Proactive Approach Needed to Ensure School Safety

The recently held forum on school safety by Newsday fell short of providing a comprehensive discussion on violence in our schools. The panel for this forum consisted of the Nassau and Suffolk County Police Commissioners, politicians and gun control advocates without any school safety experts, teachers, school administrators or school board members. As a former school board member, police officer, school security director and adjunct professor of criminal justice, I consider myself an expert in school safety and security and found this panel discussion severely limited in scope. The discussions centered around police response and gun control. Although these topics are indeed important, protecting our children from violence requires a proactive approach.

There is no greater concern than the safety of our children. We live in a new reality of school shootings, terrorism, all forms of bullying, and gang violence. In most cases of school violence the root of the problem grows from within. That is, most violence occurs from our own students and/or former students. In almost every school tragedy, the signs were there but these signs were either ignored or not recognized as potential signs of violence. I believe each school needs a critical assessment official that would function as a fusion center for information gathered from social media, students, staff, parents and the police. That information would be shared with appropriate personnel, like school psychologists, for intervention strategies. Additionally, a new police notification law should be enacted. Currently there is no law in NYS mandating the police to notify the school when an arrest for a violent crime or gang related behavior is committed by a student outside of the school environment.