School safety, security, and violence prevention resource

Colorado schools and students have an early Christmas present! Early this week, news was released about a new school safety center that is going to operate in the state. This center is to be funded by the state and will be tasked with dealing with ways to prevent school violence. Rocky Mountain News ran this story on Monday:

The School Safety Resource Center was established on the recommendation of the Columbine Review Commission.

The center’s advisory board has picked three school districts for pilot programs, the Montezuma-Cortez School District, Durango District 9-R and Adams County District 14.

Linda Kanan, 57, a former teacher who also was a psychologist with Douglas County and Cherry Creek schools, is the center’s director.

Kanan will earn $96,000 a year in her new job and will eventually have a staff of five.

“I’m pretty excited,” Kanan said.

The center will help schools develop strategies to prevent violence by students, both on and off school grounds, create safety and communication plans to deal with potential emergencies, handle violent incidents and return classrooms to a safe environment quickly in the event of an incident, said Lance Clem, spokesman for the Colorado Department of Public Safety.

Since the program is merely starting, they only picked 3 school districts to begin with. With the key people being identified early on, however, it seems that the project is on fast track and that the pilot program will not be delayed. This is definitely a good thing for the schools in Colorado, especially considering the incidences of violence that have occurred in the state.

Kanan also makes a very important point:

School safety is about the physical safety of our kids combined with the climate in our schools and the psychological well-being of the students.

This goes to show that the choice for the center’s director is a wise one. We should not be too focused on physical security alone. After all, we should know by now that violent incidents are almost always results of psychological disturbance within the perpetrator. If we deal with this aspect first, then we are bound to nip the problem in the bud.

Then again, we should also not be too focused on psychological aspects as well. Kanan adds:

Our task is to help schools that do not have the resources or are not aware of them. What we have learned is that it needs to be a multifaceted approach to school safety. It involves information sharing and reporting of concerns. It involves controlling access to schools to safety in schools, internal and external.

Sounds like something really good is going to happen in Colorado.

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