Communities Improving School Safety through Collaboration
School safety encompasses a number of issues, such as student mental health, peer-to-peer interactions and bullying, and the physical safety of students while they are at school. Gates County is one of three rural counties (including Duplin and Stanly) partnering with RTI International on their All Hands on Deck program. Henderson County partners implemented a new safety plan to enhance both the physical safety of students in the schools and their mental and emotional health.
The Problem
Students and their parents express concerns about safety measures within schools. School safety encompasses a number of issues, such as student mental health, peer-to-peer interactions and bullying, and the physical safety of students while they are at school. In 2019, one third of high school students reported depression-related symptoms, a 40% increase from 2009 and a rate that likely climbed higher with the stress and anxiety related to the COVID-19 pandemic. A study from 2007 found that 33% of elementary students reported feeling bullied at school. Anecdotally, many veteran teachers observe increased instances of bullying in classrooms, hallways, and playgrounds.
Threats to the physical safety of students have been on the rise with a record 66 school shootings during the 2018-19 school year nationally. There are nearly 150,000 public and private schools across the nation, but the possibility of a shooting weighs heavy on the minds of students. The Pew Research Center found that 57% of students have reported feeling “very or somewhat worried” about a shooting occurring at their school, with 63% of parents with school-aged children echoing their concerns.
The Solution
Henderson County implemented a new safety plan across its 23 schools. The plan, which includes a partnership with local county law enforcement and schools, seeks to enhance both the physical safety of students in the schools and their mental and emotional health. Physical safety begins with the retrofitting of schools. New safety vestibules are added to primary school entrances, where school staff are able to screen potential visitors to the school before they are admitted. Special decorative window film is also added to classroom windows to prevent those outside the school from seeing what or who is inside.
For the mental and emotional health aspect of school safety, officials partner with Henderson County Sheriff’s Department and Hendersonville Police Department to provide additional support and mentorship for students. County officials noted that the number of student hospitalizations for mental health crises rose in recent years, and the focus of School Resource Officers (SROs) building relationships with students is one part of decreasing those occurrences. SROs like Joreeca Dinnall, recently named North Carolina’s SRO of the year in 2021, see the primary goal of their job as building relationships with students and providing them with a good role model. The Handle with Care program ensures that law enforcement who encounter a child in a traumatic event alert that child’s school so that additional support and resources can be provided, as necessary.
The Players
Other partnerships across the state seek to help students feel safer in school environments. Gates County is one of three rural counties (including Duplin and Stanly) partnering with RTI International on their All Hands on Deck (AHD) program. The goal of the program is to familiarize teachers and school staff with social and emotional learning practices in order to mitigate safety and behavioral issues.
The program works by focusing on strengthening relationships between students and faculty and staff, identifying harmful behaviors and actions, and practicing de-escalation strategies. Rather than focusing on the aftermath of incidents and supporting students then, AHD promotes the proactive identification of potentially harmful behaviors and looks to address them before they start. Teachers often observe students by detecting changes in behaviors and reaching out to make sure everything is okay, but this training focuses that natural ability and gives them more resources and tools to help the students.
The Promise
At the heart of the work in Henderson County and Gates County are strong, local partnerships. Henderson County school officials and SROs are mindful that students may have a challenging time at home, so they seek to provide positive adult role models in schools. The relationship between these two groups, as well as their relationships with students make school safety enhancements possible. Officials are hopeful that other counties and school districts across the state will follow their lead in making schools a safer environment for students.
Similarly, the partnerships between Gates County teachers and RTI International and relationships between teachers and students led to a reduction in behavioral problems in the county. Being a small, rural county, community networks are strong and provide an important means to address behavioral issues. School officials, many of whom are native to the area, know students and parents outside the schools and are often able to more quickly understand where behavioral issues may be coming from and work to help resolve them.