It is unfortunate that many students, parents, and educators alike now fear a school shooting at the school they attend, where they send their children, or attend work. Media coverage of school shootings shows the horrific scenes of bloodied students and chaotic schools that were designed to be safe educational settings rather than the host site for tragedy. School leaders play a critical role in keeping their students and staff safe. Recent attention has focused on building infrastructure, security procedures, and staffing. However, the real safety issue in public schools centers on the nature of those persons capable of a school shooting.

Who can forget the recent tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT? Sandy Hook happened despite the fact that school leaders had learned from prior tragedies like Columbine. This particular elementary school had building securities and procedures in place, yet the tragedy occurred anyway.  Many schools, like Sandy Hook Elementary seem to have done everything right regarding school safety and security. Yet, a violent attacker found a way to enter multiple classrooms and kill 26 people on that fateful day credited as the deadliest school attack in history. We cannot look back to and ever know if this rampage could have been prevented. One thing is certain. Going forward, our children, parents, and staff deserve school leaders who seek to prevent another school shooting by understanding the profile of potential school attackers.

The Safe School Initiative, published by the United States Secret Service in 2002, provides information useful to school leaders profiling potential school attackers. According to the Safe School Initiative (2002), 100% of school attackers were male, 95% attended the same school they attacked, and 76% were White students (Vossekuil, Fein, Reddy, Borum, Modzeleski, 2002). The general profile of a school attacker narrows the potential scope that school leaders must consider a threat.

Beyond the general profile of past school attackers, other findings from the Report provide real direction for school leaders responsible for the safety and well being of students and staff. To understand the profile of a school attacker, consider these key findings from the Safe School Initiative Report (2002), many of which elude to the breakdown of the family structure and emotional health issues present in our society today:

• Most attackers engaged in some behavior prior to the actual attack that caused others concern or indicated a need for help.
• Most attackers had difficulty coping with significant losses or personal failures.
• Many attackers had considered or attempted suicide.
• Many attackers felt bullied, persecuted or injured by others prior to the attack.
• Most attackers had access to and had used weapons prior to the attack.

School principals are often responsible for schools with hundreds of students. Principals cannot get to know all students on a personal basis well enough to know when a particular student may present some of the qualities common to recent school attackers. Schoolteachers and counselors have a key role in identifying and bringing forward students who may cause a threat to your school. Once identified, a school leader must be willing to identify the credibility of threats and deal accordingly with them. This is an important and difficult responsibility. If a principal draws too much attention to a less credible threat it can disrupt the learning environment for an entire school building. Understanding the general profile of school attackers is important, but no student should be excluded as a potential treat to your school should their actions and motives be deemed credible.

If a credible threat is not taken serious enough a school leader can lose the trust and support from students, parents, and community members. There are many factors school leaders must consider when identifying the credibility of a threat. Before getting to credibility, the amount of time a school administrator has to negotiate the credibility of the exact threat must first be considered. If a note in a restroom threatens a bomb in fifteen minutes a school leader has much less time to survey the credibility of a threat than if the threat is for a later date or time. To negotiate the credibility of a threat a school administrator should consider multiple factors that include when the threat was presumably written, where the threat was written, when the threat is to take place, how many threats similar to the one presented have occurred, and the potential devastation or distraction the threat presents. These factors should be considered with the support of district administration as well as your local law enforcement.

School leaders should be reminded that the safety of students and staff remains prominent in relation to free speech and confidentiality. In two specific cases, courts have ruled that members of school staff have a legal obligation to bring safety concerns to the attention of school leaders and law enforcement. In the Tarasoff v. Regents (1976) case, the court recognized that school personnel have a legal duty to warn potential victims and law enforcement agencies if they have actual knowledge of the student's intentions to harm others. In the related case, Eisel v. Board of Education (1991), a school counselor was found negligent for breaching their duty to alert parents about their child's intentions to commit suicide. When in doubt, school leaders should error on the side of communication when it comes to keeping others safe and informing the appropriate people of a possible threat.

Schools across the country are taking measures to ensure the safety and security of their students and staff. In 2011, the National Center for Education Statistics conducted a survey on school crime and safety. The results conveyed a 16% reported increase since 1999 in at least one security guard or police officer stationed in middle school and high schools. The most common types of security measures reported at all levels of school were locked buildings (92%), requirements for faculty and staff ID badges (63%), video surveillance cameras (61%), and electronic notification systems (63%) (National Center for Education Statistics and Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2012). Despite all these increased safety measures there is no clear consensus regarding their effectiveness in preventing school attacks. Some studies have found that more severe and pervasive security practices can actually result in increased violence and disorder. Best practices in school security are based on a firm but positive school climate in which students are cognizant of school rules as well as consequences for infractions (Hanover Research, 2013).

Hanover Research (January, 2013) recently published a report that outlines Best Practices in School Security. Besides a review of recent literature regarding school safety, the report profiles five districts that model best practice in school security. A meta-analysis of these practices include key best practices for school leaders who are developing or reviewing their school safety procedures. Some best practices in school safety procedures include, but are not limited to:

1. Specific emergency plans that are evaluated annually and updated as needed.
2. School leaders who consult regularly with local law enforcement about school safety.
3. Limited access to the school building for students, staff, and visitors. External doors are locked throughout the school day. Many doors have technology activation and notification capabilities.
4. The RAPTOR V-Soft Visitor Management System to check visitor identification against the national sex offender databases.
5. A crisis response team that not only is available to support students and staff in the event of an emergency, but also routinely meets to discuss and intervene on students who pose a threat to the school.

Although the infrastructure of a school building, identification of visitors, and detailed emergency plans are all important pieces of safety and security measures, they are all reactionary to an attacker already on school grounds. Despite prompt law enforcement responses, most shooting incidents were stopped by means other than law enforcement intervention. Understanding the real safety issue - students capable of a school attacks- is key to preventing the next school shooting tragedy from occurring at your school.

References

Best Practices in School Security. (January, 2013). Hanover Research: District Administration Practice. Retrieved fromhttp://www.governor.virginia.gov/SchoolAndCampusSafetyTaskforce/docs/Best%20Practices%20in%20School%20Security.pdf

Fast Facts: School safety and security measures. (2012). Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2011, National Center for Education Statistics. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=334

Sandy Hook Memorial (September 4, 2013). Photo retrieved from Wikipedia search: Sandy Hook School Shooting.

U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2012). Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2011 (NCES 2012-002)

Vossekuil, B., Fein, R., Reddy, M., Borum, R., & Modzeleski, W. (May 2002).The Final Report and Findings of the Safe School Initiative: Implications for the Prevention of School Attacks in the United States. U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Department of Education: Washington, D. C.

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