A closer look reveals individuals and organizations with little-to-no experience or expertise in preK-12 school safety are using the issue to advance their own special interests at the cost of meaningful responses for making schools safer after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings.

In what is unquestionably one of the nation’s biggest national embarrassments, there is a clear failure to act in a bi-partisan, meaningful way to help improve school safety and security after one of the nation’s worst and most ugly school shootings in history.

Civil rights special interest groups

The Advancement Project, a civil rights special interest group that has spent the past few years pushing the so-called ”school-to-prison-pipeline” movement, released a report today calling for more counselors, “restorative justice” programs, and opposing more police officers in schools. Their report was said to be timed to pre-empt an April 2nd press conference by the NRA.

Today’s report is entitled, “A Real Fix: The Gun-Free Way to School Safety.”  The report reguritates a lot of reference materials that already exist in the school safety and emergency preparedness field, especially documents from the U.S. Department of Education and news articles. Not surprising is that the bulk of the report focuses on reinforcing the special interest group’s civil rights political agenda against police officers in schools.

The Advancement Project and its allies claim that police in schools are unnecessarily arresting students and sending them into the juvenile justice system. They have garnered support all the way to Congress, the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice, and the White House.

Just days before the Sandy Hook school shootings, Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin chaired a Senate subcommittee hearing questioning the role of police in schools.  Civil rights special interest groups have also pressured school districts and police departments in an effort to handcuff school police on what laws they can and cannot enforce in schools.

The Advancement Project, which runs the “Ending the schoolhouse to jailhouse track” program, has encouraged its followers to lobby the White House and others to push back against proposals after Sandy Hook to increase School Resource Officers in schools.  It would appear their efforts were somewhat successful as President Obama put forth a rather lame proposal for school safety that would provide resources for schools to hire police or counselors rather than strongly supporting more police in schools.

Of course, the Advancement Project’s emails and web sites always include a call for donations to help their cause, too.

While the group clearly is a civil rights special interest group, evidence of them having any firsthand experience in working in schools in general and school safety specificially is sorely lacking in their credentials and publications.

Fortunately, the National Association of School Resource Officers and school law expert Dr. Bernie James have countered the political rhetoric of the civil rights special interest groups with their report entitled, “To Protect & Educate: The School Resource Officer and the Prevention of Violence in Schools.” They hold that statistically, the effectiveness of School Resource Officers is firmly established and once schools are made safer, they generally tend to remain safe.

NASRO and Dr. James also point out that juvenile arrests decreased nearly 50% during the same time period of the expansion of School Resource Officer programs nationwide.  I guess the Advancement Project and other civil rights group missed that little fact.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) 

The NRA, in response to gun control activists calling for gun control laws within hours of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, came out a week later with its “National School Shield” program, calling for more armed “security” and police in schools. “Security” loosely includes school employees, volunteers, and others besides police, according to comments made by the NRA and its supporters.

The key to sifting through the NRA’s comments is to listen closely to what they say in the sound bites. NRA representatives have repeatedly used phrases like “armed security, police officers” which in a subtle manner reflect two separate and distinct things: Police officers — commissioned, trained peace officers; versus “Armed security,” which could mean about anyone meeting minimal state standards to carry a gun. There’s a big difference between the two and the NRA very smoothly uses the two descriptors with most reporters never clearly pointing out the major differences between the two.

The NRA’s project is headed up by Asa Hutchinson, a former Congressman, current candidate for Arkansas governor, and a former assistant secretary in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. He is a man who once oversaw the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) that removed private security guards from airports and replaced them with higher skilled and better trained government security workers to protect airplanes, airports, and luggage. It is interesting that he now is advocating for armed, lower-trained individuals with fewer qualifications than a police officer to protect our students.

Hutchinson recently said in a news interview that the NRA’s program, to be announced on April 2nd, would include a focus on rural schools. This is not surprising as these are the schools most likely to support the NRA’s agenda of arming school staff. Wonder if their “online assessment tool” and training programs will steer schools to armed personnel? Hmmmm…

The NRA’s stated mission is gun education and, of course, its activities focus on gun rights lobbying. Another example of an organization with no primary mission or expertise in preK-12 school safety that is hijacking school safety to defend its political agenda.

Republican legislators and local school districts

Republican state legislators and governors have exploited the Sandy Hook shootings  to advance state laws which will allow local school districts to arm school teachers and other employees. Rather than restoring school safety and security grant programs and other funding cut for school safety and emergency planning in recent years, their answer is to pass laws that will facilitate the NRA’s agenda and the legislators’ political beliefs.

Republican state legislators in several states have also responded to Sandy Hook and school security issues not by restoring cut programs or providing funding or programmatic support to local districts, but instead to propose state laws that allow local school districts to put levy or similar funding requests on the ballot to raise local taxes specifically for funding school security. This is an interesting move considering Republicans are anti-tax, but it is a slick way for state legislators to look like they are doing something to support school safety while in reality, they are dodging the task of providing any real resources for school safety at the state level.

At the local level, school district leaders will likely love this opportunity to lobby voters for more tax dollars under the guise of school security. In reality, they should tuck their heads in shame. Divide the amount of money schools spend on security into their overall operating budget or on a per-student basis, and you will find the number to be a pithy amount of their overall operating budgets.

The commitment of school boards and superintendents to school safety is reflected in their budgets, not their rhetoric.  Reasonable resources for safety, security, and preparedness should be a part of “doing business” and should be allocated in existing budgets rather than being dependent upon voters providing separate security-only levies.  Federal and state grant programs shsould be restored, but in the long run school leaders cannot continue to view school safety as a grant-funded luxury.

Gun control special interest groups, Democrats, and President Obama

The gun control special interests did not wait until the victims’ bodies were out of the Sandy Hook Elementary School crime scene before they started calling for new gun control laws. Along with their legislative supporters, primarily Democrats, they have exploited every opportunity to use Sandy Hook as a backdrop to advance new gun control proposals.

Even today, as the warrants from the Sandy Hook case were released to the public, President Obama staged a press event with the families from Newtown calling for gun control.

The President’s proposal released back in January is lame, at best. Prior to Sandy Hook, his Administration and Congress eliminated millions of dollars for school safety, security, prevention, and emergency preparedness, dismantling years of federal school safety policy and funding. His proposal after Sandy Hook, which has received little-to-no public push from him since he released it, is weak and underfunded. (Of course, the proposal only contained a few pages on school safety while the bulk of the 15 page document was on gun control anyway.)

Again, politicians and special interest groups with no expertise or experience in preK-12 school safety and security hijacking school safety for their political gain.

For school safety, a national embarrassment

Following the Columbine High School attack in 1999, Congress and President Clinton moved forward to institute programs and resources for school-based policing, prevention, safe schools mental health programs, school emergency preparedness and crisis planning, and other initiatives. State legislatures followed suit in many cases.

Following Sandy Hook, our nation’s political “leaders” and special interest groups have politically hijacked school safety to advance their own agendas. From the White House to Congress and state legislatures, our elected officials on both sides of the aisles have exploited the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings. The special interest groups and activists have also had no shame in hijacking school safety to advance their political agendas.

The end result: Nothing meaningful to advance school safety policy and funding.

The legacy of Sandy Hook in the school safety profession to date has been one of a national embarrassment. Will we continue to let the politicians and special interest groups get away with it?

Ken Trump

“The Department of Education and the Department of Justice say that  1,183,700 violent crimes were committed at American public schools  during the 2009-2010 school year, but that only 303,900 of these violent  crimes were reported to the police,” according to an April 23rd cnsnews.com story.

The story notes that by the government’s own estimates, more than 879,000 violent crimes in the 2009-2010 school year were not reported to police.

For two decades, I have been outspoken about the underreporting of school crimes. I testified to Congress on the issue in 2007 and again in 2009. I wrote an entire chapter on the topic of the “politicks” of school safety and underreporting in my newest book.

Critics and those in our profession who talk out of both sides of their mouths for years have suggested that talking about the underreporting of school crime is “alarmist” and that violent school crime is actually going down. While it is nice to see that some of them are changing their tunes (at least for today), the reality is this particular news story accentuates an old problem rather than discovering something groundbreaking.

But the interesting thing will be to see how the civil rights special interests, along with the Obama Administration officials who have distorted and skewed school safety policy and funding, try to reconcile the discrepancy of the higher number of overall violent crime versus the much smaller number of those violent crimes reported to police.

Even more interesting will be to watch how they will attempt to explain how so many violent school crimes go unreported to police yet, according to their rhetoric, there are more students being funneled into the “school-to-prison-pipeline” they have fabricated. If anything, the data presented in this news story suggests schools are covering up violence from the police — the exact opposite of what the civil rights activists, the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Justice all falsely claim is occurring.

Ken Trump

Visit School Security Blog at: www.schoolsecurityblog.com

Follow Ken on Twitter @safeschools

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The school district’s superintendent reportedly called the student’s behavior “violent and disruptive.” Police were quoted as saying the student was handcuffed for her safety and as a part of the standard police policy of handcuffing individuals transported to the police station.

Watch the police statement on the incident provided on Thursday:

I spoke with AP’s education reporter, Dorie Turner, who called me about the incident. Some points I raised with Dorie included:

• Occurrences like this are rare. For purposes of context, it is important for readers to know that school principals and police interact with elementary-aged students often across the country and in the vast majority of cases elementary students, especially kindergartners, are NOT handcuffed and arrested for misbehavior.
• When school officials call police for an elementary student, generally it is a “last resort” call after administrators have attempted to resolve the issue themselves. The exception is when there is a threat to the safety of an individual which may include the problem student.
• Police will restrain violent and aggressive individuals, including younger children, if the person poses a threat to his own safety or that of others. While handcuffing elementary-aged students is not something we like to see, in some cases it may be necessary for their safety.
• I hope that when we see such handcuffing, it is a last resort after other behavioral interventions have been attempted. I encourage school staff to receive training in verbal de-escalation techniques and non-violent crisis intervention. I also would like to see law enforcement officers receiving this type of training and specialized training for intervention with juvenile suspects.
• It is fair to question these incidents. Were other interventions attempted before handcuffing? Was the child (regardless of his or her age) posing a risk to his/her own safety or the safety of others? Were there other options at the time? These and other questions can be asked on a case-by-case basis.
• There is not a mass conspiracy in education to handcuff, arrest and punitively go after elementary-aged and other young children. If anything, educators tend to give kids the benefit of the doubt on discipline, sometimes in cases where there should be more firm consequences.
• A number of high-profile incidents like the one on Georgia does not automatically equate to a national trend or reflection of what occurs each day in most elementary (or other grade level) schools.
• We have seen over the past decade more and more cases of extremely aggressive and violent elementary-aged students, often in the lower elementary grade levels. When a kindergartner displays aggressive and violent behavior, and especially when it is chronic, is begs us to ask what the child has been exposed to outside of the school, what type of behavior problems existed and what is the history of such behaviors, if this is the first behavioral outburst seen in school and what behavior plans were in place if they were not, and other probing questions.
• My colleague, Chuck Hibbert, often says that an average experienced second grade teacher can recognize warning signs of potentially violent children. But what happens once they are identified? What intervention services exist in the school and in the community for the child?
• School discipline and student arrests have become politicized in the past couple years by civil rights and related special interest groups. There are social and political agendas behind a number of reports, “studies,” and other efforts by special interest groups who often exploit incidents like those in Georgia to create perceptions and news stories that advance their social and political agendas.

Unfortunately, none of the points I raised were included in the story. The story did, however, cite a civil rights attorney who is suing the Albuquerque, N.M., school district over student arrests and a report by the Texas Appleseed, an organization in Texas with a mission to “promote social and economic justice.”

The story certainly did not have to include my quotes. It would have been a better story, however, had it been balanced with some comments by independent school safety and education professionals with actual experience in preK-12 discipline and school safety issues to provide some deeper school-specific context.

The issue of aggressive and violent elementary-aged children, particularly at the lower grade levels, warrants greater awareness, discussion and action. School discipline and safety should not, however, be pawns of special interest groups with broader social and political agendas.

How does your local elementary school administration manage serious discipline incidents and aggressive, violent young students?

Ken Trump

Visit School Security Blog at: www.schoolsecurityblog.com

Follow Ken on Twitter @safeschools

Visit and “Like” Our Facebook Fan Page at: www.facebook.com/schoolsafety

The U.S. Department of Education, academic experts and school safety professionals spent over a decade preaching that the best chance of effectively addressing school safety is to have policy and programs comprehensive and balanced in their approach.  This means prevention-only or enforcement-only approaches are destined to fail.  Prevention, intervention, mental health, security, school-based policing, emergency preparedness, school climate, school discipline and other strategies collectively reflect such balance and comprehensiveness.

Although the “comprehensive and balanced” philosophy continues to be generally accepted in professional school safety circles, it did not stop the Obama Administration, Congress, special interest groups, state governments and others from destroying anything resembling  comprehensive and balanced school safety public policy and funding in 2011.

Some factors contributing to a “perfect storm”  climate that a number of school safety professionals believe has set back over a decade of progress made in professional school safety policy and funding include: 

• Obama Administration destroys the federal Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools:  Kevin Jennings, Obama’s Assistant Deputy Secretary for Safe and Drug Free Schools, finished off his two-year stint in the U.S. Department of Education by almost single-handedly destroying anything resembling a comprehensive and balanced approach the federal school safety public policy and funding.  Jennings, an Obama campaign-bundler and founder of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), publicly advocated almost exclusively for “anti-bullying” policy and funding.  School emergency planning, school security, school-based policing, drug prevention and other violence prevention efforts were either eliminated or marginalized to the point of total ineffectiveness with Jennings at the helm.  Jennings resigned mid-year and moved seamlessly into a CEO job at a national non-profit organization having political origins.  Bill Modzeleski, the long-time number two guy in the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools, retired from federal service after a decade in that office as what some privately described as the consummate bureaucratic “survivor” who followed the political winds of the day.  The Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools was eliminated weeks after Jennings left with the remaining programs tucked away under the Department’s Office of Elementary and Secondary Education where they continued the last few months of the year by putting out lame newsletters referencing other federal studies and programs, research reports, non-profit organization links and a periodic  reference to federal school nutrition and health programs. The Education Department attempted to spin the demise of this office by blaming Congress for cutting safe schools funds.
• Special interest groups intensified the politicizing of school safety by labeling gay rights special interest goals of creating federal and state laws enumerating the phrases “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” into a new protected civil rights class under the guise of “bullying.”  Simultaneous lobbying for federal “anti-bullying” laws and state-level laws have similar themes of protected class language, although federal efforts appear stalled due to the balance of power in Congress while state-level efforts have had mixed results. This “anti-bullying movement” or “safe schools movement” continues as we head into 2012.  Look for federal efforts to focus on slipping in language in the federal Elementary and Secondary Education (ESEA) Act reauthorization pending in Congress since the actual “anti-bullying” bills before Congress will likely go nowhere with the current Republican House majority.
• Civil rights special interest groups continued their assault against school-based police, school security and school discipline (suspensions and expulsions) by issuing multiple “studies” and “reports” from civil rights and liberal activist organizations.  Efforts continue behind-the-scenes to use these “studies” and “reports” to influence language in the federal ESEA Act mentioned earlier. 
• State education departments eliminated or dramatically downsized state-level school safety programs and funding.  The South Carolina Department of Education eliminated its state school safety office. Other state school safety centers or offices downsized their staff, programs, funding and/or influence.  A few state programs continue to surviveand thrive, such as the Indiana School Safety Specialist Academy in the Indiana Department of Education, but they are the exception and not the rule.
• School safety and prevention were first on the chopping block in local school district budget cuts.  2011 saw continued and intensified cuts of drug and violence prevention programs, mental health services, counselors, school security staff, school resource officer (SRO) programs, professional development training and similar school safety programs in local school districts.  Very early signs of the adverse impact of these cuts have already popped up in scattered areas.

Penny-wise but pound-foolish school safety budget cuts will likely continue into 2012 barring a major national catastrophic school safety incident with shortwaves reaching into local schools nationwide.  The politicizing of school safety will unquestionably continue, especially given the Obama Administration’s political courting of civil rights, gay rights and related special interest groups. 

Veteran school safety professional agree that it will take a long-time to undo the damages done to school safety public policy and funding leading up to and through 2011. 

Fortunately, at ground level we still have many school safety professionals advocating for truly balanced, comprehensive and professional school safety programs and strategies. Unfortunately, their backs are against the wall and they are fighting an uphill battle. They need our support, even if it is just moral support, now more than ever.

Ken Trump

Visit School Security Blog at: www.schoolsecurityblog.com

Follow Ken on Twitter @safeschools

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Well here’s some news, my friends: While the Lion King movie may suggest otherwise, the world is not Hakuna Matata (“no worries”).  It never has been.  It sure isn’t now.  And it never will be.

Oh my.  I’ve just destroyed the fantasy.  I must be evil.  This message just couldn’t be coming from a school safety advocate.

It is coming from a school safety advocate.  One who wants peaceful, safe and orderly schools.  But I also want kids to be raised in reality, not taught falsely that the government (including schools) can force people to be nice and even criminalize their “bullying” behaviors.

Many of those behind the anti-bullying movement are well-intended. But their premise is ill-conceived.  We should teach kids that certain behaviors are appropriate for certain settings, that some behaviors are inappropriate for all settings, and that there are consequences for inappropriate behaviors when they occur.

But as psychologist Izzy Kalman points out in his article, “How to Create Utopian Schools“:

“Anti-bully activists want children to be schooled in a completely safe environment in which everyone is always nice to them. They want kids to be free from fear that anyone will ever insult them, talk about them behind their back, notice their imperfections, exclude them from a group, laugh at them when they say something stupid, lay an unwanted hand on them, draw an unflattering picture of them or write something nasty about them on the Internet. Perhaps the reason the anti-bully activists don’t announce that their goal is Utopia is that such a goal sounds unrealistic and unachievable.”

Kalman argues that in a truly Utopian society, people would create peace and harmony by promotion of wisdom and actions based on solid moral principles, aka: The Golden Rule.

I recently stumbled on Kalman’s column entitled A Psychological Solution to Bullying on Psychology Today’s web site.  I encourage you to read his series of articles.  He refreshingly brings to life many common sense, valid points that most activists on the bullying bandwagon won’t want to hear.

As a parent and as a school safety professional, I want to see kids taught the truth that the world is not perfect, everyone will not get along, and we all need to have the skills to function in a peaceful, respectful and non-violent way when people are mean, ugly bullies.  It happens in schools.  It happens in the workplace.  It happens in the Congress and White House.

To think that we can create Utopia is unrealistic.  To falsely teach kids that we can do so sets them up for failure by sending them out into the real world with false hopes and no coping skills.  This is perhaps the biggest act of cruelty anyone can perform.

Ken Trump

Visit School Security Blog at:  www.schoolsecurityblog.com

Follow Ken on Twitter @safeschools

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You get labeled as an “anti-gay conservative,” called a “right wing bullying group,” and put on a “right wing watch” listserv email, at least by one group publicly portraying itself as a safe schools coalition.

Anti-bullying / gay rights listserv email inaccurately labels policy opposition

In a March 18, 2011, email attributed to Ryan Schwartz at hummingbirdink.com, School Security Blog and Ken Trump are inaccurately (and perhaps libellously) described under “right wing bullying groups” and aligned as ”anti-gay conservative.” Schwartz’s  web site describes his company as a communications agency that “passionately helps progressive activists tell their stories and create change.”

The listserv email, apparently available to subscribers who want to follow “RIGHT WING WATCH,” states:

This doesn’t set well with many anti-bullying, civil rights, and other political activists and advocates lobbying for state and federal laws.  But what is popular is not always right and what is right is not always popular.

A recent Plain Dealer newspaper article (CSU symposium attendees seek cyberbullying answers) highlights a Cleveland gathering in which State Senator Joe Schiavoni proposes more laws as a solution for bullying.  But while more anti-bullying laws may feel good, they don’t help school administrators on the front lines.

Today the Plain Dealer published my response, Legislation won’t stop bullying, online or otherwise:

State Sen. Joe Schiavoni appears well-intended with his proposed cyberbullying legislation, but his approach misses the mark (“CSU symposium attendees seek cyberbullying answers,” Saturday).

Cyberbullying is a legitimate and challenging issue. Victims are repeatedly abused with mass exposure beyond the one-on-one or small-group embarrassment of in-person bullying.

State and federal anti-bullying laws are unnecessary and ineffective. They provide vaguely defined terms leading to more lawsuits than solutions. And they provide unfunded mandates forcing educators to spend more time with paperwork than kids.

Parents and educators have the most important tools that legislation cannot deliver: Education and supervision. Adults must educate themselves about the tools kids are using and provide appropriate supervision and guidance.

They must also educate their kids about the good, bad and ugly sides of social networking, as well as safe and appropriate use of today’s helpful but sometimes risky technology.

New laws cannot force education and supervision, but good parenting and educating can.

Kenneth S. Trump, Cleveland

Trump is the president of National School Safety and Security Services, a Cleveland-based national school safety consulting firm.

What say you?

Ken Trump

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

Follow Ken on Twitter @safeschools

Special interest activist groups part of invitation-only federal bullying summit

For the second time in less than a year, participants included an invitation-only group of what one gay rights advocacy group described as:

“…a mix of student activists and supportive adults — many of whom came to learn from the experiences of youth and experts, like GSA Network, on how they can make it better for young people.”

The GSA Network (Gay-Straight Alliance Network) is one of a number of  invitation-only special interest groups writing and tweeting about their involvement at this week’s federal summit orchestrated by the U.S. Departments of Education, Justice, and Health & Human Services:

• Gay-Straight Alliance Network:  Every Tool They’ve Got: A Recap of the 2nd Federal Partners in Bullying Prevention Summit
• Gay, Lesbian, & Straight Education Network (GLSEN): Whose executive director Eliza Byard messaged on Twitter:  @glsen partners w/OCR, DoJ and supporting agencies on anti-harassment prevention, enforcement and compliance monitoring. #edbullyingsummit  [The conference hashtag was actually #edbullysummit]

While the public agenda itself appears to be the typical bland federal conference held at a Washington DC hotel and organized by another beltway conference consultant contractor, it is the “agenda behind the agenda” that is often the bigger story.  Although a number of education organizations were also reportedly in attendance, the list of attendees less publicized by the feds can be equally — if not more — interesting.

At President Obama’s White House Summit on Bullying in the Fall of 2010, the White House refused to release a list of attendees in spite of multiple requests to their press office.  I was still able to put together from open online records an interesting list of participants that suggested the summit was as much (if not more) a gay rights and civil rights event as it was an event on bullying.

Obama Administration politicizes school safety & bullying, panders to political base

This week’s second federal bullying summit continued to reflect the Obama Administration’s politicizing of school safety by pandering to its political special interest base under the guise of bullying.  It also reflected the political efforts to enact into law new federal civil rights protections under the label of bullying :

• Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ opening remarks emphasized several references to LGBT bullying.
• Education Department Secretary Arne Duncan’s speech includes multiple references to his department’s reframing of bullying as a federal civil rights issue and his issuance of official federal support for Gay Straight Alliance groups in schools.
• Thursday session opening keynote by Congresswoman Linda T. Sanchez of California who continues to push her Safe Schools Improvement Act proposed federal anti-bullying law which would enumerate into federal law civil rights protections for sexual orientation and gender identification. [See more on this act in my September 7, 2010, blog post.]  As noted by the GSA Network attendee, ”This federal anti-bullying bill specifically includes protections for LGBTQ youth who are targeted at schools.”

One theme repeated in a number of this week’s summit reflections is an effort underway to get the federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to create a standard common federal definition of bullying.  One has to wonder if the special interest groups are not focusing hard on influencing this official federal definition, and the subsequent federal data collection, for this new CDC bullying definition.

Federal dollars awarded to gay rights special interest group that is partner in federal bullying partnership summits

The Obama Administration is also pushing out federal dollars to at least one special interest group that is a partner in the federal bullying partnership summit.

The Gay, Lesbian, & Straight Education Network (GLSEN), which was founded and directed by Obama’s now-former Assistant Deputy Secretary for Safe and Drug Free Schools Kevin Jennings, announced in June of 2011 that the CDC’s  Department of Adolescent and School Health (DASH) has awarded GLSEN up to the maximum of $285,000 per year for each of five years:

“…to increase the percentage of schools that identify and maintain “safe spaces” for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth. During the five-year project, GLSEN will partner with 20 targeted school districts across the country, including the 16 DASH-funded districts, to implement a comprehensive evidence-based program to help keep LBGT students safe and healthy.

The CDC’s grant will allow GLSEN to partner with each district to establish sustainable safe space infrastructure by creating internal Implementation Teams, delivering multi-day Train the Trainer (TOT) programs based on GLSEN’s Safe Space Kit, providing guidance, information and resources to assist in effecting policy enhancements, and increasing collaboration and knowledge sharing among stakeholders within and across states and school districts.”

Details on GLSEN’s first grant contract of over $285,000 are online at USASpending.gov.

Obama Administration using “every tool in their arsenal” including Justice Department investigation of local school districts

The GSA Network attendee at last week’s federal bullying summit reinforces how the Obama Administration is masking a “civil rights movement” under the guise of bullying, and enacting via federal policy what its special interest groups and political base cannot enact into law:

“The summit drew to a close with remarks from the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, Tom Perez. Mr. Perez reminded us that civil rights movements are about persistence and that President of the United States and his agencies are going to “use every tool in their arsenal to fight bullying.” He added that the Department of Justice is eager to learn from us on what they can do to end bullying and encouraged anyone with ideas to contact him directly at Tom.Perez@usdoj.gov.

Finally, we reviewed the long way we’ve come in the last year, including launching investigations into school districts who do not adequately handle bullying and harassment of LGBTQ youth and other young people. If you feel your school or school district is ignoring bullying at your school, we encourage you to file a
complaint with the Justice Department.”

This begs a number of questions including: At what point does a local school discipline issue suddenly become a federal Justice Department investigation target? Who decides? Is it driven by special interest advocacy groups like this one who push people to file complaints and DOJ responds to appease them for political reasons, making school districts pawns in a broader federal political scheme?

Skewed federal school safety policy and funding is dangerous and unprecedented

I was never a huge fan of the Bush Administration’s lack of resources for school safety.  But they at least kept federal school safety policy and funding framed in a more comprehensive and balanced approach.  The Obama Administration has politicized and skewed federal school safety policy and funding in a dangerously imbalanced and unprecedented manner.

For a deeper look, see my blog postings over the past year on bullying and civil rights and school safety.

What say you?

Ken Trump

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

Follow Ken on Twitter @safeschools

Police officers who work in schools, commonly known as School Resource Officers (SROs), generally perform more as prevention programs where officers prevent  incidents versus taking on a ”cuff’n'stuff” role with the intent of increasing student arrests.

That’s not stopping civil rights and other special interest groups to claim, as was done in this suburban Cleveland news article, that “Stories abound of ever-younger children being pulled out of the classroom for seemingly minor infractions, only to end up with a criminal record from a young age.” (ACLU says police respond to schools too often)

Two recent news stories highlight school-based police officers in a much more accurate and positive light than do a number of other recent articles, books, and other politically-driven attacks upon police in schools:

• Study says officers help deter crime in schools:  A research study in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, concluded that school resource officers are effective.  The study found it normal for reported crimes to increase after officers are placed inside schools.  The university professor leading the study said it does not necessarily mean more crimes are being committed, but that officers are reporting offenses that might have otherwise gone unreported.
• Wake survey praises having armed officers in schools.  In Raleigh, North Carolina, school administrators praised the effectiveness of armed officers in their schools.  Survey data of school administrators showed “strong support” from middle and high school principals for the SRO program. School officials presented data showing a 54% drop in violent incidents in the district’s middle and high schools over the past six years.

These findings are consistent with my surveys of SROs back to 2001.

The findings are also consistent with my first-hand work with SROs across the country.

It is time to call out the civil rights activists who continue to hi-jack school safety to further their social and political agendas.  As we peel back the layers of some recent reports, books, and news stories, you may be surprised to see who is behind these publications and the biases these individuals and organizations bring to the table.

Stay tuned for more on the latest political assault upon school safety!

Ken Trump

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

That’s the analysis in a recent Washington Times article entitled, “DOJ to white male bullying victims: Tough luck.”

The article quotes the Department of Justice’s web site which says:

The Civil Rights Division and the entire Justice Department are committed to ending bullying and harassment in schools, and the video highlights the Department’s authority to enforce federal laws that protect students from discrimination and harassment at school because of their race, national origin, disability, religion, and sex, including harassment based on nonconformity with gender stereotypes.

But the Justice Department will only investigate bullying if the victim is in a protected class covered by federal civil rights legislation.  This means discrimination based on the victim’s race, color, religion, or sex.

The Washington Times article notes that if the victim is a white male who is verbally and/or physically harassed because he is overweight, this victim is out of luck in getting federal intervention under what many are calling an overreaching federal government role in local school bullying issues.

According to the article, a Justice Department spokesperson more or less confirmed this analysis to be accurate, noting in an email that they, “…can only take action where we have legal authority.”  The spokesperson went on to reference civil rights laws as their source of authority used to intervene in local bullying cases. 

The article goes on to cite other exempt scenarios, such as a straight black male bully whose target is another straight black male, or two female students of the same sexual orientation and race.

The article asks if this means in the eyes of the Obama Administration’s Justice and Education Departments, certain student bullying victims are of lesser value than others.

This is an interesting analysis and, quite frankly, one I had not considered. It seems to be accurate, though.  And it reinforces what I have increasingly reported: That the current federal anti-bullying campaign is largely a civil rights agenda disguised as bullying.

What say you?

Ken Trump

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