As the number of guns found on school campuses kept increasing in North Carolina's Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools in the last academic year, district and school-level administrators considered adding safety approaches such as metal detectors and clear backpacks.

But it was on a trip to the Carolina Panthers football stadium that district Chief Operations Officer Brian Schultz realized what was missing in the district's efforts to keep guns off school property. At the stadium, he noticed the ease of security screening for guests. 

Soon after Schultz's visit, the district's chief of police and board of education members visited the Panthers stadium to see the security screening in action.

The scanners from Evolv, a security technology company based in Massachusetts, use digital sensors and artificial intelligence to detect concealed weapons. Placed at entryways, they allow visitors to walk between columns connected to AI that can distinguish most everyday objects on a person from weapons. The technology takes a digital image of where on the person a weapon is located, such as in a pocket or in a backpack, and alerts staff of the threat.

Those who promote the technology say this AI-assisted screening is faster, less invasive and more accurate than traditional security screeners because it doesn't require bag checks or body searches.

One of the main reasons the Charlotte-Mecklenburg district ultimately decided to install the technology in its schools is because of the quick screening time. High schools have about a half hour before the first class starts to filter thousands of students and staff through their doors. "We wanted to be able to stick to that so we weren't impacting the instructional day," Schultz said.

Like Charlotte-Mecklenburg, other districts are also exploring or adopting AI-assisted school security practices. But while some praise this approach, others have doubts and recommend caution.

Kenneth Trump, president of consulting firm National School Safety and Security Services, said he’s noticed AI safety technology surging into districts since the end of the 2021-22 school year, especially with more high-profile or multiple gun incidents occurring in schools. 

“The alarm bells go off faster with each incident, especially if they’re in a short period of time, and then the political problem and pressures are on and it’s panic mode, and here are the vendors waiting on your doorstep to solve your problem,” Trump said. 

But he cautioned that knee-jerk reactions by district leaders to make large investments in school safety technology are not good practice. “The worst time to make dramatic changes in your school safety policy and practice is when you’re under intense political pressure from your school community,” Trump said.

While the AI field is growing rapidly, Trump said this technology is still in its infancy regarding school safety. He in fact does not advise districts to use the technology.

“Schools are the testing grounds and the new foundation for these companies to build their artificial intelligence. The systems get smarter as they are used,” Trump said. “So those particularly on the front end of this in schools are going to fall prey to the gaps, the limitations, the snafus, the errors, the false positives, and their children and schools are being used to make the vendors’ AI software smarter.”

Uvalde’s impact

Since the horrific May mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, AI has increasingly made its way into school safety technology nationwide.

A case in point is Evolv technology, said Mike Ellenbogen, the company's founder and chief innovation officer. Evolv currently works with 377 schools or districts across the country, using AI to scan 300,000 students each week, according to an email from the company. 

“Deployment at schools is certainly accelerating,” Ellenbogen said. “The reality is — this is an event-driven industry.”

The AI technology Evolv uses does not collect personally identifiable information of those going through the sensors, he said. When a person walks through an Evolv sensor, their body just “looks like a bag of saltwater” in the system, Ellenbogen added. Only when there’s an alert detecting a potential weapon does the technology take a picture, so the person monitoring the system knows who is carrying an object in question.

“We’re very aware of potential bias issues that stem from AI training, but it really doesn’t apply to what we’re doing, because we’re not using the video or face recognition or anything like that to perform the core detection,” Ellenbogen said.

The technology is also “constantly getting better” at both detection and lower alarm rates.

“I would say we’re in the early innings of this game that’s going to continue looking at other technologies that can augment the capabilities of the [Evolv] Express system,” he said.

SparkCognition is another company infusing this technology into school safety by using AI to monitor surveillance camera footage, which can then notify someone if, for instance, a gun is detected. The company works with about 100 school districts across various states, said Stephen Gold, SparkCognition’s chief marketing officer. 

While such AI safety technology has been used in different sectors for several years now, companies like SparkCognition are just beginning to sell it to schools. And already, Gold said, the technology is “incredibly” gaining interest in the education sector.

“Certainly, Uvalde brought awareness back to this issue,” Gold said, but also these incidents of school-based gun violence “are becoming more frequent, and I think that alone is raising awareness.”

According to a 2022 analysis by market research and consulting company Omdia, the U.S. education sector for security equipment and services was expected to reach more than $3.1 billion in 2021, for public and private elementary and secondary schools and higher education institutions. Growth in this market is projected at 8% annually, according to the company. 

Most of the projected growth is expected to come from upgrading systems and services to be more technology-based, said Bryan Montany, a senior analyst at Omdia. Additionally, according to the data collected in 2022, nearly 90% of all U.S. schools use video surveillance systems to monitor at least some portion of their facilities and almost every school controls building access through an access control system.

Counting more firearms in schools

The 142,000-student Charlotte-Mecklenburg district adopted Evolv technology for school entry points in March 2022, starting with seven of the district's large comprehensive high schools. By the end of the 2021-22 school year, the technology was in 21 high schools. As of January 2023, the scanners were in 68 schools, including all middle, high and K-8 schools, and some smaller magnet high schools, Schultz said. The district has a total of 181 schools.

Between August and December 2021, before the scanners were installed, the district recorded 22 guns on campuses — more than in the entire previous school year, Schultz said. 

"So that was very alarming," he said. One of those guns fired accidentally during a student altercation, although no one was hurt.  By the end of the 2021-22 school year, 34 guns had been discovered on school campuses throughout the district that year.

Although Charlotte-Mecklenburg had emergency preparations and safety protocols, it had not been actively looking for firearms at that time, he said. After schools reopened to in-person learning during the pandemic, the district, like some other districts across the nation, noticed more physical aggression by students and firearms being brought into schools. 

The U.S. saw a record number of school shootings in 2022, according to the K-12 School Shooting Database. David Riedman, founder of the database, told K-12 Dive in December that there was a shooting on a school campus "pretty much every single school day" in fall 2022.

Additionally, data collected by Reidman shows most school campus shootings last year involved student shooters. There were more school shootings in 2022 than in past years by students ages 10-18, he said.

In the first 35 days of 2023, the database recorded 35 school shootings.

Taking a phase-in approach

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg district phased in the scanners, choosing to add the first seven units in schools more likely to encounter firearms based on five years of data. 

Those seven schools, however, had larger populations of low-income and marginalized students, leading to some criticism from the community over the decision, Schultz said. For the next phase of implementation, the district included schools with a mix of student demographics and school sizes.

Before the implementation in schools got started, the district reviewed its safety policies and procedures, consulted with attorneys and developed training for staff. With its communications team, the district created talking points for principals, videos for community members, and a student orientation process to prepare everyone for new scanners, Schultz said.

The cost to the school system for the technology at 68 schools is about $15 million over a four-year period, Schultz said. The district asked to use federal COVID-19 funds to help offset the cost but the state turned that down, he said. The expenses are being covered through multiple funding sources including district capital funds, state and local sources, Schultz said. 

Schultz said the $15 million cost sounds high but is justifiable when divided by school — about $220,000 each —  or by every 6th-12th grade student — about $214 per student. "When you're thinking about saving students' lives, I mean, that's a small price to pay," Schultz said. 

Since the start of this school year through Jan. 27, the scanners have identified three guns on campuses — two from students and one from an adult — and staff were able to recover those weapons without incident, Schultz said.

'It's about caring for each other'

In spring 2022, Hopewell High School became one of the first schools in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg district to install the technology. Principal Tracey Pickard describes the 1,800-student school as diverse and having strong school-student-family connections. 

So it was a shock in 2021, she said, when guns were twice discovered on campus. "It was clear we have to have something to deter students from feeling that comfortable bringing weapons into schools," Pickard said.

In preparation for using the AI weapons detection technology, the district provided guidance on what to expect with the new school entry process. It also coordinated with the district on messaging to the community. 

Additionally, Pickard invited parents to a Q&A session on the new protocols. A small group of parents visited campus to see the system in action, and they then helped spread the message to other parents about why the school was taking this step, Pickard said.

The school also provided information and training to staff, as well as developed a staff leadership team to help answer questions from colleagues about the new system.

There were some learning curves when the system got off the ground. A combination of certain notebook binders, water bottles and umbrellas would set off alarms on the Evolv scanners. 

Students also have to hold Chromebooks in their hands as they go through the scanner. Some specific models of Chromebooks have characteristics that can present similar to a weapon and set off certain Evolv scanners, Evolv's Ellenbogen explained. The company founder added that the detection algorithms of the Evolv Express system are being continually refined.

But now, as everyone has become familiar with the entry scanners, the process runs more smoothly, Pickard said.

The principal said she's learned a great deal about school security over the past year, but mainly she's gained a better understanding that students and the greater community want transparency about school safety threats and solutions. 

Before the scanners were installed, she had been hesitant to discuss school safety threats with students because she didn't want them to feel unsafe. "But it was the opposite," she said. "They wanted me to talk about it and they wanted me to be very clear about [saying] 'This is not an option in our school. This is not going to define us because we are the Titans.'"

"We care about each other, and if we have a problem, if we see something, we're going to say something," Pickard said, adding that the scanners are only one part of creating a safer campus.

"It's about us caring for each other and keeping our environment safe for each other," Pickard said.

More than gun detection

Since the units were installed in the 68 schools, the district has seen fewer guns, as well as other prohibited items like vapes, drugs, knives and tasers, brought onto school campuses, Schultz said. 

For example, 94 incidents of weapons other than guns found on school campuses districtwide were identified during the second quarter of the 2021-22 school year. That compares to 40 such incidents during the second quarter of this school year, according to Schultz.

But schools can't rely on just weapons detectors alone to ensure safety, Schultz, Pickard and others say.

As school systems explore school safety measures, Schultz recommends bringing together community members to discuss proactive ways to prevent school violence. He also recommends learning from other school systems about their approaches.

Pickard agrees consulting on school safety solutions with other schools is helpful. "We realized we're not in this alone," Pickard said. "This is a community, this is a state, national issue that we're all trying to figure out for the best interest of our students." 

Pickard advises school leaders not to personalize school safety challenges. "You have to put pride aside and work with the people in the district," Pickard said.

Creating a welcoming environment

School safety must have a layered approach that includes strong security protocols, as well as a school culture built on trust and open communication, said Jill Lemond, director of education at Evolv.

Lemond knows firsthand the importance of community engagement and collaboration regarding school safety issues. She was assistant superintendent of student services for Oxford Community Schools in Michigan when, in November 2021, a student fatally shot four classmates and injured seven others.

Schools should focus on strategies including weapons detection for keeping guns out of schools, Lemond said. But also needed is a priority on engaging staff and the entire school community, including students, in discussions about how to keep schools safer. 

Lemond added that the school day should allow time for teachers and administrators to connect personally with students. Building that trust can help students feel more secure in sharing information about potential threats, she said.

"We need to get back to basics," Lemond said. "Let's make eye contact, let's say their name and learn their names. And let's welcome them into the school environment every day, because the only thing that's going to stop school shootings is kids not wanting to shoot the people in their school.”

Disclosure:  Omdia and K-12 Dive are both owned by Informa. Omdia has no influence over K-12's coverage.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called on schools to prevent and reduce the negative impact of violence and other trauma on teens, as it released a report on Feb. 13 finding dramatic increases in mental health challenges for teenage girls. The report found nearly 3 in 5 teen girls felt persistently sad or hopeless in 2021, double the rate for boys and a nearly 60% increase over the highest level recorded in the past decade. 

Nearly 1 in 3 teenage girls seriously considered attempting suicide, also marking a 60% increase from a decade ago. And 1 in 5 said they had experienced sexual violence in the past year, with more than 1 in 10 teen girls experiencing rape. 

In light of the data, the CDC said school-based activities "can make a profound difference in the lives of teens with a relatively small infusion of support to schools."

The Youth Risk Behavior Survey data — collected in fall 2021 when most schools had returned to in-person instruction — is the first of its kind to be collected since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The CDC noted that the time spent outside of school during the pandemic may have impacted the outcomes for many students. 

The new data showed high and worsening levels of persistent sadness or hopelessness spanned across racial and ethnic groups.  But it also found some episodes of violence had increased for certain groups. 

The proportion of youth who did not go to school because of safety concerns, for example, rose overall, and yet Black and Hispanic students were more likely than other groups to report this.

Almost 70% of LGBTQ+ students experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, and more than 20% attempted suicide during the previous year. 

“Young people are experiencing a level of distress that calls on us to act with urgency and compassion,” said Kathleen Ethier, director of CDC's Division of Adolescent and School Health, in a news release. "Schools have the unique ability to help our youth flourish," Ethier said.

“High school should be a time for trailblazing, not trauma," added Dr. Debra Houry, CDC's chief medical officer and deputy director for program and science, in a statement. Houry said the data suggests "our kids need far more support" than they are currently getting. 

"Proven school prevention programs," Houry said, "can offer teens a vital lifeline in these growing waves of trauma.”

The health agency suggested evidence-based steps to help prevent and reduce the impact of violence and other trauma and improve mental health on students, including:

• Fostering school connectedness through trusted adults like mentors, teachers and other staff so teens know people around them care about their well-being and success.
• Providing education to equip teens with skills like sexual consent, managing emotions and asking for what they need.
• Connecting teens to classmates and communities through clubs and community outreach.

The CDC noted additional evidence-based strategies and resources for schools are available on its website.

Sponsored content

By Evolv Technology

If it seems like every time you turn on the news there’s another story about a mass shooting, that’s because it continues to happen. It comes as no surprise that gun-related deaths have been on the rise in recent years. The U.S. experienced more than 600 mass shootings in 2022, nearly double the number recorded four years ago when there were 335, according to the Gun Violence Archive. 

The victims are our children, colleagues, friends and neighbors. They are randomly killed while grocery shopping, working, and attending parades. Others are the targets of hate crimes against historically marginalized communities. Nobody is immune from the gun violence epidemic.

As 2023 gets underway with more than thoughts and prayers for the millions of people affected by gun violence, we asked industry experts to share their recommendations for a better, safer future - one where we can gather publicly without fear and anxiety that our time may be cut short due to a senseless act of gun violence.

 

Our expert panel consists of:

• Jill Lemond, director of education at Evolv
• John Pistole, former United States Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
• Juliette Kayyem, a former assistant secretary for homeland security under President Barack Obama, the faculty chair of the homeland-security program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and author of The Devil Never Sleeps: Learning to Live in an Age of Disasters
• Bilal Zuberi, general partner at Lux Capital

We know it is difficult to explore this topic, but the gun violence epidemic cannot be ignored. We came away from our conversations with more than hope – our experts offer specific insights and actions we can all take to stem the violence.

Prediction #1: Schools and communities will work more closely together to improve school safety, and public safety as a whole, using a holistic approach that integrates people, processes and technology.

The rise in school shootings will result in schools and communities working more closely together on school safety planning. According to Jill Lemond, “Parents are getting more involved, there are greater efforts to incorporate the mental health needs of students, and there are fantastic technology solutions to help address the mental health and the physical security needs of schools. We’ll continue to see schools and communities working more closely together along with a continued demand by parents to install weapons detection systems in schools.”

As schools and communities work more closely together, John Pistole offers this advice on ways to help prevent school shootings.

“There are three actions school administrators and school boards can take. First is recognizing that there is a gun violence issue in this country. Second is to mitigate the risk of a school shooting. This may include increasing the presence of physical security with off duty police officers or school resource officers, combined with more advanced locks and access control systems. The third part is taking action. For example, there are still some COVID-19 relief funds available that are designed for public health. With their fairly broad limitations, those funds can be used as part of the actions to increase school safety.”

According to security expert Juliette Kayyem, schools will always be vulnerable and new perspectives are needed. “In that regard, there must be more focus on the duty of parents [and caregivers] in terms of practicing responsible gun ownership and I think we’ll see more of that in the future. I can also imagine changes to the guiding principle of ‘run, hide, fight’ when it comes to security and mass shootings.

We welcome additional thoughts from the community and encourage you to reach out with your ideas. 

Read more.

Leaders from three school districts, speaking at a recent webinar hosted by the U.S. Department of Education, said transparency, partnerships and multipronged approaches are crucial in raising awareness about the dangers of illicit fentanyl use among students.

The Feb. 8 webinar was the second in a two-part series focused on preventing and addressing fentanyl use. The first session, held Jan. 17, featured speakers discussing why fentanyl — a highly potent synthetic opioid — is such a threat to teens and the role schools can play in protecting students by building awareness.

In addition to district administrators, the latest webinar featured representatives from the Office of National Drug Control Policy and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, who spoke about recent trends in illicit fentanyl activity. The administration speakers also addressed evidence-based prevention and intervention strategies and why schools are important partners in these efforts.

Kari Clay, whose daughter Ellison died in August 2021 at age 17 after taking a counterfeit Percocet pill, represented a family's viewpoint in this tragedy. Ellison had no history of drug abuse, Clay said. Her daughter's death led Clay to co-create Fentanyl Information X-Plained (FIX).

"I didn't want to see one more kid lose their future out of curiosity or stress or trust in misinformation," Clay said. The organization works with students, parents, school administrators and teachers to combat myths and misconceptions and to provide resources.

A report released Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that in 2021, some 6% of high school students had misused prescription opioids such as codeine, Vicodin, OxyContin, Hydrocodone or Percocet during the previous 30 days. Girls were more likely than boys to misuse prescription opioids.

Here's how three school systems said they are working to prevent fentanyl use.

Beaverton School District in Oregon

This 39,000-student Beaverton School District developed its "Fake and Fatal" campaign in response to the deaths of several current and former students due to fentanyl poisoning, said Kristen Gustafson, director of secondary health and PE curriculum, instruction and assessment.

The campaign includes a public statement from the district to all students, staff and parents about the importance of educating students about the fentanyl crisis and mandatory training for principals. The district also developed a web page with resources, conducted a media blitz to raise awareness, and hosted community conversations, Gustafson said.

Since the launch of the campaign, Gustafson said, there have been no reported fentanyl deaths in the district.

"Schools play such a vital role when it comes to our students' overall health and well-being, and we owe it to them and their parents to educate them on the dangers of fentanyl or any other synthetic drugs and all drugs that are coming down the pike," Gustafson said.

Additionally, rather than take punitive approaches, the district added a substance use specialist and social worker to each campus to help students and families find solutions to substance use.

Through classroom lessons, the district aims to strengthen students' social-emotional skills. It also has lessons that explicitly teach about the dangers of fentanyl use. Teacher facilitator guides, developed by the district, assist teachers, even those not specialized in health education, to share lessons about the harms of fentanyl use.

"It's our hope that every district in the country will access all the resources shared today and launch their own fentanyl awareness campaign," Gustafson said.

Hays Consolidated Independent School District in Texas

In spring 2022, the 23,000-student Hays Consolidated school system experienced its first on-campus fatal drug overdose. Then, in the summer and fall of 2022, there were five more drug-related student deaths, five on-campus interventions with naloxone, and 14 suspected off-campus student fentanyl poisonings, said Jeri Skrocki, director of safety and security.

Those tragedies led the district to begin a multidisciplinary approach to prevention and intervention of drug use, including fentanyl abuse. To start, the district hosted a roundtable with fire department representatives, emergency medical technicians, local law enforcement and judges to determine best practices for sharing information about community drug threats and resources.

The district also reached out to students and families to learn what help they needed to prevent fentanyl use. Transparency in prevention approaches was critical, Skrocki said.

"What we wanted to do is have all of these partners standing together as one, and basically, we wanted to be able to help and aid our child that was suffering," Skrocki said. School nurses and local pediatricians were also included in collaborations.

When the district realized apathy still existed around the threat of fentanyl, Skrocki said, it worked with local law enforcement to emphasize to community members that the district was not aiming to put first-time drug users in jail — but to provide resources to prevent more deaths.

"Ultimately, bottom line and what I'll say to anybody who will listen is, 'Please take the time to network with your kids, with your families, and really determine what does your community need and how do they need it and package it that way,'" Skrocki said.

Los Angeles Unified School District in California

The country's second largest school system, with just over 400,000 students, also has a multilayered approach to fentanyl poisoning prevention. Its approach really gained momentum when the Los Angeles district suffered its first on-campus fentanyl overdose in September 2022, said Dr. Smita Malhotra, the district's chief medical director.

By October 2022, Narcan, a brand of naloxone, was in all K-12 schools. It has since been added to early education, adult education and after-school centers. In addition, the district recently adopted a policy allowing students to carry naloxone on school campuses, said Paulina Rock, executive director of the district's Office of Health Emergency Response and Support.

The district's police department also created an app called Los Angeles Schools Anonymous Reporting (LASAR) for reporting any suspected drugs on campuses.

And the district convened a working group to develop informational modules in fentanyl awareness and prevention for students and parents. The four modules cover substance abuse, mental health, psychological first aid and fentanyl.

More work and resources are being developed, including social media posts, podcasts, websites, trainings and webinars, said Malhotra and Rock.

"We know that there is a large education aspect to this," Malhotra said.

Educational institutions were the third most likely site of a targeted mass attack between 2016 and 2020, according to a five year study of 173 mass attacks published Jan. 25 by the U.S. Secret Service's National Threat Assessment Center.

Of the 173 mass attacks in those years that led to 513 fatalities, 13 took place at schools and universities, with three at elementary schools, seven at high schools, and three at higher education institutions.

Most of the attackers' behaviors elicited concern from classmates and others around them. While many had a history of physically aggressive or intimidating behaviors, half were motivated by grievances like bullying and most used firearms. Furthermore, over half of the attackers experienced mental health symptoms including depression, psychotic symptoms and suicidal thoughts prior to or at the time of their attacks, according to the report.

The Secret Service report suggests schools and workplaces should consider strategies for resolving interpersonal grievances, considering attackers in half of the incidents were motivated by personal issues like bullying, ongoing feuds with neighbors, or issues with family members.

Other strategies schools can adopt include:

• Encouraging and facilitating bystander reporting and preparing to respond to such reports.
• Focusing on early intervention through measures like mental health treatment and crisis intervention, which is the "key to prevention," rather than waiting for direct and specific threats before taking action.
• Keeping an eye out for students displaying an unusual interest in violent topics, especially past attackers.
• Understanding the impact of violent and hateful rhetoric, such as toward a protected class, while still defending the constitutional right to free speech.
• Paying attention to misogyny and domestic violence, which were displayed by nearly half of the attackers in all the mass attacks studied.
• Monitoring online platforms, which may be utilized to share violent rhetoric and ideas.
• Noticing individuals sharing final communications or acts, like calling people to say goodbye, writing suicide notes, and posting manifestos online.
• Identifying and offering resources for students managing stressful life circumstances, experiencing mental health issues, or facing a personal crisis.

According to previous Secret Service reports, half of K-12 school attackers between 2008 and 2017 displayed an unusual or concerning interest in violent topics, including the Columbine High School shooting and Nazism.

The newest report comes on the heels of the most violent calendar year for school shootings, with a total of 302 shooting incidents on school grounds injuring and killing a total of 332 people on school property in 2022.

At least one of those was an act of mass violence that resulted in 21 deaths and 17 injuries on May 24 at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. In the wake of that massacre, and other acts of mass violence on school grounds such as the 2021 Oxford High School shooting in Michigan, school safety experts have been critical of the lack of school safety and violence prevention measures leading up to these incidents.

More recently, an incident in which a 6-year-old student shot and injured his elementary school teacher in Newport News, Virginia, has drawn scrutiny. In that case, teacher Abigail Zwerner's lawyer alleged earlier this week that Richneck Elementary School administrators received multiple warnings of a gun in the student's possession but failed to take appropriate action.

Located along Lake Michigan in the northern Chicago suburb of Highland Park, North Shore School District 112 has “a little bit of everything,” says Superintendent Michael Lubelfeld.

The district serves just under 4,000 students in grades K-8 across 10 schools. It also has a Latino population at 24%, some 16% of its students are English learners, and 22% are from low-income families.

Last summer, with just about a month to go before the first day of school, the quiet suburb was shaken by a mass shooting that killed seven and wounded dozens more during a Fourth of July parade. Though the tragedy didn’t occur on school grounds, school safety tensions were already high across the nation less than two months after the Robb Elementary School massacre in Uvalde, Texas.

We caught up with Lubelfeld to learn more about how he and other district leaders had to revisit school safety plans to reassure a community on edge.

[Editor’s Note: The following interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.]

K-12 DIVE: In the wake of an event like last July’s Independence Day parade shooting, when it’s both right there in your community and not long after school tragedies like Uvalde elsewhere, how do you reassure your school community?

MICHAEL LUBELFELD: That is a really good and really powerful question. I'll give you a one-word answer, then I'll elaborate if that's okay.

So the one-word answer is “communication” — and I would put that in all caps with like an exclamation point and an underline. We were really shaken to our core. We talk about it as innocence shattered up here, in a real tree-lined, lakeshore community, very proud of arts and culture, and just a pretty sleepy town up here in Highland Park.

The Uvalde massacre woke us up just in general school administrator terms, because we said, “Oh, gosh, we're coming out of COVID. We're gonna start having people back in the schools. Uvalde just happened. Are we on our ‘A’ game in terms of safety and security?”

So before July 4, we asked our board if we could hire a security consultant to do another safety audit. We had done one in 2014, we had done one in 2018, and the Uvalde massacre sparked in us a need. “Hey, maybe we should dust off our protocols and make sure we're still doing everything right.”

So June 14, the last board meeting of the school year, our board hired Paul Timm, a national school safety expert. We were gonna do a cyber audit, we were already realizing we needed to fix some locked doors, and we were talking about protocols.

We ended the school year. We figured it was gonna be a calm, peaceful summer. Everything was going great. COVID protocols were just about behind us. Here in Highland Park, the park district and city of Highland Park jointly run an Independence Day parade that is fun and beautiful and festive and goes down our main street, Central Avenue, and everything's great.

All of a sudden, it's not, and there's a mass shooting. There’s a violent critical incident. There's a masked gunman. And he was not immediately apprehended. The accused shooter was apprehended a couple hours later.

Now you've got six weeks till school starts. There's no catching your breath. It’s, “Now what?” And what we did is we communicated, communicated again, and communicated again. Obviously, we used email. But we also used video, audio, podcasts. We held a couple special board meetings and a regular board meeting. We broadcast some of those, and we just kept communicating.

We had in-person counseling. We had drop-in counseling. We had some chalk art. We had some adult counseling. We had trauma-informed workshops for parents, for teachers, for mental health providers. It was amazing teamwork from the people around me and the people in the community. It was unbelievable. Everyone gathered together, but it was crisis adrenaline action.

How do you navigate pressure for reactive approaches like hardening physical school building security versus more proactive approaches like mental health and social-emotional support to maintain a balance of the two?

LUBELFELD: So, we partner with [school and workplace safety and wellness platform] Navigate 360, and they've got core pillars of school safety and student wellness that we subscribe to, including school culture and climate, physical and online safety, threat detection, prevention, assessment and intervention, emergency preparedness, and incident response data analysis and actionable insights.

And then here in District 112, and probably in almost all districts in Illinois, we follow recommendations from the Illinois Terrorism Task Force Report on School Safety that you may recall started after the Parkland massacre.

We've been at this, sadly, for a while. We have protocols in place for behavioral threat assessment. Obviously, we're going to enhance them and make sure we're up to date. We have hardening of facilities, but we're gonna make sure we do a lot more because we just had Uvalde, we just had Highland Park. It’s necessary.

In terms of response protocol in schools here in Illinois, the Safe2Help Illinois suite of mental health services, including a confidential 24/7 response app and tool and group, came out of the Illinois Terrorism Task Force. So reaffirming and reassuring our community through existing and immediate work in these three areas — behavioral threat assessments, hardening of facilities and response protocol in schools — in addition to our partnership with Navigate 360, in our case.

And finally, we held, in addition to our board meetings, a safety town hall live in-person and live broadcast on video to get access to as many families as we could. And we also did some trauma training in Spanish and English.

On top of easing parents' concerns, how do you ensure student voice is a part of these conversations?

LUBELFELD: Oh my gosh, student voice and staff voice. We did a comprehensive staff survey in July on what were they most concerned about with safety and security. The short answer is we survey staff and we survey students. Our students get a universal screener on mental health at least once a year. We also started partnering with Sown to Grow, where every week, every child checks in emotionally with our staff. So it’s a check-in positive, check-in negative, check-in at-risk, check-in neutral. And we've been using this to make sure we've got our students reaching out to us emotionally and sharing with us how they're feeling in real time.

We also do a student engagement survey to all children in English and Spanish, and we get a sense of where they are in terms of belonging, in terms of safety and security, self-esteem. So we're directly listening to their voice through their agency, and it's essential that they do in fact feel safe, and it's essential that they do in fact know what we're doing and understand it.

Because of the increasing politicization of education, there's been a lot of divisiveness in some districts in recent years. How important is it that school leaders really take the time to ensure parents and the broader community understand upfront what exactly the school is and isn’t doing in order to avoid or later address misinformation?

LUBELFELD: Really, I think the key is clear, coherent, concise communication. And I mean that sincerely. I teach that in aspiring superintendent workshops. I teach that in graduate coursework.

What is your point? What is your message? What are you trying to get out? Stay focused.

For example, if you're a superintendent, you don't want to bombard your community with emails, but you need to get a message out if it's going to be on school safety. Stick to a one-subject email. Say “Here is what the district actually does in terms of helping to make sure your students and our staff are safe.” Make it five to 10 clear bullets. Keep it simple. Then redo that communication in whatever languages you know are predominant in your community.

Make sure you also share it if you have any family engagement specialists. Share the message with your own staff to make sure they can get it out in more informal ways.

If you have a formal parent teacher association or parent teacher organization group, share the same messaging with them. Contact your local chamber of commerce, depending on the setting of your school district, or your rotary club or Knights of Columbus.

The point is one email to a mass group isn't going to be sufficient communication. It might be clear. It might be concise. But when I go into coherent, “coherent” means you know your audience and you know how they receive information and you're going to them. So if they use Twitter, use Twitter. If they use LinkedIn, use LinkedIn. If they don't use any social media, do a phone call, a brief message. If they don't wanna look at a message on the phone, then hold an in-person town hall.

My point being, know how people receive information and make sure you communicate 10 times more than you think you should and be proactive to the degree possible. I think really the point is to be proactive. 

If you have one piece of advice for other superintendents and school leaders, what would that be?

LUBELFELD: Listen to your community and work with them. And obviously your board of education. But make sure you remember we serve the community, the community does not serve us. We serve the community.

Citing the Uvalde school massacre as a catalyst, Texas state Sen. Roland Gutierrez proposed two pieces of legislation Jan. 24 addressing gun violence on school grounds.

Senate Bill 574 would compensate school shooting victims and families of victims dating back to January 2018. The bill would provide $1 million for each deceased person, $250,000 for each "seriously physically injured" victim, $100,000 for each person suffering from a mental or emotional disability, and $50,000 for each physically injured victim after gun violence at a Texas public school.

Senate Bill 575 would hold liable law enforcement officers if their failure to intervene results in a violation of individual rights. This bill would include school law enforcement officers employed by either the state or local government who fail to intervene in mass shootings. 

"This has to be the session where we do something — it cannot be the session where we have roundtables, it cannot be the session where we have discussions," said Gutierrez, a Democrat, in a press briefing following introduction of the bills.

Gutierrez in November said he would seek compensation for Uvalde victims, but at significantly higher levels. Gutierrez suggested up to $7.7 million per household that lost a family member and $2.1 million for injured victims. That fund would have also paid $250,000 for anyone who was on campus the day of the shooting and traumatized as a result.

"These families are broken," said Gutierrez. "There is not one damn thing anybody's going to be able to do in there that will bring their children back. But under no certain terms should we allow their children's deaths to have been in vain." 

Compensation to families under the bill proposed Tuesday would be funded not through a sales tax, but through a 5 cent tax on every bullet sold in the state, said Gutierrez. That would raise about $50 million for every billion bullets sold, he said. 

Following the Robb Elementary mass shooting on May 24, multiple lawsuits for billions of dollars in compensation have been filed in Texas against the school district, administrators and school law enforcement. One such class action lawsuit, which was filed for $27 billion, claimed victims' families and survivors' civil and parental rights were violated.

Traditionally, the outcomes in such cases have brought mixed results on school and law enforcement liability.

In a Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting lawsuit, a judge decided in May 2018 that "faculty and staff had to make split-second decisions" and that "subjecting their decisions to scrutiny, aided by hindsight, would no less serve the public interest than subjecting a police officer's discretionary decisions to second guessing."

In short, school officials in that case were offered liability protections similar to those for police officers.

However, in the wake of the Uvalde shooting, its resulting lawsuits, and overall increasing school gun violence, policymakers and the public are bringing into question the potential liability of school officials and law enforcement.

The 2022 calendar year broke the record for the most school shootings in over four decades and marked one of the most violent years for youth ages 12-17, according to various unofficial counts.

As of Dec. 20, there were 300 shooting incidents on school grounds so far in 2022, compared to 250 in 2021 and 114 in 2020, according to the publicly-accessible K-12 School Shooting Database. A decade earlier, 2010 saw 15 school shootings. 

These counts include any acts of gun violence on K-12 public, private and charter school campuses, including mass shootings, gang shootings, domestic violence, shootings at sports games and after-hours school events, suicides and other incidents.

"Unfortunately, this year — this fall in particular — there's been a shooting pretty much every single school day," said David Riedman, founder of the K-12 School Shooting Database. Riedman updates the database daily. "I haven't seen anything in the last five years like this fall."

School shootings this year had already outpaced 2021 by October, when Riedman logged 257 shootings on K-12 campuses. 

As school leaders, education advocates, parents and politicians debate solutions to the crisis, the data collected by Riedman and other sources can offer information about why shootings happen at schools in the first place and how to prevent them.

Most shootings are escalated disputes

For example, Riedman's data shows the vast majority of school shootings this year have involved student shooters. In fact, the statistics show more shootings this year than in past years by children and teens, ages 10-18 years old, armed while they're at school, he said.

Most campus shooting incidents occur when a dispute escalates, data across the past five decades shows. According to the school shooting database, 761 shootings between 1970 and now resulted from physical or verbal altercations or prior altercations. So far this year, Riedman attributes 80 of 300 school shootings to that situation.

"So, somebody had a gun. They weren't planning a shooting that day, but something occurred where they had a dispute with somebody. There was a fight," Riedman said. "They, for whatever reason, decided to pull out a gun that they habitually carried in school, and then shoot somebody with it."

This is in line with the increase in guns confiscated and used this year as tracked by Kenneth Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services, a national consulting firm.

"Historically when we saw guns confiscated in schools they were unloaded," Trump said in an email. "Over the past two years we have not only seen incidents where they are loaded, but where they are also being pulled out and used in the middle of fights in schools and on campuses."

This year also saw the most people fatally shot or injured by a firearm intentionally or accidentally on K-12 school property since at least 2018 — 332, as of Dec. 20, according to the K-12 School Shooting Database. 

Riedman said this is reflective of the increased number of people carrying firearms on campuses. 

After shootings caused by escalation of disputes, the next highest number — 220 — comes from accidental shootings.  

This year, there have been several occurrences of accidental discharges of firearms being carried by students, parents, school resource officers and educators. Regarding accidental shootings by students, they have typically occurred when students brought guns to school to show to classmates and the gun accidentally fired, Riedman said. Earlier this month, a gun brought to school by a 12-year-old accidentally discharged, wounding a classmate, he said.

Many school shooters are students

Students make up the highest percentage — 43% — of school shooters when considering the shooter's role at or relationship to the school, according to the K12 School Shooting Database.

Kenneth Trump, president of the consulting firm National School Safety and Security Services, had warned districts of an "unprecedented uptick" in social and emotional stressors, anxiety and aggression upon students' returns to school from COVID-19 closures and remote learning. 

"While educators expected an uptick in aggression, I am not sure they expected the magnitude of the violence and use of weapons we are seeing at schools nationwide," Trump said. He added that both large and small districts are experiencing similar challenges among students, and sometimes even among family members and other adults.

The K12 School Shooting Database also documents incidents involving former students, police officers or school resource officers, staff, those of unknown relationships and more. 

People with no relation to a school represent "a relatively small percentage" of school shooters, Riedman said. About 80% of attackers in active school shooting situations from 1970 to now are students or former students. 

As school systems consider safety measures to keep dangerous intruders out, this data shows it's also important to have protocols for addressing violent situations involving people who are familiar faces on campuses, Riedman said. 

The statistics also offer insights into what happens after a shooting occurs and how schools react. About 71% of school shooting incidents ended with the shooter fleeing and either escaping or being apprehended away from campus. Once a shot is fired, "it's very rare that the shooter stays at school," Riedman said.

But even with this knowledge, school responses to school shootings most often include multi-hour lockdowns, causing trauma to those hiding at the school, he said.

A one-size-fits-all approach to school security is not effective, Riedman said. 

"Now that we're, you know, 20 years after Columbine, there really needs to be some serious research into whether locking down at all is the appropriate approach to take, because there are more incidents and they're more deadly than they were pre-Columbine. So whatever is getting done, it's clearly not effective," Riedman said.

"I think Uvalde showed that sitting under desks in the classroom is not a good strategy," he said. "It would have been much better in that situation if the kids ran out of the building."

Police responding to the shooting situation at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, have been accused of "indecision, dysfunction, and harm" during the school's more than hour-long lockdown, according to a $27 billion class action lawsuit filed by victims’ families and survivors. Two teachers and 19 students died during the May 24 event.

The Uvalde tragedy has contributed to a climate of great ambiguity and uncertainty around school safety and an increase in parents demanding that school leaders reassess their security and emergency preparedness, Trump said. 

"School leaders need to take a more intense approach to training their teachers and support staff, focusing more on human factors and less on quick-fix 'security theater' of more security hardware, products, and technology," Trump said. In his work with schools, he said, he emphasizes training school staff on situational awareness, quickly recognizing changes in behavior patterns, and developing decision-making skills under duress. 

"There must be a culture where school safety is everyone's job, every day."

School shootings mimic national trends

According to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit corporation tracking U.S. gun violence, the number of teenagers and children killed or injured by a firearm has increased steadily, save for a dip in 2018, over the past few years. The number of teenagers ages 12-17 killed or injured by a firearm reached a new high of just over 5,000 in 2022. 

These trends are in line with 2020 numbers recently released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and analyzed by the Kaiser Family Foundation showing that firearms have become the No. 1 cause of death for children in the United States, exceeding motor vehicle deaths.

"We find that the United States is alone among peer nations in the number of child firearm deaths," Kaiser researchers wrote. "In no other similarly large or wealthy country are firearm deaths in the top 4 causes of mortality let alone the number 1 cause of death among children."