All about teamwork

Behavioral assessment teams could help

Here in Northwest Arkansas, faithful readers have seen a lot about programs advocates for judicial reform advance to reduce demand for jail space, particularly in Benton and Washington counties. Those programming ideas center around a common theme: The more jail and courts officials gain insight into the reasons behind criminal behaviors, the more likely they can help people steer clear of repeating those behaviors.

A similar philosophy informs an approach suggested by the Arkansas School Safety Commission, which was revived by Gov. Asa Hutchinson in June not long after several mass shootings across the country, including the May 24 Uvalde, Texas, attack that left 19 children and two teachers dead.

Behavioral threat assessment teams operating within the state’s school districts may be key, commission officials say, to thwarting an attack that would put Arkansas back on the list of states again mourning tragic deaths of children and educators.

Arkansas has been on that list before. In 1998, two kids, ages 13 and 11, opened fire on Westside Middle School near Jonesboro, killing four students and one teacher. Ten others were injured. Relevant to today’s topic is this: A student in the school told a teacher who the shooter likely was. It turned out he was correct. How did he know? The shooter had told him the day before that he shouldn’t come to school the next day.

People who shoot up schools rarely do it without signaling their intentions in some way. True, it’s often difficult in advance of a violent act to connect the dots that would provide some forewarning. Why is that? Well, most of us don’t walk around thinking anyone we know is capable of such horrible acts. Even when there is evidence that something’s wrong, we simply cannot imagine it being revealed in a murderous spree.

That’s where a behavioral threat assessment team comes in. They are designed to assess and manage potential threats using methods employed by the U.S. Secret Service to protect the president and prevent terrorist attacks. A 2018 report by the School Safety Commission recommended development of the teams across the state. They would consist of a school administrator, a respected member of the faculty or administration, a school resource officer or other law enforcement assigned to the school, a mental health professional, a school counselor, coach or teacher and an ad hoc member who is familiar with the student.

These teams can collect information after a concern has been identified and assess it against the knowledge gained from previous school shooters. Without an identified team, critical information may become known to someone in the school, but never coordinated with information others have about the student or individual involved.

Is this too much for schools to take on? Only if there’s a limit to what schools should do to prevent an attack.

Here’s the rub, though: Last week, Cheryl May, chair of the Arkansas School Safety Commission and director of the University of Arkansas’ Criminal Justice Institute, said in the four years since the commission’s first report, about a quarter of all school districts in the state have put threat assessment teams in place.

As much as we hear arguments from people who don’t want gun restrictions that the solution is mental health or “hardening” the schools with security features, it would seem a behavioral threat assessment team would be high on the list of things to get done.

In last week’s coverage in this paper, educators raised questions about student privacy and the federal laws designed to protect it. Those laws do some good, but they also help create a lack of action. Any reading of such laws that prevent teachers or administrators from taking steps toward prevention of a tragedy should be jettisoned. Teachers, in particular, need to know they’re not going unsupported by administrators or left to face the wrath of an upset parent who is sometimes too close to the situation to recognize a problem.

Educators and others involved in behavioral threat assessment team should be afforded protections when they, in good faith, raise a concern or participate in fact gathering in an effort to protect a school from violence.

Remember the Michigan 15-year-old who killed four students at his high school last November? His parents face charges of involuntary manslaughter because of their unwillingness to heed warning signs and their inaction in keeping guns away from their son. School officials were concerned and met with the parents, who declined to take the boy out of school. Would a behavioral threat assessment team have been able to respond more thoroughly to the potential threat? We tend to believe a trained team would stand a better chance of that than administrators or teachers who often feel they’re waging a lone battle.

The Arkansas Department of Education and state leaders should press ahead to promote the development of such teams in Arkansas’ school districts. And school district officials should take all this seriously now, before a potential threat is overlooked for too long.