Help Center for Safe Schools Understand Your Bullying Prevention Needs
As we shared during Bullying Prevention Month in October, approximately 17% of Pennsylvania students are impacted by bullying. Center for Safe Schools has developed a short (less than two minutes) survey to better understand bullying prevention program needs. There is also an opportunity to request additional bullying prevention resources.
In Oregon, the Court of Appeals of Oregon ruled that Oregon law required the reversal of dismissed claims brought by paraeducators who worked in special education classrooms within the Portland Public Schools. The paraeducators claimed that, “they repeatedly and regularly were subjected to physical assaults, and in some instances sexual assaults, by students, but, despite complaints and entreaties… (that school officials) failed to correct or ameliorate their working conditions.” The appellate court ruled that the trial court erred when it dismissed claims for battery, hostile work environment and disability discrimination. “(The) public school district was directly liable for alleged batteries committed by students, where allegations included that district knew that students were physically aggressive or violent and committing battery against paraeducators… had authority… but failed to take any corrective action.” The work environment could be found to be hostile at trial because (the), “abuse was offensive and interfered with paraeducators’ work, safety, and wellbeing, (and) that…paraeducators (were a) protected class, specifically that they were female.” The failure of the school officials to take appropriate action “was outside scope of their employment… precluding substitution of (the school) district as sole defendant.” Moore v. Portland Public Schools.
In South Dakota, the superintendent for the Rapid City Area Schools says that “more safety measures in Rapid City schools would be forthcoming. Specifically, a gun incident, in which a deployed police officer “made the call…did the body search and found the weapon,” will provide the emphasis for a change in policy. The new policy will seek funding to add weapon detection equipment in the schools.
In Colorado, officials in the Douglas County School District are adding therapy dogs to the school safety team. After receiving a multi-discipline therapy K-9 certification, the new policy will partner therapy dogs with school resource officers. Training will be provided “on ways to provide emotional support.”
In Michigan, “(m)issteps and failures by Oxford Community School's former superintendent and two former members of his cabinet snowballed to allow the Oxford High School shooter to slip through the school's threat assessment and suicide intervention systems and carry out Michigan's worst school shooting, according to a 572-page report” issued by a team of investigators from Guidepost Solutions.
(All shootings occurred outside of the school building)
So far this year, there have been 304 school shootings with 35 incidents happening in October 2023. The graph above continues the trend of the last 300 shootings, where the most frequent locations of the incident are either the parking lot or in front of the school building.
Westfield High School students used artificial intelligence to generate fake pornographic images of classmates from real photos over the summer, officials confirmed Thursday.
Westfield school officials said they believe the images have since been deleted and are not being circulated.
The photos were called to the attention of the district by students on Oct. 20, Westfield High School Principal Mary Asfendis said in a letter to the community shared with NJ Advance Media.
A district spokeswoman declined to say how many images were produced or if any students have been punished, saying “matters involving students are confidential.” The students involved have been notified, though, according to the principal’s letter.
Seven students from the same high school in Loudoun, Virginia, overdosed in the past three weeks, according to the county sheriff's office Tuesday.
"The Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office is investigating at least eight opioid-related overdoses of Park View High School students, seven of which have been reported in the past three weeks," the sheriff's office said in a press release. "Four of the overdoses occurred in the school, and of these, three required the administration of Narcan, and two of those required CPR by school personnel."
The sheriff’s office added that "All the overdoses appear to involve fentanyl, which is commonly found in the form of a counterfeit 30 mg oxycodone pill that is blue, circular, and may be stamped ‘M30.’"
WILL COUNTY - Safety concerns are mounting after a classroom ceiling at Lockport Township High School's Central Campus building in Will County caved in early Thursday morning. Parents are now demanding answers and seeking assurances about the well-being of their children.
Fortunately, the incident occurred before any students or staff were inside the building, but the collapse of a third-floor classroom ceiling has raised questions about the structural integrity of the school. In response, all classes at the affected building were canceled for the day.
Join us for this year's Law Enforcement Summit! We’ll share how Snapchat works to support law enforcement, best practices for communicating with us, key privacy and safety features, a Q&A session, and more.
Attend EMPOWER 2023, Dec. 7-9, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to learn strategies to leverage afterschool programming to meet school school climate goals. Sessions address topics such as social and emotional learning, strategic leadership and advocacy, and elements of a high-quality afterschool program.
The 16th Annual Gangs & Guns Training Symposium covers a variety of topics focused on prevention, intervention, and enforcement strategies that are applicable to all communities. This Symposium is for educators, law enforcement, multidisciplinary teams and community partners working with youth and gang prevention/intervention.
Resources
A comprehensive resource on what lockdown drills are, why they are necessary, and how best to conduct them.
The first book to offer a comprehensive examination of lockdown drills in K–12 schools, "Lockdown Drills" balances research findings with practical applications and implications. Schildkraut and Nickerson, school safety experts with complementary backgrounds in criminology and school psychology, review the historical precedents for lockdown drills, distinguish school lockdowns from other emergency procedures (such as active shooter drills), explain why they are conducted, present evidence-based research on their effectiveness, and describe how to conduct them according to best practices. Proponents of lockdown drills as a life-saving necessity, the authors help to bring much-needed standardization to how these drills are studied and conducted.
Thank you,
Joey Melvin
Director
Center for Safe Schools
Visit CSS website for more about our services, and resources.
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