No one knows if Colorado programs are making schools safer, state auditor reports

No one is checking whether Colorado’s school safety programs are making students safer, and it’s possible that some schools are getting duplicate programs while others are being left out, according to a new report from the state auditor released Wednesday.

Lawmakers on an interim committee examining school safety heard a similar message in July from police and public health officials, who said some programs were working well but used inconsistently. The committee was set up in response to the May 7 shooting at STEM School Highlands Ranch that left one student dead and eight wounded.

State spending on school safety varies widely from year to year. Colorado spent about $19 million in budget year 2017-18 and $55.6 million in budget year 2018-19 and is on track to spend about $29.2 million in the current budget year. Grants to improve school climate will get the largest share of this year’s spending.

The auditors examined 12 programs, including the state’s Safe2Tell tip line, training resources from the Colorado School Safety Resource Center and grants for physical security, emergency preparedness and improving school climate. The programs are spread across four state departments, which sometimes work together to maximize their impact but sometimes offer duplicate programs or contradictory information, the report said.

“The decentralized patchwork of programming may create a risk for duplicated efforts, gaps in services and challenges in determining the overall impact of the state’s programs,” the auditors wrote.

In a letter responding to the audit’s findings, Attorney General Phil Weiser said

Safe2Tell previously gave training sessions that could overlap with other agencies’ efforts, but it recently narrowed its focus.

“Today, in contrast, we focus our trainings exclusively on the use of Safe2Tell as a tool — how to promote it and deploy it to keep our schools safe,” Weiser wrote.

Colorado requires school administrators to develop safety plans, to share certain student information if they believe there is a safety risk and to work with law enforcement and social services agencies to create a safe environment. Districts have to report if their schools are complying with those requirements, but no one at the state level is tasked with checking if their plans are sufficient.

Because districts must seek out training or resources, it’s also possible that areas with substantial need aren’t being served, the report said.

“The state’s approach to school safety policy has generally been to place some requirements on school districts to develop their own school safety policies and then to offer a patchwork of programs and resources to schools that wish to participate,” the auditors wrote.

The report also raised the issue that no one is assessing whether the state’s efforts are effective. It noted that the Colorado School Safety Resource Center was supposed to collect that information, but hasn’t done so.

Stan Hilkey, executive director of Colorado Department of Public Safety, said the resource center has evaluated various tools and programs, so schools have information about what works well, but it doesn’t have the resources to study whether the state’s overall approach is effective.

The auditors also suggested the resource center’s data could be misleading, because it reports all calls and meetings staffers participate in, not just those that involve advising schools. Christine Harms, director of the resource center, said staffers thought lawmakers and others would be interested in their total workload, but they will present it differently in future reports.

“Moving forward, we will incorporate the feedback from the (auditors) and will break out this data to distinguish between contacts with schools versus other contacts,” she said.

The auditors found some cases in which different agencies worked well together. The Colorado Department of Education and the Department of Public Safety communicate about their grant applications, so they wouldn’t accidentally fund the same projects, and the public safety department works with the Department of Law to coordinate responses to Safe2Tell tips.

Safe2Tell was the mostutilized program, with 78% of districts reporting they used it in recent years. Technical training was the second-most-common program used, followed by school climate grants. It wasn’t totally clear how many districts used training resources, however, because the auditors had data only about schools that requested in-person training.

The audit found 93% of school districts used at least one state school safety program. All of the districts that didn’t participate were in more rural parts of the state. Only 13 districts used six or more of the available programs, and none used all.

Jill Hunsaker Ryan, executive director of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, which administers suicide prevention grants, said the audit reflected the department’s financial constraints. The suicide prevention grant program has about $400,000 to work with each year, which isn’t enough to reach all districts that could use help, she said in a response letter.

“With additional (full-time employees) and funding, the Office of Suicide Prevention would be able to provide greater resources and technical assistance to stakeholders, as well as conduct formal evaluation efforts across these grantees,” she said.