The frustrated father whose daughter was bullied on a Florida school bus was justifiably upset, but wrong in how he approached the issue.

Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Right

James Willie Jones made national news this past week when a school bus video captured him yelling at students and the bus driver, and gesturing in anger in frustration aboard the bus.  He believed his daughter, a 13-year-old with cerebral palsy, had been repeatedly harassed on the bus.

Yesterday, Jones apologized for his behavior - Fla. dad sorry for storming school bus, threats:

“At that time, I was a bully. And I apologize again for that,” said Jones. “If you see the tape, I feel like I was backed up against the wall as a parent. I just didn’t know where else to go. We definitely don’t want to promote that.  We don’t want vigilantes going on buses, threatening kids, because kids have rights too.”

Jones, like many parents, was frustrated that efforts to address safety concerns about his daughter were incomplete or unsuccessful. His concern is legitimate.  His methods for dealing with his frustration were inappropriate, however, and actually ended up with him being criminally charged by authorities.

Steps Parents Can Take to Address School Safety Concerns

This is why back in January, I provided some Steps Parents Can Take to Address School Safety Concerns.   Parents don’t know what to do and/or how to do it.  And in most cases, no one is rushing to tell them.

Parents need to follow these steps or similar efforts.  As frustrating as it will be, they also need to recognize incidents may not stop on the first time school administrators address the issue with students. 

Often it requires ongoing monitoring and, unfortunately, revisiting the issue more than once until the matter resolves.  In some of the more extreme cases this could, and often does, take more time than anyone (students or the adults) prefer.

Persistence Pays (Albeit it a Frustrating Process)

Two wrongs don’t make a right, as the saying goes, and parents need to make sure their students’ frustrations, as well as their own frustrations, do not further complicate an already difficult situation.  Being persistent and following the proper process, while sometimes frustrating itself, can lead to the resolution students and parents desire if they take the proper steps to address their safety concerns.

Ken Trump

Visit School Security Blog at:  http://www.schoolsecurityblog.com

A father is labeled a school bus bully to fight for his child who is being harassed.  Five teen suicides focus questions on bullying.  A state legislator plans for more legislation on bullying while Congress has introduced its own federal anti-bullying laws.

“We talk about bullying every week now,” one local news anchor said in his on-air comments following a story about a teen who committed suicide and the news focused on it being a result of bullying.

Yes, indeed, every week — if not every day — I see multiple news stories about bullying in schools.  You’d think bullying came into existence this past year and no one ever heard of it before now.  So why is that news anchor talking about bullying every week now when, three to five years ago, the word may never have passed his script and lips?

Bullying is Today’s School Safety Fad

The answer:  Bullying is today’s school safety fad.  Yes, I said it: Fad.  Few people want to say this publicly out of political correctness and fear of appearing insensitive, but it’s true. 

So there: I’ve said it for the many people in education, prevention, and law enforcement who have been saying it to me at lunch meetings, workshops, and elsewhere.  Saying that bullying is a fad does not mean it is not a legitimate school safety issue.  And saying it is a fad does not mean it is not a serious issue.

What it does mean is this is the flavor of the year in school safety.  A decade ago, following the Columbine tragedy, the fad was talking about police officers in schools, emergency response drills, and recognizing early warning signs of threatening student behavior.  Today, that fad is bullying.

The media is an active participant in creating this fad.  Assaults are not referred to as assaults, but instead the victims are victims of bullying. Suicides are not mental health issues, they are caused by bullying.  A father who storms a bus threatening the kids who have harassed his daughter is not trespassing, threatening children, and acting inappropriately — he is referred to in the news as a bus bully.

This bullying fad, and the media coverage of it, is being fueled by special interest advocacy groups using bullying and school safety to further their social and political agendas.  This bullying fad is also being fueled by legislators, both state and federal, who have jumped on the bullying bandwagon to create legislation which is typically an unfunded mandate, not helpful to the front-line school administrator in addressing bullying, and creates a false sense of hope for parents who are legitimately frustrated with safety in their kids schools. And the fad is being fueled by the U.S. Department of Education which has proposed skewed policy and funding toward bullying, climate, and incivility.  I have covered these angles in-depth in blog posts over recent weeks.

Policies, Laws, and Strategies Already Exist to Address Bullying

As I have written extensively, school policies, student codes of conduct, and school climate strategies already exist to deal with bullying. Criminal and civil state and federal laws exist which can be used, as appropriate, to bring charges in harassment cases. 

I have recently asked educators at every one of my workshops if there is any tool they need to address bullying which does not already exist without a new state or federal law.  Not one has raised their hand.  Not one.

This, Too, Shall Pass – But How Much Damage Will Be Done?

Make no mistake: The fad will change.  It may not be today or tomorrow, but there will be a new fad.  It is just a matter of time. 

We are a roller coaster society.  We have roller coaster public awareness, roller coaster public policy, and roller coaster public funding.  The problem is that this roller coaster approach is not conducive to sustainable, meaningful, balanced and comprehensive school safety policy and funding.

Today we’re riding the bullying roller coaster.  What will the ride be named two years from now (or before then if there is a major school safety crisis)?

Ken Trump

Visit School Security Blog at:  http://www.schoolsecurityblog.com

The headline, “5 teen suicides put focus on bullying issue in Mentor,” should have read, “5 teen suicides put focus on youth mental health issues.”

This Monday Plain Dealer article in Cleveland, Ohio, is the latest in a number of national news stories linking bullying with incidents of teen suicide.  I first addressed this last week in Bullycide: Death by Bullying or Deeper Mental Health Issues?

In the Plain Dealer story, expert Madelyn Gould, a professor of clinical epidemiology in psychiatry at Columbia University, noted that more than 90 percent of suicides stem from underlying psychiatric problems such as depression, anxiety or substance abuse.  She also pointed out that suicide is never caused by one thing.

Gould also accurately said kids’ coping skills and support for dealing with bullying and other stressors varies. School shootings have revealed undiagnosed and/or untreated mental health issues as underlying contributors to violence, as I noted in last week’s post.

Special interest advocates jump on these news stories to advance their social and political agendas.  Twitter is on fire redistributing these stories.  And the emotions are pouring from blogs, Twitter, and elsewhere.

As a parent and as a school safety professional for over 25-years, I don’t want to see any parent lose their child.  Nor do I have any desire to minimize the urgency, seriousness, or need to address teen suicide.

But the conversation clearly must shift to one on teen mental health needs.  At best, bullying is one factor in some incidences which might contribute to — but not solely cause — a teen suicide.  Until we dig a little deeper, and in some cases a lot deeper, we are never going to address the much more complex root problem of undiagnosed, untreated, inadequately treated, and/or under-funded treatment of teen mental health issues.

Ken Trump

Visit School Security Blog at:  http://www.schoolsecurityblog.com

Does requiring parents and other visitors to provide personal identification to determine whether they are registered sex offenders violate the visitors’ constitutional rights?  According to the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, in affirming a decision of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, the answer is, “No.”

Plaintiffs-Appellants Larry and Yvonne Meadows challenged the Raptor Visitor Management System and its implementation by the Lake Travis Independent School District in Texas.  As parents, the Meadowses claimed requiring Mrs. Meadows to provide a state-issued photo ID as a condition of entering secure areas where students were present violated constitutional rights to speech, assembly, association, freedom from unreasonable search or seizure, privacy, procedural due process, substantive due process, and various aspects of state law.

The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the school district and assessed costs against the Meadowses.  The Court of Appeals issued a ruling on September 8, 2010, upholding the decision of the district court.

The Court of Appeals ruled that the parents were not denied the ability to make fundamental decisions about their children’s education.  The Court held the school district, “…has a compelling interest in determining, inter alia, whether a potential visitor to its school is a registered sex offender.  The regulation is narrowly tailored because Raptor takes only the minimum information necessary to determine sex-offender status, identify the visitor, and ensure the lack of false positives.”

The Court further ruled that Fourth Amendment claims of unreasonable search and seizure also failed.  “Even if this were to be construed as a search or a seizure, we would hold it to be a reasonable one,” the Court concluded.

“This court case is just one example of the struggle school districts encounter when it comes to providing the best security for children. The Fifth Circuit Court’s ruling helps define the rights of the schools to control their environment,” said Allan Measom, President and CEO of Raptor Technologies, based in Houston, Texas. 

Raptor is a widely used provider of school visitor management systems which screens visitors for registered sex offender status in their client schools throughout the United States.

“We are pleased with the Court’s ruling,” said LTISD Deputy Superintendent and General Counsel Susan Bohn in a written statement on the ruling. “Throughout the long process of defending our position, we believed—as the Court did—that the Raptor system is a reasonable tool that works to ensure the children of our District are safe at school. Because campus safety and security are our highest priorities, we will continue to take measured and appropriate steps to protect our students, staff, volunteers, and visitors.”

The school district prevailed in a Texas court on a related state lawsuit, according to its written statement, and is awaiting the decision of a state appeals court on that case.

Ken Trump

Visit School Security Blog at:  http://www.schoolsecurityblog.com

Disconnects between what is on paper and what actually occurs in day-to-day practice in school safety can present school leaders with safety risks and potential legal liability.

One Midwest school district was challenged in a law suit for allegedly not following its emergency plan when a student choked on a hot dog in the school cafeteria.  The plan reportedly indicated the school had a specific type of response team for medical emergencies.  The suit, in part, is said to have questioned whether the school had the level of preparedness and response as indicated in their plan.  The court ruled against the district.

The question we pose to school administrators often is: Are you doing what you say on paper you’re doing?

School leaders should align their school safety policies, procedures, plans, and practices.  Disconnects could potentially pose risks to school safety and fodder for litigation.  Ultimately a judge or jury may decide in cases where  schools are legally challenged, but the court of public opinion may also rule against a school district if parents lose confidence in the ability of school leaders to do in practice what they say they are doing on paper to keep schools safe.

Ken Trump

Visit School Security Blog at:  http://www.schoolsecurityblog.com

Does bullying cause suicide? You would think so if you read and hear some of the headlines, comments, and advocacy by anti-bullying law special interests following several suicides completed by youth who were reported victims of chronic bullying at school.

I certainly do not question whether these kids were bullied.  I do not question whether the bullying added significant stress to the lives of these kids and others who are chronically bullied.  And I definitely do not minimize the seriousness of the losses of these innocent kids’ lives.

But I am also not convinced that bullying onto itself is the sole cause of teens taking their own life.  Being “bullied to death” makes quite a media headline and soundbite.  But does it accurately reflect the sole cause of death implied by the use of such a phrase?

I can see where chronic bullying could be the last straw in cases where deeper mental health issues exist with an individual, driving the individual over-the-top to completion of suicide. But anti-bullying law advocates have been quick to use higher-profile teen suicide cases to further their special interest agendas, i.e., getting new anti-bullying laws.  And the media, already on the bullying bandwagon along with some legislators and anti-bullying advocates, have been quick to simplify and dramatize some higher-profile teen suicides as death by bullying.

But such characterizations fail to take a deeper look at whether other existing mental health issues existed and came into play in these incidents.  It is possible no one, aside from perhaps the students’ families, will ever know the full story due to privacy limitations to what authorities can and/or will discuss.  And there is no guarantee even the families knew the full story as mental health issues are often missed, undiagnosed, and/or untreated. This only fuels the potential for greater speculation and possible misrepresentation of the true cause(s) of these and other teen suicides.  

Published around the 10th anniversary of the Columbine High School attack, author Dave Cullen’s book, “Columbine,” put forth a strong argument that mental health/mental illness, not bullying, was the primary cause for the actions of killers Klebold and Harris.  Pennsylvania child psychologist, Dr. Peter Langman, reached similar conclusions in his book, “Why Kids Kill: Inside the Minds of School Shooters.”

Similar suggestions have been raised in conversations about recent high-profile teen suicides attributed to school bullying. In a recent People Magazine article, “Lawyer: Mental Health – Not Bullying – Caused Phoebe Prince’s Suicide,” such claims are being made in the defense of teen(s) charged with bullying of student Phoebe Prince, who committed suicide.  The Slate.com article entitled, “What Really Happened to Phoebe Prince? The untold story of her suicide and the role of the kids who are being criminally charged for it,” also took a deeper look at the Prince’s mental health issues beyond the Massaachusetts bullying itself.

Still, some legislators, advocates, and media waste no time using these incidents to put a human face on their social and/or political agendas.  Take, for example, this story in Indiana entitled, “Teen’s suicide prompts call for tougher anti-bullying laws,” which came out days after a 15-year-old student’s suicide.

A number of complex issues and factors are involved in a teen’s suicide.  The title of a recent Psychology Today article sums it up best: The truth about bullying and suicide. Why suicide is never simple.  As the article points out, research shows that bullying itself does not cause suicide.

We need to make sure students are not bullied in school, that it is treated seriously, and that adults provide a supportive environment for preventing and intervening with bullying. But blaming bullying as the sole cause of suicide, like suicide itself, is a risky business.

Ken Trump

Visit School Security Blog at:  http://www.schoolsecurityblog.com

The U.S. has been slow to respond to homegrown radicals, creating a vulnerability for domestic terrorism right here in the U.S., according to a new report by the co-chairs of the 9/11 Commission.

The Associated Press highlighted their findings in Report: US must deal with homegrown terror problem.  The full report is available at Assessing the Terrorist Threat by the Bipartisan Policy Center.

It is interesting to note the U.S. Department of Education is one of 13 federal agencies on a National Security Council interagency work group looking at how to counter radical extremism in the U.S. and internationally.  Given the Education Department has hesitated to discuss schools as potential terror targets, and considering the currently skewed federal policy and funding focus is on bullying, climate, and incivility while violence takes a back seat, it is disappointing but not surprising they have not done more on this issue.

So what does this have to do with school safety?  A lot.  While the reports do not specifically address schools and terrorism, I have talked for years and written about schools as potential targets, and the need to make schools less softer of a target.  In 2007, I testified on to Congress at a House Homeland Security Committee hearing where I stressed the potential impact of terrorism on schools and school buses, and urged Congress to increase funding for school emergencyy preparedness planning.

My colleague, Chuck Hibbert, has long noted that the Columbine High School shooters were, in essence, domestic terrorists.  It is not unforeseeable to think that homegrown terrorists could directly or indirectly impact safety at our schools.

While no one wants to be alarmist, the reality is a substantial portion of the U.S. population can be found on most weekdays attending or working in our nation’s schools.  School buses are also a concern, as buses have been terror targets internationally and also pick-up and drop-off every day at the same time, same location every day.

As our leaders discuss threats to our broader community, we all must take a deeper look at how these threats potentially could apply to our schools.  Most importantly, we must then do something to prevent it.

Ken Trump

Visit School Security Blog at:  http://www.schoolsecurityblog.com

School safety budget cuts, educators distracted with academic reform, and skewed school safety policy and funding are creating a “deja vu” feeling for some school safety specialists who were around prior to the 1999 Columbine High School attack.

As I recall, the focus on school safety in the months and years before the shootings in Pearl (Mississippi), Jonesboro (Arkansas), and at Columbine (Jefferson County, CO) was on traditional discipline, prevention, and climate strategies.  Very little was in the forefront of discussions or funding for security, emergency preparedness, early warning signs of violent behavior, comprehensive and balanced school safety planning, and other violence-oriented conversations. School safety budgets were, in general, at the minimum point where schools could get by to say they were doing something, but certainly not all that needed to be done.

Fast forward to 2010 and we have a very similar climate: School safety budgets dramatically cut, a tunnel-vision focus on boosting test score numbers in many schools, and a skewed national conversation (as well as proposed federal policy and funding) on one area of school safety (bullying). School administrators do not want to, or cannot, leave their buildings to even attend free school safety training in some school-communities.  We have even seen school districts that have received substantial school safety grants struggle to put together workshops, tabletop exercises, and other programs for which they received thousands of grant dollars.

As this weekend marked the 9th anniversary of 9/11, many experts in public safety have suggested that a pre-9/11 mindset exists in our broader society. It is human nature in our country for people to have short memories.  Sadly, this even applies to tragedies like 9/11 and Columbine.

It is time to wake back up, America.  The economy, our national defense role in other nations, and numerous other pressing issues exist alongside of terrorism.  And school safety is certainly not the only agenda item in education, but it sure as heck is one very important one.

Let’s not forget the lessons of the past, especially the not-so-distant past. The wake-up calls get louder and more hurtful each time they come around.

Will we wake-up or will we continue to hit the snooze button and go back to sleep?

Ken Trump

Visit School Security Blog at:  http://www.schoolsecurityblog.com

Does your principal and superintendent really care about school safety? Chances are good the answer is, “Yes.”

The problem is that caring alone is just not enough today.  Educators are on overload with academic, budget, facility, and other urgent day-to-day issues.  They care about school safety, but it is increasingly challenging for them to find the time to proactively beef up school safety plans, train staff, test crisis plans, and implement prevention programs (for starters).

School safety budgets are also facing major setbacks, which makes tackling school safety even more challenging.  School security and police officers, counselors, psychologists, intervention specialists, and other support staff positions are being cut in many districts around the nation. And the only thing school officials have less of than money is time, in many cases. 

Academic reform and pressures to improve test scores have put administrators’ jobs on the line.  While they care about school safety, the urgency of other educational and operational issues poses a direct competition with school safety for administrators’ time and attention.

But caring about school safety alone is not sufficient.  Parents, students, and staff will not want to hear about budget cuts or academic reform distractions if  a student or teacher is seriously hurt or killed at school.  To them, safety must always be the top priority in both caring and action.

School safety is therefore not only a “money” issue or a “time” issue.  It is a “leadership” issue.  A progressive school leader not only cares about school safety, he or she acts proactively on school safety, security, and emergency preparedness planning and tasks.

Caring about school safety is best demonstrated by actions, not just words.

What specific actions have your school leaders taken to improve safety at your school this year?

Ken Trump

Visit School Security Blog at:  http://www.schoolsecurityblog.com

Proposed anti-bullying laws fail to focus on bullying behaviors, instead describing personal characteristics of the victims. These proposed laws would better be described as proposed civil rights laws, not anti-bullying laws. School safety is being increasingly hijacked by special interest groups advocating for their social and political agendas. A politicized and skewed policy and funding focus on single issues versus comprehensive approaches to school safety is not in the best interests of school safety.

Let’s take a look at areas of common ground, questions raised, and rationale for my take on the issues.

Common Ground Agreement on School Safety

There appears to be a couple points of common ground — and this is a good thing:

1. We all agree schools need to be safe for all kids.
2. We all agree bullying is a legitimate area of serious concern to be addressed in school safety planning.

Where the differences come in is on how to accomplish these goals.

My Take on Anti-Bullying Laws and the Politicization of School Safety

My take is based on over 25 years of professional K-12 school safety experience working firsthand with schools on safety, security, and emergency preparedness issues across the nation.  My assessment of the issues is based upon this experience, not on any political alliance with any particular advocacy group.  And my bias is not homophobic, but politi-phobic:  I object strongly to the politicization of school safety.

1. Proposed anti-bullying laws fail to focus on bullying behaviors, instead describing personal characteristics of the victims. These proposed laws would better be described as proposed civil rights laws, not anti-bullying laws.  Masking broader civil rights agendas and bills under the guise of “anti-bullying” is not in the best interest of school safety; to the contrary, it politicizes school safety.
2. If the goal is fairness and equality, which it should be, then we should focus on policies and practices which create schools safe for all kids, not by further dividing and creating special protected classes of one group over another group of students, and excluding (and thereby lessening the importance of) many other types of bullying such as that against overweight kids, kids who have red hair and freckles, kids who wear glasses, kids with physical disabilities or special learning needs, etc.
3. Federal and state school anti-bullying laws take the wrong, and unnecessary, approach. Local school policies that apply to behaviors which constitute “bullying” are in place in the vast majority of our nation’s schools. “Bullying” typically refers to verbal, physical, or other acts committed by a student to harass, intimidate, or cause harm to another student.  The behaviors attributed to bullying may include verbal threats, menacing, harassment, intimidation, assaults, extortion, sexual assault, sexual harassment, disruption of the school environment and associated disorderly conduct, and other related behaviors. The proposed federal laws, and many state laws, enumerate personal characteristics and not specific behaviors which constitute bullying.  More importantly, this is a moot issue as there is not a need for more state or federal  laws since behaviors which represent bullying are already outlined in school policies and student codes of conduct. In short, the proposed laws provide front-line educators no tools to address bullying behaviors that they currently do not have available to them in local school policies, in criminal and civil law, and in the school climate strategies already available to schools.
4. Laws which are too vague will open up the flood gates for frivilous law suits against school districts.  Vague laws also beg the question of what such anti-bullying laws will actually accomplish that existing civil rights laws, education laws, criminal laws, and school policies/student codes of conduct do not already address.
5. LGBT students, like all students, deserve to be safe in school.  Existing school policies, along with criminal and civil laws, provide tools to address LGBT student safety as well as all other students.  Whether or not those tools are used to their maximum effectiveness is a local, case-by-case issue, which can and should be addressed by each school district and their school-community.
6. Anti-bullying efforts should be one component of a comprehensive and balanced approach to school safety.  It is not the only component, though, nor should it be skewed to be the only component. Overemphasizing laws, policies, and funding actions around bullying is no more appropriate than overemphasizing gangs, drugs, weapons, security equipment, school-based policing, or emergency planning. See my July 2009, Congressional testimony to a House joint subcommittee hearing on school safety, along with What Constitutes Comprehensive School Safety Policies, Programs, and Funding? and Education Department Redefines School Safety, Downplays Violence
7. The legal tools are in place to initiate criminal and other investigations and charges on harassment-related offenses when warranted.  In Massachusetts, in the Phoebe Prince case, the prosecutors brought criminal charges without having to create a new law. Additionally, the LGBT community lauded the passage of The Matthew Shepard Act, signed into law by President Obama in October of 2009, which expands the 1969 United States federal hate-crime law to include crimes motivated by a victim’s actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. There are certainly local, state, and federal laws (civil rights and criminal) in place which provide tools to redress inequalities, harassment, and behaviors which constitute a crime. In fact, having listened to Russlyn Ali, Assistant Secretary of the Office of Civil Rights for the U.S. Department, in her speech at the recent federal anti-bullying summit (See U.S. Education Department’s Bullying Summit: Facts, Fad, or Just Bull? and Radical Policy Shift Targets Bullying as Federal Civil Rights Issue, it seems clear that the Department has the authority to address civil rights complaints in this area. I did not hear her call for a new law during her passionate comments. To the contrary, I heard her, as well as Secretary Duncan, announce they were going to more vigorously enforce existing civil rights laws in this area. It certainly sounded to me as if they have adequate law in place to do so.
8. Anti-bullying policies and climate strategies need to be tailored school-by-school.  School policies and practices are local control issues.  Federal and state governments have traditionally addressed bullying and other school safety issues through advancing research and, funding prevention and intervention programs.  It is not the role of the federal government to become the “bullying police.”  The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools has said multiple times that it failed in managing the Safe and Drug Free Schools grant program for over 10 years, claiming themselves that the program they ran for a decade was “ineffective,” which begs us to ask about the competence and ability of the federal government to run meaningful federal safe schools programs.  The Department has a tough enough time and a lot of resistance defending its education  proposals for local schools, much less taking a more hands-on approach with day-to-day local school safety. An overreaching federal hand in investigating local school bullying cases and skewing the bulk of federal school safety funding to “bullying, climate, and incivility” is not in the best interests of school safety. 
9. Special interest advocacy groups should put their full agenda on the table, call it what it is, debate it openly, propose a law reflecting the agenda if they so desire, and let legislators vote on it. I am not advocating against gay rights or civil rights, nor am I advocating for an opposing political agenda. I am advocating against masking  broader social / political agendas under the guise of “bullying” and politicizing school safety by special interests. I am also advocating against a skewed federal school safety public policy and funding approach which is currently proposed by the U.S. Department of Education. See Radical Policy Shift Targets Bullying as Federal Civil Rights Issue, Education Department Redefines School Safety, Downplays Violence, and Federal Bullying Police: Coming to a School Near You
10. Special interest advocates advance their arguments by putting a “human face” on their cause. Gay rights and anti-bullying law advocates frequently refer to students who have completed suicide after being bullied by anti-gay taunts and harassment. Anti-bullying advocates often add the comment that they were bullied as students. Christian conservatives point to cases where parents have objected to the introduction of homosexual referencing curriculum introduced in local schools under “safe schools” and “anti-bullying” initiatives. 

By no means do I minimize the seriousness of the individual losses by families of children who have committed suicide, nor do I minimize the importance of parents having a voice in what is and is not taught in their child’s public schools.  Many individuals, including myself and members of my family, have been the victims of bullying, so we also have personal experiences. As a parent and as a school safety professional, I never want to see the loss of life of a child and the harassment of kids in schools.

But I also don’t believe in “legislation by anecdote.”  Putting a “human face” on a cause touches the heart, as is understandable.  But it also is a tool used by social and political advocates to advance their cause.  When discussing and debating legislation, policy, and funding, the focus needs to be on facts, practicality and usefulness of the policy and law, and the pros and cons of the law or policy.

We can all put a human face on school safety.  Yesterday, for example, School Resource Officer Carolyn Gudger returned to work after intervening with a gunman who entered her Blountville, TN, school last week and pulled a gun on a principal while a student was nearby. Officers had to take the man’s life to protect those in the school. By all accounts, Deputy Gudger is a hero. Advocacy groups could easily exploit that incident and call for legislation and funding to put a School Resource Officer in every school across the nation, resulting in a dramatically skewed policy and funding shift. However, while I strongly support SROs, myself and others have not used that situation to make that type of proposed change.  Instead, I continue to advocate for a balanced and comprehensive approach to school safety.

Additionally, I take offense when I see anti-bullying special interest advocates attempt to cast those who disagree with them as being “pro-bully” or “against anti-bullying efforts.”  This political and communication tactic makes for an interesting web page headline and media soundbite, but it also resorts to attacking the person who opposes you versus attacking the facts of their opposition. It often suggests that the attacker cannot attack the facts, so they attack the person. It is somewhat ironic that some who advocate so strongly against bullying have no problem bullying those with different viewpoints.

In short, everyone can find a case study, human face, and personal experience to advocate for a special interest cause and agenda.  It makes for good TV, conference speeches, and legislative testimony, but “legislation by anecdote” is not a sound approach for good public policy and funding. And attacking the person opposing you, versus attacking the facts, weakens one’s argument and credibility.

Why So Much Attention to the Politics of School Safety?

Why do I focus on the political agendas driving school safety? The answer is simple: 

1. Parents and educators don’t know what they don’t know. Most believe elected officials are trying to make public policy and funding decisions, rightly or wrongly, to improve school safety.  And while many indeed are, there are also political forces with agendas behind-the-scenes lobbying legislators and advocating for their social and political agendas which may not result in necessary, or the best, school safety policy and funding decisions.  Parents and educators need the mask of politics lifted so they see the broader picture of what is going on behind the scenes.
2. Politicizing school safety has huge public policy and dollar implications.   In this case, there is $410 million and a skewed federal school safety policy which de-emphasizes violence in the definition of school safety at risk.  Once special interests hijack school safety to further their social and political agendas, policies and funding decisions can become grossly skewed versus being tailored toward developing a comprehensive and balanced approach to improving school safety.  This creates the risks of more special interests attempting to frame their agendas under the guise of “school safety,” and in the end the best practices in approaching school safety lose out while special interests may or may not prevail — and people may just shy away from dealing with school safety at all. 

There is a lot to process here.  But that’s good.  It’s time to look beyond the emotional aspects of bullying and anti-bullying, and look at the real social and political driving forces and agendas, as well as the policy and funding implications of today’s discussions and proposed laws.

Ken Trump

Visit School Security Blog at:  http://www.schoolsecurityblog.com