Springdale hosts school safety summit
SPRINGDALE — School administrators, counselors and law enforcement professionals from across the state discussed ways to protect students and the community, during the inaugural Regional School Safety Summit on Tuesday.
About 120 professionals from 26 school districts attended the free event, hosted by the Springdale School District at the Tyson School of Innovation. The summit focused on school safety best practices and mental and behavioral health resources. Breakout sessions included topics such as vaping prevention, school law, cybersecurity, anonymous reporting, safety procedures and human trafficking.
“Our goal for this summit is to learn and grow from the collective experiences of other school staff,” said Damon Donnell, Springdale Public Schools student services director.
Donnell said the district began planning the safety summit in early May, before the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that killed 19 students and two teachers May 24.
Keynote speaker Cheryl P. May, director of the Criminal Justice Institute for the University of Arkansas System, challenged school officials and law enforcement professionals to make sure nothing similar happens in Arkansas.
The state formed a Safe Schools Commission in 2018, and the commission developed 30 recommendations for districts, May said. Eight months later, the commission followed up with assessments to see how the recommendations were being implemented, she said.
After reviewing the results with Gov. Asa Hutchinson and his staff, the commission started talking about the gaps, she said. Four laws were passed during the 2021 legislative session: Acts 551, 620, 622 and 648 — strengthening requirements for safety measures, she said.
Act 620 and 648 require, among other things, all school counselors to complete training in Youth Mental Health First Aid every four years, May said. She recommended school resource officers, school staff members and community members also complete training in the program, which is designed to help adults respond to students facing a mental health crisis.
The commission also recommends all school districts establish a behavioral threat assessment team consisting of administrators, school counselors and school resource officers, May said. The team should develop a process for determining when threats are credible and how to handle them, she said.
According to the recommendations, each campus should have at least one school resource officer, May said. The number of school resource officers in the state has grown from 325 in 2018 to 460, she said.
Another key recommendation is that each district should have a comprehensive school safety assessment every three years, including an evaluation of the school culture and climate, May said. Administrators should make sure they discuss what worked and what didn’t work after emergency drills, she said. She added she would like to see the state establish a standardized procedure for emergency drills.
Schools should implement and expand strategies to encourage anonymous reporting of threats, May said. The commission’s assessment found 45% of schools in the state have an anonymous reporting system, but only 28% have a behavioral threat assessment team, she said. In states that do statewide reporting systems, 80% of the calls concern self-harm, so having mental health professionals available to help students is essential, she said.
May also discussed physical security priorities outlined in the recommendations, such as controlling access to school buildings during school hours, requiring visitors to sign in and wear badges, equipping classroom doors so they can be locked from the inside, and having bullet-resistant glass and walls in reception areas.
Donnell said he hopes to build a culture of safety in Springdale where students, staff and community members want to say something or report anonymously if they see something concerning.
“I hope that parents know that safety is on our mind 24 hours a day,” he said.