And how would you feel if your school administrators and police officials never told you, other parents, and students about the incident for 12 days?

This happened near David Douglas High School in Portland, Oregon. But police asked school officials not to alert the public out of concern it would impede their investigation according to a February story from The Oregonian. 

School officials eventually issued a letter advising parents to go over “common safety precautions” with their children such as walking in groups and running or yelling if approached.

As a former school investigator of such incidents, I understand the goal of arresting and prosecuting such a suspect.  But as a parent, I also understand how angry I would be if I knowingly let my child walk in this area with no knowledge of the incident and the specific accompanying heightened risks. 

As a national consultant on school security issues, my advice to school (and police) officials would have been to err on the side of communicating the true circumstances to students, parents, and the school-community in a timely manner. First, I would want students, parents, and my school neighbors on heightened alert. Maybe they saw something, or would see something, to identify the suspect.

I would have a hard time living with myself as a principal if I withheld information on a known threat and one of my students was subsequently abducted, sexually assaulted, or otherwise victimized.  Giving general information may or may not push people’s attention to the desired heightened level.  Discussion of a specific incident likely would create greater attentiveness.

I believe most parents and students would agree, even if the suspect in the initial attack was not immediately apprehended.  Chances are such an immediate apprehension could be highly unlikely anyway.

Ken Trump

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Mental Health, Not Bullying, Must Be the Focus

Cleveland’s ABC news affiliate covered the story at Parents and Parma schools react to student’s suicide.  Unlike many other stories I have seen nationally where “bullycide” becomes the sole focus on teen suicides, the WEWS reporter (Dan Haggerty) reached out to our regional suicide experts to get input.

Pat Lyden, executive director of the Suicide Prevention Education Alliance based in a Cleveland eastern suburb, stresses the role of depression and other mental health issues as leading factors in teen and adult suicides:

“The media frenzy about bullying and suicide is distracting school administrators and parents from the facts.  Depression is the main cause of suicide, in all age groups.   Suicide is the third leading cause of death for teens, yet it is our most preventable form of death.  

The nation should be up in arms about the state of our children’s mental health.  One in five teens seriously consider suicide during their high school years, 14% of teens make a suicide plan and 8% of teens attempt suicide.  In fact, half of all lifetime cases of mental disorders begin by age 14.  

Depression must be recognized and treated, yet only one in five teens with a mental disorder receive treatment.  Untreated depression leads to a downward life spiral that often includes addiction and co-occurring mental illnesses.”

Yet these facts are getting lost in emotional, media, and political hysteria following high-profile cases of reported bullying nationwide.  I continue to be amazed at how many normally balanced media outlets, along with a number of special interest advocacy groups and activists, believe they can determine and publicly claim why a teen took his/her life within hours or even days of the actual incident.  

Getting a tunnel vision focus on bullying while paying little-to-no attention to underlying teen mental health issues misses the mark.  It is like looking at the flower bud but failing to recognize the existence of its roots. 

Traditional and Social Media, Political Hype Risks Suicide Contagion

In a September 30th article, I asked if anti-bullying advocates and the media may be contributing to suicide contagion.  Contagion is where clusters of suicides occur following higher profile reporting with glamorization and other other factors.

Pat Lyden concurs there is a risk of suicide contagion and she makes recommendations on how the media could potentially help, not inadvertantly hurt, efforts to prevent suicide:

“The media would help to save lives by helping the public recognize the signs of depressive illness and the warning signs of suicide.  The media must help to eliminate stigma of mental illness by urging early treatment of depression.  

The media would help prevent suicide by promoting school prevention programs such as our ‘Recognizing Adolescent Depression and Suicide Prevention program, which equips teens to be the first line of defense in preventing suicide.  Media decision-makers need to realize that young lives are at stake and the current media frenzy is adding to the nation’s teen death toll.  Suicide contagion is a real phenomenon.  

The Suicide Prevention Education Alliance urges the media to follow guidelines from the The American Foundation for  Suicide Prevention, American Association of Suicidology, and Annenberg Public Policy Center on Reporting on Suicide: Recommendations for the Media   SPEA also encourages the promotion of balanced, comprehensive, professional, non-political, and responsible prevention programs.”

See SPEA’s site for an example of such a model program. 

Cognitive, Not Emotional, Analysis and Policies are Needed

Bullying is a serious issue warranting our attention.  But when parents, the media, special interest groups, and others narrow in on  — and sometimes exploit for their own agendas — the issue of bullying, they risk missing the underlying mental health causes of teen suicide. 

When hysteria is created by these various entities, regardless of whether it is a result of good intentions or self-serving social and political agendas, the focus quickly gets lost.

And when the focus gets lost, so do more of our children.

Ken Trump

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Mr. Jennings, Assistant Deputy Secretary of Education for Safe and Drug Free Schools and the founder of GLSEN, and GLSEN’s current leadership have been under recent fire by gay rights advocates in the past several days, including an online article today entitled, “Why Are Kevin Jennings + GLSEN Completely Silent On September’s 4 Gay Bullying Suicides?”

But Mr. Petrelis also disclosed a personal communication between him and GLSEN saying GLSEN is privately expressing concern about not wanting to contribute to suicide contagion.

GLSEN Reportedly in “Fear of Suicide Contagion”

Mr. Petrelis, a veteran gay and aids human rights advocate, attributed the following quote to GLSEN’s spokesperson, Daryl Presgraves:

“We have not issued a statement. We are very concerned, obviously. But out of fear of suicide contagion, we have chosen to be cautious in our public response. I assure you we are working behind the scenes to address these specific incidences, but we are trying to tread carefully. We will have much to say in the coming weeks, including a new nationwide effort to make schools safer for LGBT youth. We want to make sure we do and say the right thing.”

Are Social Media, Mainstream Media, and Gay and Anti-Bullying Activists Contributing to Suicide Contagion?

 This raises a legitimate question:

Could all of the traditional and social media focus, including the repeated references by anti-bullying and gay rights advocates to bullycide, LGBT suicides, and other high profile teen suicides actually be contributing to what has been attributed as a recent uptick in these incidents?

Twitter has been hopping with messages from around the world on these suicides, anti-gay issues, anti-bullying, and related tweets in recent weeks.  Related news stories can be found almost daily in cable, network, and print news.  And as noted above, online stories include increasing pressure from gay activists on President Obama’s Assistant Deputy Secretary for Safe and Drug Free Schools, Kevin Jennings and now GLSEN, for not being more vocal enough on gay rights issues.

Suicide Experts Warn of “Romanticizing Suicide” and “Idealizing Those Who Take Their Own Lives” as Possibly Encouraging Others

The American Foundation for  Suicide Prevention, American Association of Suicidology, and Annenberg Public Policy Center developed Reporting on Suicide: Recommendations for the Media  in cooperation with the Office of Surgeon General, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute of Mental Health, and other organizations. 

Their Recommendations to the Media include:

“Research finds an increase in suicide by readers or viewers when:

1. The number of stories about individual suicides increases
2. A particular death is reported at length or in many stories
3. The story of an individual death by suicide is placed on the front page or at the beginning of a broadcast
4. The headlines about specific suicide deaths are dramatic”

Their recommendations also note:

1. Research suggests that inadvertently romanticizing suicide or idealizing those who take their own lives by portraying suicide as a heroic or romantic act may encourage others to identify with the victim.
2. Exposure to suicide method through media reports can encourage vulnerable individuals to imitate it.
3. Clinicians believe the danger is even greater if there is a detailed description of the method. Research indicates that detailed descriptions or pictures of the location or site of a suicide encourage imitation.
4. Presenting suicide as the inexplicable act of an otherwise healthy or high-achieving person may encourage identification with the victim.

The rest of this seven page report has what appears to be very solid recommendations.  It seems like a good time for our national media and others to review their ethical and professional guidelines when addressing “bullying” and, in particular, suicides being attributed to bullying.

My Take

GLSEN’s reported concern about suicide contagion seems right on target to me.  Ironically, it also reinforces what I have been blogging in recent month to bring some balance and common sense to the discussion of bullying. 

I have voiced politically-incorrect professional perspectives about the media hype and craze about bullying, as well as recent “bullycide” and teen suicides.  And I have repeatedly expressed concern about the politicization of school safety.  I have also been increasingly critical about the skewed federal policy and funding toward bullying and “school climate surveys” by the U.S. Department of Education. 

As I have repeatedly — repeatedly —said, bullying is an important issue which should be a part of a comprehensive approach to school safety.  I also believe LGBT students deserve the same protection all students deserve in school:  The right to learn in a safe, secure, and orderly school.  Teen mental health issues, including teen suicides, must also be a focal point and not oversimplified by labeling as “bullying.”    

But addressing these issues must be done in a balanced, comprehensive, professional, non-political, and responsible manner.  How we address these issues must be as important as if we address these issues.  Otherwise, GLSEN’s reported concern about contributing to the contagion effect may be a very real, and very sad, reality.

What say you?

Ken Trump

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A 14-year-old South Carolina high school student shoots at a school resource officer (SRO).  He has two pipe bombs in his backpack.  A search of the student’s home finds a wide array of items including shotgun and handgun shells, multiple cigarette lighters, exploded bomb pieces, 14 carbon dioxide cartridges, and the list goes on. Authorities later find social media messages giving pre-indicators of the incident and anxiety increases in the school community.

Obviously, this is a crisis.

Less obvious to the broader school community is the “crisis after the crisis” educators, parents, and school-community members face in trying to determine the next steps once this immediate threat is resolved.

Crisis After the School Crisis: Demands for Metal Detectors, “Guarantee” It Won’t Happen Again

The conversation after a school crisis increasingly jumps to metal detectors. Parents want some type of “guarantee” an incident of violence will not occur again.  To help reassure parents, educators often believe they must provide some type of physical and tangible evidence of increased security.

Parents often look to metal detectors.  But as I addressed in my September 2nd article entitled School Security Versus the CSI Effect & TSA Effect, some parents and media falsely believe that because a school uses metal detectors, there is a “guarantee” that no weapons will ever be in the school.  This is simply not the case.

Metal Detector Conversations Should Focus on Implementation Questions

The argument for or against metal detectors typically boils down to two philosophical perspectives:

1. For metal detectors:  Schools should take every possible step to protect  child at all expenses.  Safety is the number one concern.
2. Against metal detectors: We do not want to create a “prison-like” environment and adversely effect school climate.

As a provider of post-crisis consulting services  to work with school districts and their school-community after a crisis, my colleagues and I start with a different line of discussion on the issue: Implementation. 

Some questions and points to consider:

1. If a school decides to use metal detectors, will they do so on a 24/7 basis to be effective?  If you run them just during the school day, what prohibits a student from dropping a bag of weapons in his/her locker during after-school and evening times when the building is open and accessible for student activities, athletic practices, etc. — and then coming in the next day, go through the metal detectors clean, and get the weapons from the locker?
2. How will you fund not only the metal detectors, but the additional security staffing to secure all doorways when they are in use, to operate the detectors 24/7, etc.?
3. Will parents be willing to drop off their students earlier each day in order to get hundreds or thousands of kids screened and in their classes on time?
4. Are parents, grandparents, and others willing to cooperate with all screening when they come to school to volunteer, attend athletic events and plays, etc.?
5. What will be done to secure all ground level windows of the building so someone cannot go through the metal detector screening and then have someone hand him/her a gun through an open classroom window?
6. Do parents and others recognize that even with a 24/7 operation, there will be no weapons screening at bus stops, on school buses, on school sidewalks and parking lots, etc.?

and the list goes on and on.

Most parents and other members of the school-community will realize from these questions that there are significant implication issues beyond the philosophical argument for metal detectors.  Metal detectors are an appropriate tool for some school districts, but they do not provide the quick fix some parents believe they will offer.

Perhaps most difficult is for parents to realize that even in an environment with intense metal detector screening, x-ray scanning of visitors, and strip searches — our prisons — we still have weapons, murders, gangs, drugs, sexual assaults, and other violence. 

In short, these messages do not provide the real thing that parents are seeking after a crisis:  A 100% guarantee it won’t happen again.

And the hard part is for educators to be honest in telling parents that while they truly wish to do so, this is one guarantee that no one can honestly provide.

Avoid Knee-Jerk Reactions, Conduct a Rational & Cognitive Assessment

School leaders should debrief every drill and critical school safety incidents.  Rational and cognitively performed reviews of prevention, security, and emergency preparedness measures should be conducted after a crisis.  It is a reasonable and timely expectation of parents for such reviews to occur.

Oftentimes these reviews point out many positive school safety measures already in place in a district.  They can also lead to practical, common-sense, and meaningful improvements in school safety — many of which cost more time than money.

Many times the best improvements in security will not be an additional camera on the wall or metal detectors at the door.  Truly good security is often invisible as the first and best line of defense is a well-trained, highly alert staff and student body.

What say you?

Ken Trump

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Could you and your school leaders answer these two questions with specific examples if asked unexpectedly?

1. What specific steps have you taken to prevent incidents of violence and crime in your school(s)?
2. How well prepared are your school staff to respond to and manage those crisis incidents which cannot be prevented?

Ken Trump

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That was one of my main messages to school communications and public relations directors when I spoke last week at the annual conference of the National School Public Relations Association (NSPRA). 

As always, school PR attendees were lively, engaged, bright, and enthusiastic about their work.  But there were a lot of serious discussions, in-depth workshops, and hallway exchanges, as well.

A few key take-away points from my two workshops on managing media and parent communications on school safety, and from other discussions,  include:

1. Media newsrooms are changing.  Educators are not the only professionals forced to do more with less.  Newsrooms are undergoing major downsizing and reporters are packaging the same story in multiple formats (print, video, on the web, etc.).  Reporters, like school administrators, are facing major deadlines and pressures each day.  The evidence of downsized newsrooms was clear at the NSPRA conference as half of the school PR professionals in my workshops were former reporters now working in school communications departments!
2. School web sites should be news and information sources.  School web sites should include a page and information on school safety, emergency preparedness, and related issues.
3. “Embrace social media on the front-end or it will embrace you on the tail-end.”  This is one of my favorite sayings to educators today.  Kids and parents are on Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and other social media outlets.  Is your school superintendent, principal, and district there?  Do you have plans for using social media for school safety and crisis response messaging?
4. Schools need emergency response guidelines (aka: “crisis plans”), but they also need a distinct crisis communications plan.  Rumors, especially about school safety threats and incidents, travel in seconds and minutes, not hours and days.  School leaders must be prepared to hit the ground running to get their messages out following school crisis incidents or growing rumors of a safety threat.  Schools will most always be behind the curve on crisis communications, but they can close the gap by having a crisis communications plan and staff trained ahead of time. School leaders should be able to communicate with key constituents quickly and in mass when they are in need of doing so.
5. School safety and crisis messages from educators need to communicate compassion and caring, not “lawyering up” in a defensive posture or saying “no comment,” after a security/crisis incident.  Parents want to know educators care.  They want to know what occurred, what school and safety officials did in response, and what steps will be taken to prevent or reduce the risks of a reoccurrence in the future. 

Too often, school districts have preferred to downplay, deflect, and in some cases deny school safety issues in their school districts.  Those days are long gone.  Today, the word “transparency” is key in the eyes of parents and the media, and hoping that parents and the media never find out about incidents is foolish thinking.

School safety incidents must be addressed openly and in a timely manner.  If a student is caught with a loaded gun in a school and no one is hurt, that must be framed as good news.  See my prior blog on Finding a Gun In a School Is Good News.

For more practical tips to help educators manage school safety and crisis communications, see my American School Board Journal article entitled “Communicating Safety.”

School PR leaders at NSPRA “got it.”  Our workshops on school safety and crisis communications had great role playing exercises, dynamic discussions, and genuinely concerned school PR staff who are active with school crisis planning in their districts.

Do your school leaders “get it” when it comes to communicating with parents and the media about school safety and crisis incidents?

Ken Trump

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In fact many historically believed, and some still believe, the presence of a police car parked outside of a school implies an out-of-control school and an incompetent principal exists inside the school.

Both perceptions are the farthest thing from the truth.  Finding a student in possession of a gun or drugs in school, especially before they have been used, means school officials may have prevented a tragic situation.  In many cases, it means a student felt comfortable enough to come forward and report the situation to a trusted adult, and the adult responded in a timely and effective manner.

Likewise, the police presence at a school means educators did their job: They reported a crime.  They did not cover up a crime or ignore the breaking of the law. 

They may have even taught the student offender(s) the most important lesson of their life:  There are serious consequences for violating the law and for violating the most serious school rules.

The System Worked

I recently worked with a school district that hired us to help them assess security issues after two students were caught at their 3,600+ student high school with guns in two separate incidents.  The school-community was understandably concerned.  The discussion quickly focused on a response of metal detectors, but the school board stepped back and called for an independent assessment of school safety in the entire district.

Our team, being an arm’s length away from the emotional aspect of the issue, pointed out that the gun confiscations were really a good thing.  In short, the system worked:

• The district promoted the police department’s Crimestoppers anonymous reporting program.
• Someone, presumably students, felt comfortable enough to come forward and report that these students had guns at the school.
• School officials and police took the reports seriously and responded in a timely manner.
• The weapons were confiscated, the student suspects were taken into custody, and the offenders will face consequences for violating the law and school rules.
• No one was injured.

While one gun in the hands of a student in a school is one too many, both incidents were good news in that the system worked, the guns were confiscated, and no one was hurt.  The school is a bit safer today as a result of the actions of the reporting persons, and because of the school and public safety officials who acted upon what was reported.

Reframing Security Incidents

Schools reflect our broader society.  Many American high schools have several thousand students enrolled, which is the size of some of our small towns in the nation.  To believe our high schools are 100 percent free of guns, drugs, or other ills which exist in the broader community is naive, if not foolish.

Most parents know this, but for some reason many parents, as well as many educators, want to pretend that schools are somehow still immune from the same negative behaviors and ills which are present in their broader community. 

The first step toward making our schools safer is to acknowledge that some less-than-desirable things will come along with the many good things which occur with our many good students.  The second step is to to deal with the bad and the ugly in the same manner we deal with the good:  Head-on, honestly, and with full transparency. 

This means finding a gun, drugs, or other item in a school must be viewed as a good thing.  The time to be alarmed is not when someone reports a problem and it is acted upon. 

The time to be alarmed is when there is an “it can’t happen here” mentality, when students and others do not have the trust and confidence to report, and/or when school and safety officials fail to act in a timely and effective manner when a report is made.

What say you?

Ken Trump

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The story goes on to read:

“On Dec. 3, as Asian students endured a daylong series of attacks at South Philadelphia High, the adults responsible for their safety were often confused or unsure how to respond.

The principal ordered a midmorning lockdown – designed to restrict student movement and move staffers to security posts – but some teachers weren’t notified.”

I have experienced more than my fair share of school crisis situations in over 25-years in the school safety profession. In my early days working in the security division of Cleveland Public Schools, I was on the front-lines at schools, outside at the bus drop-off or in the front hallway as gang-related riots erupted as students arrived at school. Years later, while supervising the district’s Youth Gang Unit, I lead a team responsible for preventing and responding to school gang riots, weapons incidents, drive-by shooting threats, and other crises throughout the 127-school district.

So I understand first-hand that when a riot or other major conflict erupts at a school, it takes some time to get the combatants isolated and secured in separate areas. School safety officials and administrators have to contain the conflict which just erupted, monitor to prevent further immediate escalating events, and begin anticipating what else might jump off during the remainder of the day.

Communications Plan Along with Crisis Plan

School security has come a long way in the past decade. A lot of lessons have been learned in school emergency planning. One of the major lessons is that communications is one of, if not the, most important elements to have in place before an actual incident erupts.

We advise our school principal and superintendent clients to have an emergency/crisis response plan which addresses responses to potential threatening incidents.  But we also advise them to have a crisis communications plan ready to kick in gear almost simultaneously with their emergency response plan.

For example, schools which go on an extended lockdown may subsequently make a public address announcement directing classroom teachers to check their classroom email messages for details and directions. They may also activate their mass parent notification system to quickly get out information to parents about what is occurring and what parents need to do next to help school and safety officials efficiently manage the incident at hand.

Rumors have always spread like wildfire in schools. But in today’s world of cell phones, text messaging, and social media, rumors that used to spread in hours and days now spread in seconds and minutes.  School administrators must be ready to kick their crisis communications plan into gear almost immediately after an incident occurs.

Don’t Overlook School Staff

In the growing number of schools where the communications plan is being beefed up, the focus tends to be on parent and media communications. This is good, because parent and media crisis communications tend to be under-estimated and underdeveloped. 

But far too often in our school emergency plan assessments we find well-intended school administrators forget they must also provide timely and updated information within the building to their school staff.  This is especially true when a school has an ongoing issue, such as circumstances requiring the school to be on extended lockdown for hours into the school day.

The Philadelphia article highlighted a chaotic situation which appeared to lack plans for crisis communications, especially communications with school staff.  While it is important for administrators and safety officers to get a situation under control as soon as possible, they can often prevent spin-off incidents, staff anxiety, and accelerated rumors by building into their plans a process to update staff members so they know what to be alert for as the day evolves.

A solid crisis communications plan probably will not eliminate chaos, but it will help to more efficiently and effectively manage that chaos which has occurred.

Does your school have crisis communications plans for staff, parents, and the media, in addition to their traditional school emergency/crisis incident response guidelines?

Ken Trump

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Social media is just about everywhere – except in the comfort zone of the majority of school administrators and teachers.

I see social media having both proactive and reactive roles in school safety and crisis response.  This, of course, first requires educators to overcome their fear of the new forms of communication.

My advice to educators is simple:

“You had better embrace social media on the front end before it embraces you on the tail end.”

How can your school administrators and safety officials engage social media to proactively communicate about school safety and to more effectively communicate during a crisis?

Ken Trump 

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Those who volunteer have about 10 seconds each to name their practice. Once someone takes the lead in the discussion, others typically follow very quickly. 

The end result in just one minute or so is a list of about two dozen proactive, positive practices.  They typically include items such as having School Resource Officers (SROs), cameras in their buildings, crisis plans and crisis teams, anti-bullying programs, counseling and psychological support services, and the list goes on.

So what’s the problem with that, you ask?

There is no problem with the practices they mention.  The problem is they do not communicate to parents prior to a crisis that these items are in place. 

Many administrators have simply never given thought to getting “out front”  on school safety by sharing with their parents that they have these different programs and strategies in their schools. 

I suggest school leaders go back to their districts and make the same list for their individual schools and for their school districts as a whole.  This process could be completed in about 10 minutes and would give school leaders a concrete list of school safety practices to reference proactively in their parent communications.  It could also serve as a quick reference if a crisis occurs and school leaders need to point to school safety initiatives they had in place prior to a critical incident.

School newsletters, district and building level web sites, principal’s or superintendent’s blog, parent association meetings, and other communications tools are often overlooked as places school administrators can get their word out about the positive things they have in place to protect students and staff.  School leaders can reduce parents’ “fear of the unknown” by talking about the good things they are doing for school safety prior to a crisis situation.

Are your school leaders unintentionally hiding the several dozen good things they have in place to protect students and staff?

Ken Trump 

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