The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Newtown parent’s efforts get recognition in Trump report
WASHINGTON — Scarlett Lewis, whose son Jesse was one of the 20 children killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting, won recognition of her campaign for “social and emotional learning” in the Trump administration’s much-anticipated school safety report released Tuesday.
“I want to thank you for your courage,” Lewis told President Donald Trump at a meeting in the Roosevelt Room at the White House on Tuesday. “You really listened.”
Lewis was among five family members at the meeting who lost loved ones either at Sandy Hook or earlier this year at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. J.T. Lewis, 18, a University of Connecticut freshman and older brother of Jesse, also attended.
“We are profoundly grateful to all of the families that are working with us to help prevent others from suffering the same terrible heartache and tragedy,” President Donald Trump told the families, plus Parkland survivor Carson Abt.
The group gathered to mark release of the 180-page report of Trump’s Federal Commission on School Safety, headed by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.
The report included a list of remedies for school violence from the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement to rolling back some Obama-era rules to banning so-called bumpstocks to arming teachers. Some of the recommendations were hailed, others panned.
Connecticut lawmakers and most gun-violence-prevention advocates have questioned the wisdom of arming teachers as a solution to school attacks.
“I want to thank you for your courage. You really listened.”
Scarlett Lewis, mother of Sandy Hook shooting victim Jesse Lewis, to President Donald Trump
“Teachers don’t want this, parents don’t want this,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., in a statement after the meeting. “Only Betsy DeVos, President (Donald) Trump and the gun industry think the best way to stop a school shooting is to load schools up with guns.”
“Civil rights guidelines that protect children of color from discrimination don’t cause school shootings,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., in a statement. “Guns do. Forcing educators to carry firearms won’t save lives. Keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous people will.”
The report incorporated virtually all of the recommendations put forward by Lewis and the project she started in the aftermath of the Newtown shooting: The Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement.
Lewis has been a tireless promoter nationwide of the movement’s no-cost enrichment program, which aims to help students “become connected, resilient and empowered individuals.”
It essentially incorporates emotional mental health awareness into the school curriculum, Lewis said. She cited research that is incorporated into the report: Social and Emotional Learning, or SEL, as it’s known, “can lead to improved outcomes for educational attainment, employment and earnings.”
Emotional training at an early age “can also lead to a significant decrease in the likelihood of crime and delinquency, substance use, antisocial behavioral conditions, aggression and violent behavior,” the report said.
“I thought it was a good meeting,” Scarlett Lewis said afterward. “It was a great first step. The next step is implementation, which is equally important.”
The report endorsed the concept of risk-prevention orders, a form of which Connecticut has had on the books since 1999. The orders enable family members and others to petition courts and obtain warrants that temporarily take firearms away from individuals when evidence exists they present a danger to themselves or others.
Separately, Trump announced the Justice Department had promulgated a final rule banning so-called bumpstocks — devices that turn semi-automatic singletrigger-pull rifles into rapid-fire machine guns. The mass killing in Las Vegas last year resulting in 58 deaths involved a shooter using a bumpstock device.
Tuesday’s report contained several controversial items, including a proposed rollback of President Barack Obama’s school disciplinary guidelines based on “disparate impact” — seemingly neutral rules that affect minorities disproportionately more than whites.
“Where well-meaning but flawed policies endanger student safety, they must be changed,” the report said.
Its most controversial recommendation, however, was arming teachers in schools — provided they have training or are willing to undergo it.
“This is critical to the hardening of our schools against attacks,” Trump said at the meeting. “They truly love their students.”
Scarlett Lewis said her focus has been on emotional training, not the gun issue. But, she added, “it should be up to individual teachers and what they’re comfortable with.”
She said, “I think it’s important to provide a safe haven for students.”