belief, there are more than periodic problems with school violence, fires, natural disasters, abductions of students, substance abuse issues, student discipline and other school safety issues in other countries.   In spite of the death penalty for possession of firearms or ammunition, there have been a number of school shootings in the People’s Republic of China over the past decade and more than 20,000 students have died at school in natural disasters in other countries in the past two decades.   

Though we often focus on school safety issues in our own country and our primary issues are sometimes different from those in other regions, there are sometimes more similarities than differences when it comes to the need for school safety strategies and effective emergency preparedness measures in schools anywhere in the world.  I have never visited any country where incidents involving serious injury and death from school crisis situations have not taken place.  School safety truly is a global concern anywhere you venture.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Instances of Students Being Handcuffed and Arrested for Incidents at School Often Presented Out of Context

April 23, 2012 by

In recent years, there have been media reports (as well as at least one document presented as a research report) that have provided distorted information about how school/law enforcement partnerships operate.  There have been at least two “reports” prepared by civil rights groups that contain inaccurate information that would likely not withstand a proper peer review process and a number of media reports that contain incomplete accounts of situations where law enforcement officers are involved with what are often termed to be normal disciplinary actions.  While some instances do involve relatively minor disciplinary situations, other offenses referred to have actually involved situations including forcible rape, edged weapons assaults and other serious criminal acts.

Today’s educators and their community partners face many challenges in appropriately addressing students and non-students who become disruptive and sometimes even violent.  While there are definitely instances where school employees and law enforcement officers have acted inappropriately and in some instances even in violation of criminal laws in restraining students and implementing disciplinary actions, there have also been a number of instances where inaccurate, inflamed and incomplete information has been provided in the media and in other forums.

Student Arrests in the Media

Three decades in this field has taught me to be careful about passing judgment based on media accounts.  For example, if any of you remember the initial media frenzy after the Centennial Park bombing during the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia.   Though not initially a suspect, Richard Jewell was implicated by the media as a person of interest in the case.  When the actual bomber, Eric Rudolph, continued to carry out bombings in the area, Jewell was found to be innocent, but his reputation had been ruined in the media by that point.  He was actually a hero and saved countless lives that day by his actions.  While working security at the event, he used good judgment and pattern recognition to detect the explosive device and start moving people away from it almost 10 minutes before the initial bomb threat call came in.  Though two bystanders were killed when the bomb exploded, there would have almost certainly been more killed and injured if it were not for his actions.  I had the good privilege to have him attend several of my presentations after that incident, and he struck me as one of the kindest and most polite people I have ever met.

I have also learned to question “reports” and even peer review journal articles, which on occasion are seriously flawed and provide inaccurate conclusions and assertions.  Though many such documents are extremely accurate and can be helpful to us, it is not hard to find “reports” that show an increase in the U.S. school homicide rate that clearly does not exist or peer review articles that assert falsehoods like the “trench coat mafia” that never existed at Columbine High School.

The current dialogue relating to the appropriate utilization of arrest and restraint by law enforcement officers in schools is a valid and important discussion and there is clearly opportunity for improvements in the field.  At the same time, specific incidents are sometimes inaccurately portrayed as the norm in the field of education and couched in emotional ways.  Taking the time to look beyond the headlines about student arrests with an understanding that this is a complex as well as troubling societal problem can go a long way towards successfully working towards improved approaches.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , ,

Avoiding a Damaging Loss of Trust in the School Safety Arena

April 21, 2012 by

Whether you are a democrat who leans far to the left of your party, a republican who is oriented towards the far right of yours or like most folks, you are somewhere in between, you may be deeply concerned about our country right now. Regardless of political affiliation, you are likely concerned about the economy and other key issues. Like many people, you may now lack faith due to the constant lack of cooperation between our elected officials in Washington. Though spirited debate and even downright verbal altercations between some of our leaders has been a recurring feature of our form of governance, the low levels of confidence and high levels of dissatisfaction expressed by many Americans do seem to be more problematic than is normally the case. These catfights stem from a complicated range of causes among them, an unusually high level of divisiveness among our elected officials. The current intensity of the blame game, finger pointing, name calling, desperate distortions of fact and the occasional outright sickening personal attacks have created a fair amount of dysfunction, anxiety and a serious lack of confidence according to pundits and polling data. Our congress in particular appears to have lost the confidence of many of its constituents. The current infighting and resulting loss of trust of large segments of the American public offers valuable lessons for those in the school safety field. Just as our elected officials and the various organs of government they serve can fall into disfavor and suffer from credibility problems, so to can schools, school systems and local public safety agencies. Though the politics that cause these situations have a different dynamic, they are often political in nature nonetheless. The current lack of confidence in our elected leaders is taking a heavy toll on our economy and is causing serious long-term harm to our country and its citizens. As recent events have demonstrated, the loss of confidence in government leaders is not confined to our nation, but the damage to credibility here at home is readily apparent. As one indicator, take the steady erosion of the respect for the office of the president. It used to bug me a bit to hear journalists from abroad refer to our nation’s leader as “Mr.” instead of “President”. In recent years, our own media has often adopted the practice of using “Mr. Bush” and ‘Mr. Obama” as well. This lack of respect for the office of the president is an indication of an overall lack of respect for elected officials. Authorities on language such as experts in statement analysis emphasize how powerful and important our choice of words can be. I may be rather old fashioned in this regard, but I do feel that it is symptomatic of a culture that has become deeply distrustful not only of elected officials, but of others in positions of authority such as school superintendents, police chiefs and other types of leaders as well. This type of distrust and even dysfunction can also occur in the arena of K-12 education. When a major incident occurs or is mishandled because of a lack of cooperation between school and/or public safety officials in the community, everyone loses. In such cases, not only do victims and their loved ones suffer, but so do the organizations that are perceived as having dropped the ball which are often viewed negatively for long periods of time. If we step back from these situations, it becomes clear that they sometimes occur from some form of office, organizational or community politics. When tragedy reveals such problems, there is plenty of blame to go around whether it surfaces in the media, in school safety litigation or on a personal level to those who experience the event. Taking the time and expending the sometimes-significant effort to build bridges instead of fences between people, departments and organizations can prevent not only a good tar and feathering, but can avert considerable pain and suffering as well.

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , ,
« Previous Page
Next Page »