Chalkbeat

Denver mayor, schools superintendent announce youth summer programs meant to help curb gun violence

2024-05-21T00:02:08+00:00

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The city of Denver is aiming to connect 1,000 more teenagers with jobs this summer, help families find summer camps, and fund pop-up events like BBQs and basketball tournaments in some neighborhoods, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston announced Monday.

The efforts are meant to “prevent the risks of summer violence,” Johnston said, which tends to flare among youth once school is out. They come after several years of increased gun violence in and around Denver schools and community conversations about how to tamp it down.

“We all know it’s a shared responsibility to ensure our scholars are engaged over the summer,” Denver Public Schools Superintendent Alex Marrero said at a press conference with Johnston.

The last day for most public schools in Denver is June 5.

Marrero has been raising the alarm about increasing gun violence and pushing the city to take action since the fall of 2022, when an East High School student was shot in the face outside a city recreation center next to the school. The student was a bystander in a fight.

A few months later, in February 2023, 16-year-old East High student Luis Garcia was shot and killed as he sat in his car outside the school. Then, in March 2023, a 17-year-old East High student shot and injured two deans inside the school before taking his own life.

Johnston recently set a goal to reduce gun violence in the city by 20% by Dec. 31.

“Summer is a great opportunity to get young people engaged in positive activities,” Johnston said. “It can also be an at-risk time for young people who are not engaged in positive activities to be exposed to violence.

“So we are thinking about this as a multi-pronged approach to how we can engage young people into positive summer activities.”

The initiatives include:

The Mayor’s YouthWorks Initiative, which aims to connect 1,000 young people ages 14 to 21 with summer jobs. Young people who work 100 hours between May 1 and Aug. 16 and complete financial literacy training can get a $1,000 bonus. Priority will be given to young people who qualify for free or reduced-price school meals or other public benefits.
A new website that Johnston called a “one-stop shop” for finding summer camps and other programming. The website — at denvergov.org/youthsummer — allows families to enter a school name or home address and see all the summer programming within a certain mile radius. Many of the listed programs are free or offer financial assistance.
$500,000 in grant funding for local organizations to host pop-up neighborhood events for children and families that Johnston said “will bring life, and joy, and opportunity to communities where we know we have a real chance to drive down community violence.” Five hot spots around the city will be prioritized for the grant-funded pop-up events, a city spokesperson said.

Johnston encouraged employers in the city to sign up to be part of the YouthWorks effort, and he promoted two city-led youth job fairs, one virtual and one in-person:

Virtual job fair: Friday, May 24 from 4 to 6 p.m.
In-person job fair: Saturday, June 1 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

All of the new programming is being funded by a state grant known as GEER, which stands for Governor’s Emergency Education Relief and is funded by federal pandemic relief dollars. The city’s Office of Children’s Affairs won $1.7 million in GEER funds, according to a city spokesperson.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Amid record-high youth homicides, New B.O.Y. tries to give Indianapolis teens something to live for

2024-05-15T10:00:00+00:00

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This article was co-reported by Chalkbeat Indiana and Axios Indianapolis as part of a reporting partnership about youth gun violence in Indianapolis.

How do you save the lives of teenage boys who act like they aren’t afraid to die?

City officials are looking into it. Police are asking for help. Kareem Hines and his mentors keep trying.

“We, unfortunately, lose kids a lot,” said Hines. “The positive stories, the successes that we see with the kids, keep us going.”

Hines’ New B.O.Y. program — short for New Breed of Youth — is one of several in Indianapolis trying to reverse an alarming statistic: the highest number of youth homicides in at least six years, the majority of which involve guns. Some young men he works with are saved. Others are not, and Hines sees them on the news. Last year, the program lost six participants who ended up dead or in prison.

Either way, week after week, Hines and his team of mentors try to give their young men something to live for.

New B.O.Y., which began in 2009 and works with about 125 boys, is based on the mantra of “connection before correction.” It’s built on consistency.

Kareem Hines practices boxing with a young participant during the New B.O.Y. Guns Down, Gloves UP Boxing Program meetup on April 27, 2024 at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Park in Indianapolis.

Youth martial arts classes are on Tuesdays. Boxing classes are on Saturdays. There are field trips to go skiing or visit college campuses. And nearly every Wednesday, there are group talking sessions called “leaders circle” that bring children and parents together to review the week’s good and bad events.

Hines knows himself the power of a mentor and constant engagement from growing up in Harlem with a single dad. He met his own mentor at the YMCA, where he got his first job at 15. That mentor was the reason he moved to Indianapolis at age 20 in 1995, when he got a job at the Fall Creek YMCA that has since closed.

Since then, Hines worked in various mentoring and community outreach programs until launching New B.O.Y. in 2009.

But understanding just how challenging New B.O.Y.’s mission is means understanding the world in which the program operates.

It’s one in which teenagers pose smiling with guns on Instagram. Students “go 30″ — fight each other — in the school bathroom just to see who wins. Flyers circulating online promote parties that combine social media fights and guns in a confined space. “Drill” rap music describing shootouts with enemies is popular.

And embedded in all of this is the trauma of living in poverty, growing up in high-crime, under-resourced neighborhoods, or nursing broken relationships with adults.

Hines emphasizes that his program isn’t a cure-all.

“We’re just a piece of the puzzle,” he said. “We understand the plight of these young men, so we try to stand in the gap in every area, but we can’t be with them 24 hours a day.”

The program draws strength from youth like Patrick Collier who succeed.

As he’s grown in New B.O.Y. from a jaded pre-teen in foster care to a budding entrepreneur, Collier, now 18, has closely known four fellow participants who’ve been killed and two who’ve been locked up.

Losing them, he said, is more like losing a brother — and at times he did not want to come to New B.O.Y. activities for fear of learning of another person was dead or arrested.

“Ultimately, I realized that if I’m losing people this much, that just means that I have to do something,” said Collier, who hopes to study social work at Indiana University Bloomington next year. “I have to wrap my hands around the people that are in the program.”

Kareem Hines grew up in Harlem, where he spent many hours at the YMCA right across from his home. That's where he said he learned about the power of a mentor.

Talk sessions offer teens tough love, understanding

Hines is both a fiery preacher and understanding therapist. When he talks, these teenagers listen.

It’s a method of engagement with youth that he’s honed over decades of working with them.

In the leaders circle sessions that last for hours, he invites participants to describe the environment in which they live. He asks them to explain their poor decisions but celebrates their wins. And he tries to wrap it all up in a message of love and understanding.

The program’s participants are typically referred through the state’s Department of Child Services or the local probation department, but some can come from community-based referrals as well. The majority of the participants, like the majority of the city’s homicide victims ages 19 and under, are Black.

There’s the young man with a penchant for yo-yos who has lacked a strong female presence in his life and struggles with anger issues. But he celebrates his weekly wins at circle sessions — in January, he reported, he’d “been thinking about what I do before I do it.”

There’s the teenager in and out of juvenile court system who, under New B.O.Y.’s guidance, wrote a memoir sharing his family trauma.

During a leaders circle session in October, when Hines asks how easy it is for him to obtain a gun, he doesn’t hesitate: “It’s easy as 1, 2, 3.”

“I’m tired of that life” on the streets, he said. “I’ve been in that since I was nine. I’m 15.”

Hines frequently acknowledges the lack of fathers in the boys’ lives. He nods to the fact that adults have let them down. And he often asks the group questions that everyone knows the answer to. In this way, he and other mentors signal that they understand where these boys are coming from.

“Should you feel uncomfortable at a teenage party in this city?” he asks during one session in January. Yes, the boys nod, because you might get shot.

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“What’s ‘catching a face?’” he asks after playing a drill rap song through a loudspeaker at an April session.

It means killing somebody, they answer.

But these sessions also feature important life lessons.

Hines frequently passes out the latest articles of teenagers arrested for murder or killed in shootings, asking the boys to read it aloud and assess what the subjects should have done differently. In one session, he encouraged the boys to play chess, not checkers — in other words, to think critically about their decisions.

And during another session in January, the boys heard from JaMarcus Fields, who served 26 years in prison for murder.

“The system is not playing while we out here trying to play tough,” Fields said. He described his first night in prison as a scared 18-year-old.

“I literally went to sleep a little kid and had to wake up the next morning a grown man,” he said as the boys sat listening quietly. “I didn’t have a choice.”

Some boys still end up in prison — or worse

Still, not everyone makes it through New B.O.Y. alive or living life as a free man.

Hines uses every loss as a teachable moment.

In February, the boys stared at a text message about a former New B.O.Y. participant, now in his twenties.

“[He] has me reaching out to you to see if ur available to come to his sentencing Monday,” the message read. “He was fighting a murder charge but he’s pleading out.”

But Hines laments the fact that he hasn’t seen the young man come back to the program in a long time.

Kareem Hines speaks with students during a New B.O.Y. leaders circle session in February.

“He needs a few character references — can I give him a character reference?” Hines asks the group.

The boys shake their heads.

“Hell no. Hell no,” Hines said. “Hell no, I can’t.”

Still, Hines and the mentors keep going, even when participants stray from the flock. Stopping is not an option.

“I got about another 10 to 12 other young men who are still pushing, who made a different decision,” he said. “So we got to be there for them.”

Celebrating wins and giving boys ‘an incentive’

Collier was a frustrated middle school student when he met Hines at around 12 years old.

Years of being in and out of multiple foster homes left him standoffish, lacking trust in adults, and acting out in school. But the night that Hines showed up at his foster family’s house, wearing clothes that someone his age would wear, Collier was taken aback.

“He’s real,” Collier said on why young men respond positively to Hines. “There’s no facade he puts up. There’s nothing he tries to do that isn’t him. There isn’t an agenda oriented around profit that he works on.”

New B.O.Y.’s constant programming is what drew Collier out of his shell and ultimately earned his trust. He joined the program’s Young Entrepreneurs Program and launched a nonprofit with a fellow New B.O.Y. participant to bring food, clothing, and other services to those in need.

And like Hines, the programming felt authentic.

“It was never like, ‘Hey, let’s get this photo and then we’re going to drop him off,’” he said. “It was really genuine. I mean, there were rarely any cameras around. There were rarely people that weren’t always locked into the program.”

New B.O.Y. has played an annual flag football tournament against Evolve, another mentoring group, for the past few years. "None of y'all gonna be in the news," Hines said in a speech before the start of last year's tournament, referring to the news stories of murdered youth. "We gonna pour life into you today, like we try to do today and every day."

Outside of the tough love that New B.O.Y. participants get in the leaders circle, Hines and his team of adults are there year-around to provide the positive life experiences Collier had.

On a sunny Saturday in November, uplifting music is bumping on the field next to what used to be Indianapolis Public School 11. The young men huddle in excitement with mentors as they review their plays in the annual flag-football tournament against Evolve, another mentoring group.

“I keep an incentive in front of them,” Hines told Chalkbeat. “No matter what, I want to keep them with some kind of hope.”

New B.O.Y.’s programming aligns with Hines’ philosophy of correcting poor behavior while still actively celebrating life and its successes. He dislikes grandiose celebrations of life that occur only after a child has been killed. And he laments when news crews come to him for interviews only after someone dies.

He frequently calls on parents to be more involved with their children, not only through the bad, but the good.

“If you don’t love yours, and wrap your arms around yours, the streets will,” Hines told families at New B.O.Y.’s annual awards ceremony in December.

“I need you to focus on the discipline," Hines told families who watched a martial arts performance at New B.O.Y.'s annual awards ceremony in December. "Forget the technique, because you’ve got young people up here at varied levels of experience. But just look at how together they try to be.”

At the ceremony, boys in the martial arts program came up to the stage. Like a drill sergeant, Hines made the students answer him back, repeatedly:

“Who do you believe in?” he shouts. “Myself,” they answer.

“Who do you love?”

“Myself.”

Read the Axios Indianapolis story here.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Arika Herron is a reporter for Axios Indianapolis. You can reach her at Arika.Herron@axios.com.

Where Tennessee lawmakers landed on vouchers, guns, AI, and other education issues in 2024

2024-04-29T10:00:00+00:00

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Tennessee’s legislature is done for the year after a session marked by political infighting over private school vouchers and emotional debates about whether teachers and staff should be able to carry a gun in public schools.

The statewide voucher proposal fizzled after the Senate and House couldn’t agree on the specifics. Gov. Bill Lee quickly pledged to come back next year with another plan.

The bill to arm some school employees easily passed, defying dramatic protests at the state Capitol, a year after a Nashville school shooting in which three children, three adults, and the intruder were killed.

“This was a session of good, bad, and ugly,” Senate Minority Leader Raumesh Akbari said after the legislature adjourned on Thursday.

“Unfortunately, some really really bad bills ended up passing,” the Memphis Democrat added.

Republican leaders hailed the four-month session as a success.

“We accomplished things that will benefit the people of this state,” the governor told reporters minutes after the gavel fell.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee speaks with reporters at the close of the 2024 legislative session on April 25. He's flanked by the General Assembly's Republican leaders.

He cited the passage of a “historically important budget” that includes a consolation prize of $144 million for his Education Freedom Scholarship Act, in case it passes in future years. The failed voucher proposal seeks to give taxpayer money to any family who wants to send their children to private schools, regardless of their income.

“That shows a clear intent that we believe in this concept and that we expect that to get done next year,” Lee said.

By the end of the week, the governor had signed the bill to let some school employees carry guns, which took effect immediately.

The new law marks the biggest expansion of gun access in Tennessee since the killings at The Covenant School. Last year, the legislature appropriated $140 million to help place an armed officer in every public school, but many districts, especially in rural areas, haven’t been able to hire an officer for every campus.

“Districts have the option to choose,” Lee said earlier, arguing that some school systems need to let some employees carry a concealed handgun.

Protesters stage a "die-in" on the rotunda floor at the Tennessee State Capitol outside of the House chambers on April 23, 2024, after state lawmakers passed a bill to let certain teachers and school staff carry handguns in schools.

Legislation at the intersection of schools and guns

Lawmakers sorted through some 230-plus education bills filed in time for this year’s session — about 300 if you count those left over from last year in the two-year General Assembly. They ultimately passed about 70 that directly affect K-12 education.

For the second straight year, they made tweaks to a 2021 reading and retention law to address what many called unintended effects for students in grades three and four. Under a compromise approved on the last day of session, parents and educators of fourth graders will now have input on whether their students get held back because of low reading scores on state tests.

The legislature rejected tighter gun laws sought by Democrats and gun control advocates, and continued instead to pass legislation aimed at fortifying campuses. Among the initiatives: new school fire alarm protocols to take into account active-shooter situations; a pilot program to give teachers wearable alarms; increased safety training for school bus drivers; and guidelines to digitize school maps so first responders can access school layouts quickly in an emergency.

A rare bipartisan bill increases the penalty for anyone who threatens to commit an act of mass violence on school property or at a school-related activity.

Another measure, which Lee has signed into law, requires public schools to teach children age-appropriate firearms safety concepts as early as pre-kindergarten. The video-based training is to begin in the 2025-26 school year and, among other things, will instruct students who find a firearm that they shouldn’t touch it and should notify an adult immediately. The bill bars parents from opting their children out of the training.

So-called culture war issues played prominently again

One new law requires public school students to watch a video on fetal development produced by an anti-abortion group, or something comparable. Another measure will require public school employees to out transgender students to their parents. But a bill designed to ban LGBTQ+ flags in schools failed in the Senate amid concerns of a legal challenge based on First Amendment rights.

Tennessee’s age-appropriate materials law, championed by Lee in 2022 to cull certain titles from school libraries, now includes a definition of “suitable” materials for certain ages and maturity levels. And if a local school board doesn’t address a book complaint within 60 days, the complainant can now take the issue straight to the state textbook commission.

Another GOP bill that passed seeks to make sure that material related to “sexual activity” is excluded from the state’s mandatory family life curriculum for students in kindergarten through the fifth grade.

Meanwhile, legislation sponsored by Democrats directs the state education department to develop a program that public schools can use to teach students the skills of nonviolent conflict resolution.

Lawmakers exit the House of Representatives at the Tennessee State Capitol in Nashville on April 25 after adjourning their two-year session.

Social media and technology also were on the minds of lawmakers.

They signed off on legislation requiring minors to have parental consent to create social media accounts.

In addition, school districts, charter schools, and higher-education institutions must develop and implement their own policies on the use of artificial intelligence in the classroom, if they haven’t already done so. Those policies could include restricting or outright prohibiting the use of AI.

Amid that discussion, one bill requires that Tennessee history be taught in fifth grade. Having that issue codified in state law settles, for now, a debate that erupts whenever the state revises its academic standards for social studies.

Memphis was the focus of more legislation

Rep. Mark White and Sen. Brent Taylor, both Memphis Republicans, drafted several proposals aimed at education in their community.

The legislature passed one bill allowing the University of Memphis to create its own K-12 school district and expand its innovative University Schools model beyond campus borders. University officials said they’ll launch the district this fall, even as they’re still in talks with Memphis-Shelby County Schools about their contract that runs through fall 2026.

Another proposal — giving the governor the power to appoint up to six new members to the board of Memphis-Shelby County Schools — was never heard in committees after White agreed to hold off and work with the existing board and the district’s new superintendent, Marie Feagins, on an improvement plan.

Rep. Antonio Parkinson D-Memphis, has sought for years to shut down the Achievement School District.

A Democratic-sponsored proposal to end the Tennessee Achievement School District, the state’s sputtering takeover and turnaround initiative, passed out of the Senate but not the House. Rep. Antonio Parkinson, the sponsor there, pulled the legislation on the last day of session when White sought to amend the bill. Still, the ASD continues to shrink on its own as its 10-year contracts with charter operators end.

An effort to expand a separate pilot school turnaround project — which started in 2021 in Memphis, Nashville, and Chattanooga — failed to clear budget committees.

Lawmakers passed House Speaker Cameron Sexton’s charter school proposal to create new alternative education options for Tennessee’s at-risk youth. The plan opens the door to residential charter schools, a concern of disability advocates who warned against any measure that could lead to the institutionalization of youth or commingling distinct student populations facing varying issues such as substance abuse, juvenile crime, chronic absenteeism, and teen pregnancy.

Sexton trumpeted his and other charter school legislation headed to the governor’s desk. One bill rewrites state law governing vacant and underutilized public school properties to give charter operators the “right of first refusal” to purchase those public assets.

“This session did more than it’s ever done in our history to continue to put (charter schools) on a path to give parents the choice and alternative to traditional schools,” Sexton said.

A tighter budget meant fewer education initiatives

Passing a budget for state government is the legislature’s only required constitutional duty, and the task was more challenging this year as tax revenues flattened and federal COVID relief funding ended.

Still, Republican lawmakers approved a $1.9 billion package of tax cuts and refunds to corporations and businesses.

Representatives on the floor of the Tennessee House in 2022

They ultimately approved a nearly $53 billion spending plan that allocates an additional $126 million to raise the annual minimum salary for public school teachers from $42,000 to $44,500. The goal is to get to $50,000 by the 2026-27 school year.

Also included is $8 million to hire more school-based behavioral health specialists amid record reports of students experiencing stress, depression, anxiety, and other mental health challenges exacerbated by the pandemic. Another $15 million in non-recurring funds will help charter school operators pay for school facilities and maintenance.

But the legislature killed efforts to hire more school-based nurses and counselors, reimburse teachers for some of their child care expenses, and provide free feminine hygiene products in high schools, as well as separate proposals by a Democrat and a Republican to make school meals free for all students. It also said no to a bill to use tax revenue from Tennessee’s growing sports betting industry to offer child care scholarships to low- and middle-income families.

When the 114th General Assembly convenes next year, it will look somewhat different after this year’s elections. All seats of the 99-member House of Representatives and half of the Senate’s 33 seats will be on the ballot.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Gov. Bill Lee says he’ll sign bill to let some Tennessee teachers and staff carry guns in schools

2024-04-26T01:34:18+00:00

Gov. Bill Lee said Thursday he will sign legislation to let some teachers and staff go armed in Tennessee public schools.

“Districts have the option to choose,” Lee told reporters after the legislature adjourned for the year. Some school systems, he added, need that option.

His decision comes despite calls from teacher and gun control groups for the governor to veto the bill, as well as concern that parents won’t be notified if their child’s teacher is armed. In nearly six years as governor, Lee has advocated for parental rights on education matters such as curriculum and library materials.

The impending law becomes one of the most significant public safety actions in Tennessee since an intruder shot and killed three students and three staff members a year ago at a private Christian school in Nashville.

Partisan votes in the GOP-controlled legislature advanced the bill this month despite mass protests at the state Capitol seeking stricter gun laws in the wake of the massacre at The Covenant School.

Since Tuesday’s dramatic House vote sent the bill to the governor’s desk, many of the state’s largest districts, including in its four urban counties, have announced they will not use the option if the bill becomes law. They say their campuses generally have a trained law enforcement officer on duty.

“I think meeting … general threats to an environment with another threat to an environment is not something that we want to participate in,” said Marie Feagins, the new superintendent of Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

Rural districts, where it’s more difficult to hire school resource officers for every school, are more likely to use the option, according to Rep. Ryan Williams of Cookeville and Sen. Paul Bailey of Sparta, the bill’s sponsors.

Under the legislation, carrying a gun would be voluntary, and allowed only if the local school district and law enforcement agencies agree to the policy. The school employee carrying the gun would have to possess an enhanced permit, complete 40 hours of certified training in school policing at their own expense, and pass a mental health evaluation and FBI background check.

Meanwhile, the bill’s passage has put Tennessee in the national spotlight, drawing criticism from gun control groups such as Brady, the nation’s oldest gun violence prevention organization, and Sandy Hook Promise, founded by family members of the 20 children and six adults killed in a 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

“The Tennessee legislature has just dishonored all who were killed at the Covenant School shooting last year by choosing to promote the proliferation of firearms in classrooms,” said Kris Brown, the president of Brady, after the House vote. “There is no evidence to suggest that arming teachers will keep children safe from gun violence. Multiple teachers were armed at Covenant Day School, yet that was not enough to stop six children and school employees from being murdered.”

Tennessee Democrats, who voted against the bill, expressed disappointment that the governor plans to sign the bill.

“This legislation is an affront to every parent, to every Tennessean,” Sen. Raumesh Akbari, of Memphis. “We appropriated a record amount of dollars to fund SROs in every school. But instead we’re leaning into this type of policy.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Bill to let some teachers and school employees carry guns heads to Tennessee governor’s desk, despite protests

2024-04-23T23:54:26+00:00

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Protesters screamed “blood on your hands!” then lay down on the floor of the Tennessee State Capitol as if they were victims of gun violence, after lawmakers passed legislation Tuesday to let some teachers and staff carry guns at school.

In between, House Speaker Cameron Sexton paused business in the House of Representatives and ordered state troopers to clear the spectator gallery of protesters.

The 68-28 vote came one year after an intruder shot and killed three children and three adults at a Nashville school, prompting mass protests by gun control advocates and ongoing calls for tighter gun laws.

But instead of restricting gun access in one of America’s most gun-friendly states, the GOP-controlled legislature is sending Republican Gov. Bill Lee a bill that would expand it.

Gun control advocates were angry.

“They’re going in the wrong direction,” said Marley Mello, a 15-year-old Nashville student. “Guns are the problem, not the solution.”

Lisa Bruce, a retired Tennessee principal, called it a “Band-Aid to cover a gaping wound.”

“I could maybe get on board with it if we were already doing common sense measures to reduce gun violence in our state,” she said. “But this feels like a huge leap.”

After the bill's passage, students shout in protest in the rotunda of the Tennessee State Capitol.

The bill’s Republican sponsors have said the legislation is needed to provide an armed presence on every Tennessee school campus, especially in rural areas. Nearly a third of the state’s 1,800-plus public schools don’t have a school resource officer, despite an influx of state money to pay for them, due to a shortage in the profession.

On the House floor, Rep. Ryan Williams, of Cookeville, emphasized that carrying a gun would be voluntary, and allowed only if the local school district and law enforcement agencies agree to the policy. The school employee carrying the gun would have to have an enhanced permit, complete 40 hours of certified training in school policing at their own expense, and pass a mental health evaluation and FBI background check.

Republican lawmakers voting for the measure liked that local officials ultimately could decide whether the policy works for their community.

“I trust my local law enforcement. I trust my director of schools. I trust my teacher,” said Rep. Brock Martin, of Huntingdon.

But Democrats said the effort was misguided, shortsighted, and dangerous.

“We’re going to give somebody a little pop gun to go against a weapon of war. It does not work, folks,” said Rep. Bo Mitchell, of Nashville.

Tennesseans would be better served, Democrats argued, if the legislature passed laws requiring safe storage of firearms and background checks, as well as to temporarily remove guns from any person who is an imminent risk to themselves or others — all proposals that have been defeated by Republicans in charge.

The vote came after an hour of debate in which Democrats tried unsuccessfully to change the bill to exclude their counties, ensure parents are notified when their child’s teacher is armed, or remove a clause that shields districts and law enforcement agencies from civil lawsuits over how a school employee uses, or doesn’t use, a gun.

On Monday, one parent at Nashville’s Covenant School, where the shooting occurred on March 27, 2023, delivered a petition signed by more than 5,000 Tennesseans asking lawmakers to vote the bill down.

“While we all want safe schools and an end to gun violence, arming teachers with guns is not the way,” wrote Sarah Shoop Neumann, whose 5-year-old son was enrolled in Covenant’s preschool.

Another Covenant parent, Mary Joyce, called the bill “ludicrous.”

“Had my daughter’s teacher left the classroom to pursue the shooter, a classroom of 9-year-olds would have been left to protect themselves,” Joyce said.

Jeff Bledsoe, the executive director of the Tennessee Sheriffs’ Association, told Chalkbeat he expects few teachers to carry a gun if the bill becomes law. More likely candidates, he said, are school staff members who have a military or law enforcement background.

His organization opposed the legislation in 2019 when Williams sponsored a similar bill. However, it is neutral on the current bill after working with the sponsors to add more requirements before a person can carry a weapon at school.

Alison Beale, a mother and former teacher, is among spectators escorted by state troopers from the House gallery at the Tennessee State Capitol on April 23. Beale, of Hendersonville, is a Democratic candidate for the House.

Two weeks earlier, the bill easily cleared the Senate, where spectators also were ejected from the gallery after defying warnings from Lt. Gov. Randy McNally to stay quiet.

The governor has signaled he likely will sign the measure into law.

“I’ve said for many years that I’m open to the idea, but the particulars are important,” he told reporters last week.

An advocate for parental rights, the governor declined to comment on the bill’s intent to block a parent from being notified if their child’s teacher is carrying a gun.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Majority of American teachers worry about shootings at their schools, survey shows

2024-04-11T21:20:53+00:00

This story was originally published by The 19th and is republished under a Creative Commons license. Sign up for The 19th’s newsletter here.

The majority of American K-12 public school teachers say they are at least somewhat worried about the possibility of a shooting at their school, according to a new survey conducted by the Pew Research Center.

Fifty-nine percent told Pew researchers that they were concerned about shootings on their campuses, with 18% saying they were “very” or “extremely” worried. Only 7% of teachers polled said they were not worried at all. School shootings reached a record high last year, with 83 separate incidents occurring in 2023.

Juliana Horowitz, associate director of research at the Pew Research Center, told The 19th that the genesis for this research came from doing preliminary interviews with educators before launching surveys on the state of teaching today. Many brought up concerns about gun violence and safety. “In asking about the day-to-day of being a teacher, I felt like this was a really important topic to capture,” Horowitz said.

Fears about campus safety have become widespread in the 25 years since two senior students opened fire on their classmates at Columbine High School in Colorado. They killed 12 students and one teacher.

Last year, roughly one in four American teachers reported experiencing a gun-related lockdown at their school. Fifteen percent of respondents said they went through one emergency lockdown, with another 8% saying that it happened where they teach more than once.

These numbers tell an important story, Horowitz said. “Especially for high school teachers, this is something that is really top of mind for them.”

High school teachers experience gun-related lockdowns more than any other demographic: 34% said they had at least one incident during the previous school year, compared to 22% of middle school teachers and 16% of elementary school teachers.

Approximately one-third of teachers who work in urban areas said they had a gun-related lockdown during the last school year, compared with 19% of those in suburban areas and 20% in rural ones.

Teachers in urban schools were the least likely to say that they felt adequately prepared by their school, with only 21% saying their school had done a good or excellent job, compared with 32% of teachers in suburban districts and 35% of teachers in rural ones.

Most of the surveyed teachers pointed at the role mental health care could play in addressing the gun violence crisis. A large majority — 69% — said they believed improving mental health screening and treatment for children and adults would be extremely or very effective in preventing school shootings. This emphasis on improving mental health held across party lines, with 73% of Democratic teachers and 66% of Republican teachers all saying that investment in mental health resources would be an extremely or very effective prevention tool.

Only 13% said that allowing teachers and administrators to carry guns in school would be extremely effective at curbing this form of gun violence.

Related: Amid clamor from protesters, Tennessee Senate passes bill to arm some teachers

Party affiliation had a lot to do with teachers’ opinions on how to be proactive about school safety. Sixty-nine percent of Republican teachers were in favor of having police officers or armed security in schools, compared with 37% of Democrats; 43% were in favor of metal detectors compared with only 27% of Democrats; and 28% were in favor of allowing teachers and administrators to carry guns, compared with just 3% of Democrats.

Horowitz said that teachers tend to lean Democratic, meaning that the majority of those surveyed are more likely to identify as Democrats than the public overall. “The results among Democratic teachers mirror more closely what we see overall among teachers — and so that’s why it’s really important to also look at these differences and see how Democratic and Republican teachers are reacting differently to these questions.”

She also points to the 3% of teachers who say that staff at their schools are allowed to carry guns. But that circumstance depends on the political leanings of the school district where the campus is located. Teachers in districts that went for President Donald Trump in 2020 saw this number reach 5%. In districts that went for President Joe Biden, it dropped to 1%. “I think that captures that partisan differences are important not just among teachers, but that there are partisan differences in terms of the sort of political environment where the schools are that they teach in,” Horowitz said.

For this study, Pew surveyed 2,531 members of RAND’s American Teacher Panel, which is nationally representative. Survey data was weighted to state and national teacher characteristics to account for differences in sampling and response.

Parents also echo teachers’ concerns, Horowitz added. A Pew Research Center study released last fall found that a third of American parents said they were extremely or very worried about a shooting at their child’s school, with an additional 37% saying they were somewhat worried. That means about seven in 10 parents have fears about school shootings.

This survey did not tie school shooting concerns to how teachers intend to vote in the November election. But Horowitz believes it is clear that issues affecting schools “are things that people will be talking about in the context of the election and politics.”

Amid clamor from protesters, Tennessee Senate passes bill to arm some teachers

2024-04-10T00:44:08+00:00

Amid outbursts from gun control advocates in the spectator gallery, Tennessee’s GOP-dominated Senate passed a bill Tuesday to allow some teachers and staff to carry concealed handguns in public schools.

The vote was 26-5 vote along partisan lines.

Lt. Gov. Randy McNally ordered the gallery cleared of protesters after issuing several warnings before the vote, but many of them refused to leave, despite the urging of state troopers and warnings that they could be arrested.

Some held up signs that said “We’re still here” and “1 year later, are kids safer?” referring to Nashville’s Covenant School shooting, in which an intruder killed three children and three adult staff members on March 27, 2023.

Others chanted “Vote them out!” and “Let them teach!” as it took nearly 15 minutes to resume debate.

“People were damn mad,” Nashville mom Carol Buckley Frazier told Chalkbeat later.

“Some wonderful amendments were introduced to try to craft something better out of a horrific bill, but every one of them got tabled by the Republican supermajority. We just couldn’t believe it,” said Frazier, who came to the state Capitol to show her opposition to the bill.

A group of parents from The Covenant School were also in the balcony but were allowed to stay. Wearing school colors or with ribbons pinned to their chests, they have had a steady presence on Capitol Hill since the shooting to meet with legislators, attend committee meetings, and advocate for gun reforms.

The legislation still awaits a vote by the full House. If it passes there, Tennessee will be on the verge of enacting a law that most teachers and parents oppose.

The latest results from the annual statewide poll conducted by the Vanderbilt Center for Child Health Policy found that school safety is one of parents’ top education concerns, but significantly fewer parents said yes when asked if schools are safer when teachers are armed.

However, some rural lawmakers have sought the measure for a decade to help districts that can’t place an armed law enforcement officer on every campus, most recently due to a shortage in the profession.

The bill, co-sponsored by Sen. Paul Bailey of Sparta and Rep. Ryan Williams of Cookeville, lays out specific conditions before any school employee could carry a concealed handgun if they’re not a law enforcement officer.

First, the local district and law enforcement agency would have to agree to pursue such a policy.

Second, interested teachers and school staff who have an enhanced handgun permit would have to complete 40 hours of certified training in school policing at their own expense, and pass a mental health evaluation and an FBI background check. That training would have to be renewed every year that the teacher was carrying.

Parents would not be notified if their child’s teacher is armed. And one provision of the bill shields districts and law enforcement agencies from potential civil lawsuits over how a teacher or school employee uses, or doesn’t use, a handgun under the proposed law.

In remarks on the Senate floor, Sen. Raumesh Akbari, a Memphis Democrat, noted the irony of any legislation blocking a parent from being notified about a gun in their child’s classroom, given the many GOP-backed laws passed in recent years to restrict curriculum and library materials under the banner of parental rights.

And Sen. London Lamar, another Memphis Democrat, gave an impassioned speech while holding her 8-month-old son.

Sen. London Lamar, D-Memphis, holds her infant son as she speaks against legislation that would allow some Tennessee teachers and staff to go armed in public schools.

“I’m upset. My child is at risk under this bill,” Lamar said. “This bill is dangerous and teachers don’t want it. Nobody wants it.”

Bailey, the Senate sponsor, said the provision about not notifying parents is intended as a deterrent to potential intruders who would not know who is armed and who isn’t.

Any liability for an accident would be borne by the teacher who chooses to carry a weapon under the law, he said.

Sen. Ken Yager, a Kingston Republican, spoke in favor of the bill.

“We are not trying to shoot a student,” he said, “but protect a student from an active shooter whose sole purpose is to get into that school and kill people.”

But Claire Jones, a Williamson County mom and hospice nurse who was at the Capitol on Tuesday, saw it differently.

“When you ask for stricter gun legislation and they actually loosen the laws, that feels intentional,” said Jones, who is running as a Democrat for the House seat currently occupied by Republican Rep. Gino Bulso.

“How did we come from a tragedy like Covenant to this point?” she asked.

You can track the bill’s status on the General Assembly’s website.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

After a gun scare, our school district is reeling from the trauma — and the financial toll

2022-12-13T20:35:00+00:00

Months after a threat locked down the school district I work in, students and staff are still reeling.

On June 3, we received a report of a gunman at one of our middle schools. While multiple police agencies searched the building, the rest of our district was on lockdown, unsure of what was happening.

Eventually, we learned a student had called in a false report. But the fallout was like nothing I’ve ever experienced. As prepared as we were to protect our students, the crisis left a lasting impact on every member of our school family. Some of our children no longer see school as their safe place. Some teachers struggle, too.

After the incident in June, we spent hours debriefing. We worked with law enforcement agencies. We shifted professional development time away from reading and math instruction so we could run safety drills with teachers instead. We went above and beyond the state-mandated hours of training on physical security. And all of that took resources that hadn’t been budgeted for school safety.

Likewise, we found ourselves revisiting recent renovations to our elementary school because of a small detail with potentially huge impact. The doors were designed to lock with keys – which means a person needs to run over and manually turn them – rather than flip locks. We’re spending more than $40,000 to fix this so that teachers can more easily protect students from a potential shooter.

Was it worth it? Of course. It also meant we were unable to update our outdated learning spaces. Likewise, local residents would like us to add a school resource officer. But at budget time, we will have to make a choice between that officer and a teacher.

The reality is that, in most cases, every dollar allocated to advance safety is money taken from teaching and learning.

Our district is not alone when struggling under the rising cost of security. In 2021, schools and colleges spent $3.1 billion on safety precautions. Yet, as The New York Times reported, researchers at John Hopkins University found little evidence that major infrastructure modifications have stopped violent school events. An article in The Washington Post went so far as to say, “Experts call it ‘school security theater’ – the idea that if a school system buys enough technology or infrastructure, it can keep its children safe from the horrors of a gunman.”

Even so, what is so tough about these decisions is that students and teachers’ feelings of physical safety make a big impact on our schools. As administrators, teachers, and parents continue to see how school violence is threatening our kids’ emotional health and their education, I hope legislators can lessen the financial burden on districts that are making every sacrifice possible to defend our students.

The U.S. Department of Education has announced $1 billion in grant funds will be available through the Bipartisan Safety Communities Act, one step in that direction. Now, legislators must monitor where spending is most effective. Lawmakers should be under the microscope to determine if their decisions to allocate funding to school safety is the best way to defend our most vulnerable, just as schools and teachers must defend their spending and curriculum decisions.

In my district, we work hard to create a welcoming environment for all students every day. We also have to pause throughout the day to remind students what to do in case of a threat. What to do in the classroom. The cafeteria. The playground.

The reality is that, in most cases, every dollar allocated to advance safety is money taken from teaching and learning.

We want to continue to prioritize social-emotional support – not only for the trauma students and educators experienced in June, but for what they may continue to experience as we practice lockdown drills. And that’s before we even get to working on social-emotional skills to cope with the normal situations they encounter in their day-to-day lives.

Schools everywhere are weighing these costs. Since 1999, more than 300,000 kids have been on campus during an act of gun violence, according to a Washington Post estimate. Unfortunately, districts nationwide have been left to fortify their schools while also trying to address other overwhelming issues.

During COVID, we picked up the banner of mental health, made sure our kids are fed, and stepped up in so many other ways. But protecting our kids from guns with limited funding, too? It’s too much.

It takes tremendous courage for school leadership to weigh these competing priorities and make difficult decisions. I feel called to help others understand how hard it is for us to eliminate safety threats and still accomplish all of our other educational goals, too.

Kelly Carpenter-VanLaeken is the chief academic officer of the Gananda Central School District in New York. She began her career in education as a social studies teacher and then became a principal. Kelly is a member of the Institute for Education Innovation and a board member of the GVASCD.

My students and I talk about gun violence. This week, I was out of words.

2023-03-30T21:15:00+00:00

After a weekend of violence in our rural Illinois town and nationally, I sat down with the students in my creative writing college class and tried to create a space for us to discuss where we’re at.

I am struggling, perhaps more than I’ve struggled before. I want to talk without breaking down crying about how on Friday, a man walked into a house party in our town, killing one person and injuring 10 others while dozens of college students and their friends ran for their lives. I mourn the traumas these students carry. I mourn the lives lost or broken. I mourn that this shooting happened a block from my house.

Freesia McKee

When my partner and I first moved to town two years ago, colleagues warned us not to move into this neighborhood. Too many students, they said. Too many loud parties. But being in community with students is one of the things I love about serving as a professor. I love being able to walk to work, seeing a former student waving to me out their car window, and showing up, my partner and I, as a visibly queer couple in this small town whenever we walk the dog. We’ve loved this neighborhood.

My partner and I spent this past weekend at home, listening to sirens with unusual frequency, gleaning scraps of information from city press conferences. I logged onto an app where people can post anonymous messages for others in their geographic area, though I realized quickly that the app served as a rumor mill, and the messages on it were often racist.

About 12 hours after the shooting, I sent an email to my students encouraging them to lean on their loved ones and reach out to those who support them, echoing the messages the school had sent everyone with links to the campus counseling center. Then, the school week started, and a person walked into an elementary school in Nashville and killed six people, including three 9-year-olds. I was out of words.

On Tuesday evening, after devoting the first few minutes of class to silent journaling, I invited students to share their reactions to the events of the past few days. I will admit that my wish was for hope, for solutions, and for a way forward.

Many of the students in the class are English education majors, meaning that they will start teaching their own classes at middle schools and high schools in just a couple of years. During our discussion, multiple students brought up the idea of a special class within the major devoted to dealing with active shooter situations. Students said that the risk of this happening to them as teachers “is not zero.” Maybe training would help.

Can we, in good conscience, train college students to become future English teachers, knowing that they may be subjected to murderous violence at work?

Students said the vibe on our campus was different right now. Friend groups who were at the party were still processing how this could happen. Students connected the epidemic of gun violence with racism and climate change, and they complained that Congress is more focused on banning TikTok than on stopping the accumulating body counts in front of us.

The English education majors brought up that someday, they may have to make the decision whether to live or die for their students. I sat in front of them, my students, my beloved students, right in front of me, and I could not get my brain to register this question. Would I die for my students? I still can’t comprehend it, won’t allow myself to think it. I do not want to die for anyone. I want to live.

The question I was able to ask myself: Can we, in good conscience, train college students to become future English teachers, knowing that they may be subjected to murderous violence at work? And though I asked myself the question, I also know that there’s no realistic alternative to training teachers. Our society needs public education. Students deserve to be in classrooms taught by humans, not robots or AI. And yet, we shouldn’t be forced to love teaching so much that we are willing to die for it. This shouldn’t be the bar for who decides to remain in teaching and who decides to take cover somewhere else.

The reason the shooting in Macomb, Illinois, where I live and work, made only local news is that it was not on campus but in a neighborhood, even though it affected current and former students. The Covenant School shooting in Nashville made national news because it happened inside a school and involved the execution of 9-year-olds. Tragedies cannot be compared, but what I do think we need to remember is this: for every mass shooting we hear about, there are countless other acts of violence that make only the local news.

I am teaching members of a generation who look towards the future and see violence. This reality has felt so heavy for the last few days that I have not known how to do my job. I am worried especially about students who have shared their mental health challenges and fears of showing up in public spaces. What do I say to them? How do I support them?

When I take my daily walks in the neighborhood, I think about the conversations I have with students about their mental health, about their worries for the world, about who they wish to become. The past few days, my worries for my students have all but drowned me.

I do not want to care less. But to survive as a teacher, I may have to.

Freesia McKee (she/her) works as an instructor of English at Western Illinois University. In the fall of 2022, she served as the poet in residence at Ripon College.

I train future teachers. Gun violence has them on edge.

2023-03-10T16:30:00+00:00

At the end of third grade, I wrote an essay in response to the prompt: “If you could wish for anything, what would it be?” My mom recalls that my response — “I want to feel safe in school” — nearly broke her heart. Since it was 1999, and I was a third grader at an elementary school just blocks away from Columbine High School, where gunmen had killed 12 students and a teacher just months prior, my response was not all that surprising. And yet, nearly 25 years later, my wish remains the same: I want to feel safe in school.

This wish remained front of mind when I was a third-grade teacher guiding my 8-year-old students through active shooter drills. The exact same wish often overcomes me as I try to ignore the relentless news stream of gun violence and drop off my two young children at school each day. Now, as a teacher educator in the School of Education at the University of Colorado whose work focuses primarily on preparing future teachers, I hear the same wish coming from my students. They, too, want to feel safe in school.

Deena Gumina

Incidences of gun violence are so commonplace that they can barely hold the 24-hour news cycle. In the past two weeks, there were three separate incidents within a square mile of our campus, and many of my friends and family didn’t even hear about them. And despite the prevalence of mass violence, including school shootings, we have to show up each day to teach, just as our students will be expected to when they have their own classrooms. We are all tired, but we have to go on.

As a teacher educator, I am expected to model the types of behavior with my students that I hope they will then enact in their future classrooms. I work to facilitate difficult conversations and hold space for their fears and anxieties while also pushing forward and instilling hope.

But what happens when I, myself, begin to feel hopeless? What happens when they look to me for answers I don’t have? Of course, there are many situations in my work where I don’t have the answers, and my students and I try to find them together. I intentionally position myself as a learner rather than an expert, just as I hope they will with their students someday. Though making peace with not knowing is much easier when it doesn’t feel like lives are on the line.

In recent years, the perception of teachers as martyrs has shifted from metaphor to reality.

As a profession, teaching is often framed as an act of martyrdom. Society will expect you to work long, difficult hours with few resources and little pay because the job is noble and thereby involves sacrifice. In recent years, the perception of teachers as martyrs has shifted from metaphor to reality. Future teachers are asking themselves, Would I be able to step in front of a gun for my students? And if the answer is no, Should I really become a teacher?

Much of my work centers on helping teachers find the power to imagine what is possible amid constraints instead of focusing on what they can’t do. Together, we work to find space to dream of what could be as a way to transform education from the inside out. Right now, though, everything we are doing feels colored by either real violence or the fear of it. My students want change; we all do. We want to know that if we are going to commit our lives to this work that those in power are committed to making it safe. Safety does not mean teachers coming to school armed. Safety means not having to think about guns at all while you work with your students.

I find myself wondering where these spaces for change might be. What if we refused to believe that our current reality is all that could be? Imagine if more educators unions took on gun lobbyists. Imagine if school boards called on state legislatures to make laws to protect children from gun violence. Imagine if elected officials banned the kinds of firearms being used to shoot children with the same ferocity and urgency that others are banning books and drag shows. Maybe reaching our breaking point finally gives us the opportunity to build something new.

Dr. Deena Gumina is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the School of Education at CU Boulder. Her work focuses on preparing teachers to work with and advocate for culturally and linguistically diverse students and their families. She lives in Colorado with her husband, her two children, and their chocolate lab.

For teachers and students, safe classrooms feel like a fairy tale

2023-01-20T13:00:00+00:00

I once taught a shooter. He wrote me a scathing letter about my class a year before he murdered his mother and reportedly planned to attack the school.

During a safety training at my school, we were taught that if a student is trapped in the hall during a lockdown and they knock on the door pleading to come in, we must refuse them entry in case they are feigning fear to gain access. Would I have been able to make that emotional pivot after working for a year with the boy who killed his mom?

Alicia Wein

I had spent that year trying to learn his vulnerabilities and passions, caring, pointing out his successes, and helping him unlock his writing from its stiff reserve. Would I have been able to turn away from him and register him not as a lover of history, an advocate for kids with disabilities, a beloved younger brother and only son, but merely as a threat? The idea alone breaks my heart.

Welcome to the mind of an educator in 2023, where lesson plans must jockey for space with the specter of gun violence. The news that a 6-year-old shot his teacher earlier this month in Newport News, Virginia, was just the latest disturbing reminder.

I remember when emergency preparedness in my classroom had nothing to do with violence. If a student asked me for something I didn’t have, I made sure I’d have it the next time. I filled a closet with tampons, band-aids, stain removers, duct tape, screwdrivers, hair ties, safety pins. If someone needed tape, it was a point of pride to reply, “carpet, book, scotch, or duct?” Students laughed and compared my room to Mary Poppins’ magical bag.

Now, they cheerfully say: “When we are in a lockdown, this is the room I want to be locked in!” I take this as a compliment, as it was intended. But 27 years into my career as an educator, I need to step back, breathe, and let myself be horrified by the implications of teaching against a backdrop of peril.

After a neighboring district went into lockdown due to a student threat, I spent 90 minutes of planning time emptying a second closet in the back of my room. Teacher friends told me what lockdown was like — the initial terror, and the five-and-a-half hour-long wait to be cleared from lockdown even after they knew they were safe. Attention turned from quieting anxiety to dealing with the physical discomfort of full bladders, thirst, and empty stomachs. They told me how they dug up snacks, shared water, and tried to negotiate a modicum of privacy when students had to urinate in the trash can.

In a department meeting, we made a plan to send gift baskets and well-wishes to those colleagues, then swapped ideas of how to mitigate a similar circumstance. I removed books and shelves and replaced them with lockdown supplies: glucose tablets and emergency blankets in case students go into shock, snacks and water bottles, and a red plastic bucket that students could use as a toilet during a long lockdown.

From my next paycheck, I will purchase kitty litter (for silencing streams of urine), a camping toilet seat that screws on the bucket, and a light to mount in the closet. There’s a pack of masks because if we have to huddle together, assuming we survive, we don’t want to catch COVID.

After my closet reorganization, I awoke in the night thinking I should bring old towels to school in case I ever needed to staunch bleeding, a circumstance for which I have zero training. On my drive to work, I used to mentally rehearse my lesson plans. Now I rehearse the “run, hide, fight” protocol.

‘When we are in a lockdown, this is the room I want to be locked in!’

At times this fall, I considered going on anti-anxiety medicine to address my stress level. At teacher training sessions, I wondered if I’d be better off hearing from experts on second-hand trauma and PTSD in soldiers. I ask my brother, who has over 20 years of experience as a sniper for Baltimore SWAT, for his advice about arranging my classroom furniture.

Teaching and learning, perhaps especially in a writing classroom like mine, are built on relationships, which depend on safety. My classroom works best as a protected space that fuels connection and vulnerability and helps students construct their understanding of their world and themselves. But now the looming fear of physical violence is throwing my classroom out of balance. With retirement a few years away, I’m increasingly skeptical that damage caused by fear in the classroom will ever be acknowledged, much less repaired.

Twenty-seven years into my teaching career, I still treat my students with tenderness. I remain friends with graduates and read their writing when it’s published outside school walls.

But this generation is internalizing the idea that being in public means putting your life in danger. For them, the idea of a safe classroom feels like the stuff of fairy tales. I don’t want to teach students that school is dangerous, but I fear I’m imparting that lesson through my own vigilance.

Abigail Zwerner, the Newport News teacher who was critically wounded by a 6-year-old in her class, was lauded in the news as a hero for clearing her room of students and asking about her students first when she woke in the hospital. Her actions are heroic, but we need to ask why they were necessary.

We have to resist perpetuating an understanding that constant physical peril is an acceptable way of life. We must speak up for legislation that funds infrastructure improvement, mental health support for students and educators, and reasonable gun control measures to keep weapons designed for murder out of the hands of children who can’t even get their driver’s licenses for another 10 years. We must refuse to let anyone tell educators to “fight back” without including specific instructions on how or allowing questions about why we are in danger to begin with.

Let dedicated educators restore an equilibrium in which we can expect more than to survive, and to be more than guardians of children’s bodies, more than stewards of this unacceptable new normal.

Alicia M. Wein is a secondary school English educator of 27 years, most taught at Guilderland Central School. She lives in Albany with her partner and beloved dogs, and is an avid reader, writer, and painter. She is especially interested in creating a school setting that allows for the inclusion of all students, and she works closely affiliated with The Capital District Writing Project. She is the 2023 recipient of the Bertha E. Brimmer Medal of Honor, a SUNY Excellence Award.

Student voices on Uvalde: Our leaders ‘are just not going to protect us’

2022-06-07T12:00:00+00:00

Today’s high school students were born after the mass shooting at Columbine and were in elementary school when a gunman murdered 20 first graders and six adults at Sandy Hook. These teens are old enough to remember the massacre in Parkland, but most of them were too young to join the protests that followed.

They grew up with routine active shooter drills at school and with the perfunctory “thoughts and prayers” politicians offered when tragedy struck.

Following last month’s school shooting that killed 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, the supermarket shooting in Buffalo, New York, 10 days earlier, and a year that saw rising homicides in many major American cities, Chalkbeat invited teens around the country to tell us how gun violence affects their lives and education.

In their lifetime, there have been thousands of mass shootings, including those in Philadelphia and Chattanooga, Tennessee this past weekend. There have been hundreds of school shootings, too, but no new and significant federal gun control laws. (Bipartisan talks on firearm restrictions are again underway.) Because of pervasive gun violence, students say they have learned to scan every classroom for places to hide from an active shooter, plan out escape routes, and contemplate whether and how they might help stop a shooter in their school.

Some teens say they have become desensitized to news of mass shootings because there’s no time to process one massacre before another occurs. Other students say the American gun violence epidemic keeps them in a constant state of high alert and that they are traumatized and exhausted.

They fear more than mass shootings and shots fired inside school buildings. Everyday gun violence has them considering how they get to school, where they sit in public spaces, and whether or not they’ll see their families at the end of the day. One student talked to Chalkbeat about Kyhara Tay, the 11-year-old girl struck by a stray bullet last month in the Bronx. Another remembered her schoolmate Jimari Williams, an 18-year-old Chicagoan killed by gunfire just two months before he would have graduated from high school.

The students who opened up to Chalkbeat shared a range of emotions, from numbness to fear, from anger to despair. Although they want more from their leaders, they don’t believe elected officials will take meaningful action to curb gun violence any time soon.

Their stories have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Pragnya Kaginele: Walking into a classroom, I think about hiding places

Jeremiah Griffith: It can’t get much worse

Amaya Turner: Kids are not pieces on a chessboard

Radiah Jamil: Schools should focus on student mental health and teach self-care

Meleena Salgado: Since third grade, I’ve worried about being shot at school

Anjali Darji: I’m in that crisis state of mind

Bryan Bastidas: America is normalizing gun violence on every scale

Ajibola Junaid: Elected officials must stop fighting the wrong battles

A view of Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, the site of the deadly May 24 mass shooting.

Walking into a classroom, I think about hiding places

Pragnya Kaginele, 15

Freshman, Carroll High School in Southlake, Texas

Pragnya Kaginele

It almost feels hopeless sometimes. I can’t think of a good solution other than good gun control. But it’s not like I can say “There should be gun control,” and magically there’s gun control. The people who are supposed to be protecting us are just not going to protect us, and they have so much more power than all of us. I’d like to think it would happen when our generation becomes eligible to run [for office], but we can’t wait 15 years.

It’s so strange that people just have guns and can carry them into schools and cause this kind of destruction. What happened in Buffalo wasn’t a school shooting, but it was a hate crime, and it was about a week before. In the span of 10 days, there’s been a racially motivated shooting, and then there’s been a shooting where 19 little kids died. For those to happen back to back, it’s like you don’t finish processing the fact that one happened before the next tragedy. It just keeps coming at you, and I guess your brain starts to think, this is just normal.

Just because it’s been happening so much doesn’t make this loss of life normal. Just because the Founding Fathers wrote in the Constitution 200 years ago that Americans have the right we have the right to have guns — just because people are so obsessed with not making any change to [the status quo] — students are forced to live their lives in fear. (The Second Amendment states, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”)

When I first go into a classroom, I think about hiding places. If I’m in a hallway, I think, if something happened, what bathroom would I go into? And there are these weird moral questions, like, would I throw myself in front of someone, or would I jump behind them? It feels weird to think about that because I’m 15 years old.

A small memorial sits outside a Chicago liquor store where 58-year-old community activist Willie Cooper was shot and killed on July 17, 2017.

It can’t get much worse

Jeremiah Griffith, 16

Junior, Noble Academy in Chicago

Jeremiah Griffith

I am a student journalist and was covering the Chicago Sky ring ceremony on May 24. The WNBA commissioner was talking about the mass shootings in the past month. She mentioned Buffalo and Texas, and I was confused because I hadn’t heard what had happened in Texas. There was a moment of silence, and the whole arena was silent.

I found out more about it during the post-game interview. When I went home, as I was finishing up the recap of the game and the article, I looked up what happened. It’s sad because, on the one hand, it’s like, oh, another mass shooting — same old, same old. But on the other hand, we have to change something.

The next day, in my AP language class, we talked about the mass shooting in Uvalde. My teacher let us have a Harkness, which is a kind of group discussion. We were talking about how we could possibly change the Second Amendment of the Constitution, but we know that might not happen. We’re being held back by the government and the lobbyists who control the NRA.

Here in Chicago, there are shootings every day. I remember when it first started getting warmer a few weeks ago, there were at least 28 people shot over the weekend , and all it got was local news reporting, and that was about it.

The Buffalo shooter literally used a live stream app, Twitch. All my friends use that app, and a lot of people saw the video (before the stream was removed). We’ve become desensitized to mass shootings, but there’s not much we can do unless there is a drastic change to the entire system. Otherwise, these things are going to keep happening. It can’t get much worse. We’re already witnessing murders on camera, and it’s normal.

This candlelight vigil, held on Feb. 14, 2019, in Orlando, Florida, commemorated the one-year anniversary of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

Kids are not pieces on a chessboard

Amaya Turner, 17

Junior, Abington High School in Abington, Massachusetts

Amaya Turner

School shootings affect me more than I think they should. No matter how often they happen — and happen often, they do — I can never quite manage to feel desensitized. I suppose that’s good. I do not want to become desensitized, but the familiar fear and grief they stir up are beyond exhausting.

Every time a new school shooting occurs, I cannot stop picturing the hundreds of people who were close to the victims and will be forever changed. I cannot help but think about the surviving students who will live forever with the memories. Have we really come to a place in our country where lifelong trauma after a shooting qualifies someone as “one of the lucky ones” because at least they survived?

In 2018, when the Marjory Stoneman Douglas school shooting happened in Parkland, Florida, I remember being terrified to go to school for weeks. In every classroom I sat in, I would try to figure out where I would run or hide if there was a shooter. I was 13. I already knew about Sandy Hook and had internalized the idea that school shootings were a part of life I might as well accept.

But it is difficult to feel safe when watching your teacher cover the narrow floor-to-ceiling window pane with a cabinet because she is afraid a would-be shooter could break the glass. It’s difficult to feel safe when you’ve grown up practicing how to huddle together with the lights off, staying as quiet as possible, and then going through ALICE training (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate). Many adults did not grow up with active shooter drills because they were mostly implemented after the Columbine shooting in 1999. So the majority of our government officials don’t know what it is like to hear kids joke nervously about who would jump in front of a shooter to buy time.

After each tragedy, there are desperate pleas for change but no real change, and then we end up repeating the tragic cycle. It is absolutely soul-crushing.

Student safety is a human right, and children, teens, and their teachers should be able to go to school without fearing the worst. I worry less for my own safety and school — Massachusetts, where I live, has some of the country’s most restrictive gun laws — and more for all the school communities bound to be impacted by mass shootings unless something changes. I worry about the parents planning funerals for their children. I worry about the surviving students who face a lifetime of traumatic memories. I worry about mental health professionals trying to help students who are suffering. I worry about innocent people who have the same mental conditions as past shooters and are now being unfairly stigmatized. Mostly, I worry about how many more children will die before change is finally enacted.

I feel so powerless hearing another shooting being politicized and debated. Kids are not pieces on a chessboard. For now, I can only hope that there will be a generation of children who never know the ever-present anxiety of school shootings or have to watch the death count slowly rise over a series of days. I can only hope my peers and I are granted the time and resources necessary to bring about the changes we deserve.

A girl visits a makeshift memorial for the shooting victims outside the Uvalde County Courthouse in Uvalde, Texas, on May 29, 2022.

Schools should focus on student mental health and teach self-care

Radiah Jamil, 18

Senior, Brooklyn Latin School in New York City

Radiah Jamil

I found out about the school shooting in Uvalde on social media — Instagram specifically. That’s where I get most of my news. It was just an infographic that said the number of people who were dead in Texas.

After mass shootings, a common thing people say is: Make it stricter to get guns or even abolish them completely. But I’m a big-picture person. Mental health is the primary thing that schools can focus on fixing. Mental health affects your thoughts, your decisions, your actions, and your interactions with everyone. It really impacts every aspect of your life, so that’s why I think it’s the primary thing to tackle.

Mental health has long been a crisis that has not gotten enough recognition. There has been a lot of stigma. I think we’re getting a bit better at reducing the stigma with technology, but technology can also make people’s mental health worse. It makes you more prone to cyberbullying, and online, you can be exposed to a lot of negative stuff.

When we were isolated during remote learning, we turned to Instagram and Snapchat to feel more connected. But that might not have been great for our mental health because there was a lot of stuff going on. The country was in such a tough space, and it definitely trickled down to have a negative effect on the mental health of many students.

Like most people, I was in my room for a year and a half and not socializing much. It took a toll on many of my friendships. I was diagnosed with depression. Coming back to school, it’s been so hard transitioning for both teachers and students. I feel like everyone is getting burnt out a lot more. There are many schools that don’t have access to a social worker on a daily basis, and a social worker is someone students can turn to when they’re having a hard time.

Last year, after winning money in a “Shark Tank”-style contest, I founded Mentalligence, a peer-to-peer mental health support organization to teach New York City high school students about different therapies, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy and existential therapy, and self-care techniques. Our peer support gives students a comfortable place to talk about their mental health, especially if they can’t afford a therapist or don’t have a reliable person at home to talk to.

If schools focused on mental health and self-care, it would really go a long way because, at school, we don’t talk about any of that stuff. Even little things like carving out 15 minutes to meditate and do gratitude journaling — teaching these self-care activities so that students can form these habits — could have a greater impact on students’ mental health in the long term.

People mourn at a makeshift memorial for the victims of the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on May 31, 2022.

Since third grade, I’ve worried about being shot up at school

Meleena Salgado, 17

Junior, John Hancock College Preparatory High School in Chicago

I was feeding my dogs, and my dad rushed in and said a school had been shot up. My heart just sank. I was frustrated that there was another one. I hate to use that term because there were people who were lost. But I was just like, come on. No matter how many are hurt, [politicians] are just going to say, “Oh wow, what a tragedy,” and then we’ll find out about the next one.

I’ve been worried about a school shooting since I was little. The oldest fear I have about being shot up at school is when I was, maybe, in third grade. I was in the bathroom alone and heard this really loud bang, and I thought, “Oh, God, maybe this is it.” (That bang turned out to be someone dropping a textbook in the hallway.)

A few weeks ago, my friends and I were discussing where we’d hide if there was a shooting. My friend was saying that there are a lot of windows in this building, and I said that’s unfortunate because what if someone gunned down the windows? Then we said we could try the library, but there are windows there, too. They said, “Well, we could try the theater,” but we realized that is right where the doors are to get into school, so maybe that would be the first place that would be attacked.

Later, when I talked about hiding places with my brother, my mom was looking at us in horror.

A Senate staff member prepares for a press conference on Capitol Hill on January 24, 2013. House and Senate Democrats were joined by law enforcement officials to introduce legislation to ban assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines.

I’m in that crisis state of mind

Anjali Darji, 17

Junior, Rancocas Valley Regional High School in Mount Holly, New Jersey

Anjali Darji

When I walked into class on Wednesday, my history teacher had the last four mass shootings and the death tolls on the board.

We’re currently learning about the George W. Bush administration, and my teacher went off about the 1994 assault weapons ban that President Bill Clinton signed into law and how the weapons used in the recent mass shootings would have been banned under that law. He told us how the ban ended during the George W. Bush administration and was never renewed.

Then, we had a conversation about how we go forward as America. Do we continue to be proud of America despite this? Or what do we do to change? Or do we just condemn America? He was asking that and no one answered because, honestly, I don’t know how I feel about this. I’m in that crisis state of mind.

On social media, people have been posting the number of U.S. shootings compared to other countries and how high America’s toll has been. And what I proposed in class is that we analyze other countries’ policies on gun control and related policies because they must be doing something right if they have significantly fewer shootings.

When someone brought up what happened in Uvalde, we either had to stop talking about it because someone was gonna cry, or there was just this resigned feeling.

I have plans for what to do in case of a shooting. In one plan, I’m running to save myself. I have another plan in which I’m trying to evade the gunman and help people get out of the building because my school has over 2,000 kids, and it employs hundreds of people. I’m numb to the idea that I do this kind of planning now. It’s just a thing that I do for self-preservation.

Local residents pay their respects at a memorial for Kyhara Tay, an 11-year-old girl shot to death by a stray bullet, May 19, 2022 in the Bronx.

America is normalizing gun violence on every scale

Bryan Bastidas, 17

Senior, International High School for Health Sciences in New York City

Bryan Bastidas

In the middle of a beautiful Tuesday in New York City, after watching “Better Call Saul,” I found myself scrolling through Twitter, bombarded with the news of another mass shooting in Texas. This time it happened in an elementary school.

I was shocked and confused about how a person could do this to small kids. I watched my little brother smiling as he played and watched videos; I was thinking about how someone could take those beautiful smiles from their mouths. I felt disgusted.

The worst part of it is that we are normalizing gun violence on every scale. Not only in Texas but also in New York, where I live. Two weeks before this, a little girl named Kyhara Tay was killed by a stray bullet in the Bronx.

Walking on the streets of New York City does not feel safe, especially for me, a student who always takes trains and buses and uses public spaces to socialize or take a break. Every day, I fear not seeing my father or mother coming back alive from work or my siblings from school. I fear dying on the bus or the train. It’s absurd that an 18-year-old can get a weapon and carry it into public spaces like it’s a cellphone or a toy.

Many people think that banning guns will fix the problem — and yes, it would reduce violence significantly — but we do not think as much about the person who used the weapon. He was only 18. What kind of life did he have? What kind of problems? Sometimes, we see symptoms and signs, but we do not do anything until everything explodes.

I think there should be more and stricter regulations on who and when to carry a gun. Firearms are not toys and should be difficult to get. One great example is Switzerland, which, like the U.S., has a high rate of gun ownership. But, unlike the U.S., which has had more than 200 mass shootings just this year, there have been no mass shootings in Switzerland in 21 years. That country issues licenses for firearms and carefully vets would-be gun owners before issuing these licenses (sometimes talking to mental health professionals in the process).

I think schools should also have more security to prevent these kinds of actions. We can use metal detectors and give police more tools to prevent these events. It is complicated to talk about this problem, but it is worth letting people know that this problem should be fixed. I want my family and friends to have a future where they do not have to fear for their lives in any situation, from walking in the city to being in school.

A memorial dedicated to the 19 children and two adults killed on May 24 during the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School is seen on June 1, 2022 in Uvalde, Texas.

Elected officials must stop fighting the wrong battles

Ajibola Junaid, 18

Senior, Wendell Phillips Academy High School in Chicago

Ajibola Junaid

Gun violence means I don’t know how to ride a bike or have friends in my neighborhood because I don’t feel safe going out. The summertime is the worst because there are gunshots all the time. It’s hot inside, and it’s too risky outside.

Several students at my school have died of gun violence, including, last year, a senior named Jimari Williams, just two months before graduation. This year, a shooting outside my school injured a student and a security guard. It’s sickening. Nowhere feels safe.

We need gun control. We need politicians to stop fighting the wrong battles. Why are so many of them willing to do anything to make abortions illegal but not willing to take the necessary steps to protect the children who are here? Children like the 19 gunned down, along with two of their teachers, in Uvalde, Texas.

My heart bleeds for their families. I send my sincere condolences to all those who are grieving.

The saddest part of all this is that you’d think that massacre after massacre would bring about gun control. But nothing ever happens. The outrage will last only a few weeks, and everything will calm down until some other group of people dies. There have been at least 27 school shootings in the U.S. this year — and it’s only May. Hopefully, this time, government officials will listen to our cries for help. I hope the deaths of these innocent kids bring positive change to our society.

Stories from Anjali Darji, Jeremiah Griffith, Radiah Jamil, Pragnya Kaginele, and Meleena Salgado were told to Gabrielle Birkner.

If you are interested in speaking to Chalkbeat about how gun violence impacts your life and education, please reach out to us at community@chalkbeat.org.

Today I’ll sit in class and wonder, ‘Am I next?’

2022-05-25T15:54:13+00:00

I am afraid to go to school today.

Yesterday, a gunman killed 19 children at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde Texas. Today, I’ll sit in a classroom and wonder, “Am I going to be next?”

I’m not just afraid for myself, my classmates, and my teachers. My younger brother is in elementary school, and I’m afraid for him, too.

Last night, my parents gathered us — my brother, my sister, and me — to talk about what happened in Texas and to hold us close. My dad told me about another school shooting that killed 17 people in Parkland, Florida. It happened in 2017, the same year we immigrated to the U.S from Bangladesh, and I hadn’t known about it until yesterday.

My mom and dad moved us to the U.S. because they wanted us to have a better life and more opportunities. They wanted us to have the best possible education. Before coming here, I always thought of the U.S. as a place of safety and security. Then, a couple of days after I started school here, there was a lockdown drill on campus. I had no idea what we were doing because these drills aren’t common in Bangladesh. Neither are school shootings.

With my limited English, I asked my teacher, “What are we doing? Why are we hiding in the corner of a classroom?”

She explained that we practiced these exercises in case there was an active shooter at our school and we needed to hide. That day, I wondered why a country like the U.S — a democratic nation, a wealthy world power — would face such violence. Especially in schools. I thought surely the government would prevent this kind of thing.

But they don’t.

I asked my teacher, ‘What are we doing? Why are we hiding in the corner of a classroom?’

Yesterday, I watched online as Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut gave a speech on the Senate floor. He was begging his fellow lawmakers to enact gun control legislation. “Why are you here,” he asked his colleagues, “if not to solve a problem as existential as this?”

It was a powerful speech. So was the one Biden gave to the nation later in the day. Still, I don’t believe that our elected leaders are going to do anything about these mass murders that take place all the time and everywhere — including, way too often, in schools. Yes, our leaders should pass gun control legislation. If they wanted to, they could make it law today.

I know we’re going to talk about the Uvalde massacre in school today. After past mass shootings, teachers have provided space for us to share our thoughts and feelings informally. Some have also given us writing assignments with prompts like: How do you feel about what happened yesterday?

How do I feel?

I am terrified to go to school. I worry about school shootings, like the one in Texas, and I worry about everyday gun violence, which killed 562 people in Philadelphia last year. Both epidemics have given me another perspective on America. It is not the safe place I imagined. In my old West Philadelphia neighborhood, I would hear gunshots every day. Sometimes I’m scared to walk down the street or take public transportation. Today, I’m scared to sit in my classroom.

Umme Orthy is a senior at Science Leadership Academy at Beeber in Philadelphia and will be attending Haverford College in the fall. She is a Chalkbeat Student Voices fellow. Read her recent Chalkbeat essays “In America, I faced Islamophobia right from the start” and “Millions of children translate for their immigrant parents. I am one of them.”

I survived a school shooting. Here’s why you probably haven’t heard about it.

2023-04-13T19:30:00+00:00

“It wasn’t a school shooting,” my Algebra 3 teacher said nonchalantly as he passed around the bag of “Great Mills Strong” bracelets someone had donated to us. “It was just a shooting in a school.”

His words sounded ridiculous to me, but this was a sentiment shared by many in and beyond our community.

Mollie Davis

Two weeks earlier, 16-year-old Jaelynn Willey was shot dead by her 17-year-old ex-boyfriend on a Tuesday morning inside Great Mills High School, where in 2018 I was a senior. The boy died, too, of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, as the school’s student resource officer responded to the incident.

But all this happened a month after the massacre at a high school in Parkland, Florida, where 17 were killed. What happened at our school seemed minuscule by contrast. The gun-control advocates forgot us and the gun-rights advocates pushed out a video claiming us as a victory for the side of “good guys with guns.” Never mind that the events of that rainy Tuesday morning left Jaelynn dead and traumatized us Great Mills students. Meanwhile, we were told that what we experienced wasn’t really a “school shooting,” so we were fearful of being seen as dramatic. The message: Be grateful that it wasn’t worse.

If I was testifying under oath, I’d have to say I’m not sure if I heard the gunshot. The doors of our school slammed loudly by default, people dropped things, and I think I may have heard it without recognizing what it was. Either way, what alerted me that something was wrong was the screaming. There was screaming and my head turned to a boy running past the open door of our classroom in black basketball shorts with a white stripe up the side. Two of my classmates went to the stair landing to see if they could see what was going on. They came back inside reporting that people were screaming someone had a gun, and sat back down.

We all sat at our desks with the lights on, the screaming reverberating off of the walls below us. Someone said their friend told them that someone popped a balloon behind a girl’s head and told her to drop. What a jerk, he’s in trouble, my mother texted when I relayed that information to her. I chuckled as my hands shook and the intercom crackled to life. Something about how there was no immediate threat but to go on lockdown.

I tweeted a plea for prayer that went viral; when CNN asked if I was available, I turned them down. But they found someone who said yes, someone who went on national television and said seven people were dead.

I tweeted a plea for prayer that went viral.

Thankfully that wasn’t true. Thankfully, only one girl was shot in the head; thankfully, the bullet that went through her head only hit someone else in the leg; thankfully, the only other casualty was the shooter. The word “thankfully” has been rotting on my tongue for the past five years, but I can’t spit it out because that would be rude to the people who worked overtime to make it palatable.

The shooting took place around 7:55 a.m., and I didn’t leave the reunification center until close to 4 p.m. As we pulled out of the parking lot, my chest started hurting so bad I couldn’t sit up. So I hunched into a ball in my dad’s passenger seat until we got home and I stumbled into the house to hug my mom. I forced myself up the stairs and into the bathroom before I collapsed, my eyes falling to the piece of white masking tape on my sleeve. We all got one when checking into the reunification center for reasons that I’ve never understood. Ripping it off, I slammed it against the wall and turned the water on so my family wouldn’t hear me as I let out an earnest sob from the depths of my being. I crawled into the shower, curled up in a ball, and willed myself to wake up from what was surely just a vivid nightmare.

But it wasn’t a nightmare, and the short list of dead and injured wasn’t some “get out of trauma free” card for me or my peers.

Smaller school shootings get lost in the shuffle of too-frequent violence with higher death tolls. You can tell me to be thankful that it wasn’t worse. But what happened at my school five years ago remains an open wound.

Mollie Davis is a 23-year-old writer residing in Denver with the Colorado Episcopal Service Corps. In the fall, Davis will be a 1L.

My student shared a poem about fearing gun violence. Later that day, he was shot.

2023-07-10T16:00:00+00:00

Leer en español.

Every day in my classroom, I invite students to share with the class a poem that they have written. This exercise is a way for the students to get to know each other and the different Denvers that we live in. Park Hill kids share their Park Hill realities. Swansea kids share their Swansea realities.

It was in this setting that, back in February, Jose Luis Garcia, wrote the this line: “My city is the sound of gunshots … Its getting shot just cuz you were at the wrong place at the wrong time.” And then, later that day, Jose Luis — Luis to his friends — was shot.

Andy Bucher, center, with his family.

The wrong place was 17th and Esplanade. It’s just off of the East High School campus, where I teach English and where Luis was in 11th grade and a member of the school’s championship-winning soccer team. The wrong time was during seventh period. He was in his car and died of his injuries about two weeks after the shooting.

We all thought that he had written poetry, not prophecy.

After the shooting, I worried that I had done something wrong but realized my only sin was getting kids to feel safe and share their truth. Luis’ truth was that he feared getting shot.

The same class sat in a circle two days after the shooting and tried to process what we had heard from Luis. We spoke, cried, and tried to make sense of the nonsensical.

In the weeks that followed, I found myself obsessed with advocacy for change, such as bringing back school resource officers, or SROs, which had long been stationed at Denver schools. In June 2020, the Denver school board voted unanimously to remove officers from Denver public schools. I remember our staff giving our SRO, Chris Matlock, a standing ovation as we, sadly, reluctantly bid him adieu on his final day. I emailed all six Denver Public Schools board members; two of them responded. One member told me dismissively that SROs would never return, and another explained that I was mistaken in my hope.

A few weeks later, I found myself at a gun violence prevention summit that was hosted by students from East High School. The students organized the summit, but the participants were politicians and administrators.

I noticed midway through members of Luis’ family came in quietly and found a seat. I was impressed at their attendance, given what they must have been going through. When the summit was over, I watched as his brother, a recent East High School graduate, went up to a school board member who opposes SROs. I listened as he told the school board member, “If my brother had had an SRO to run to, then he might be alive today.” I listened as the school board member responded with, “I’m sorry for your loss, but …” and then went on to give a bunch of reasons that Luis’ older brother was wrong.

We all thought that he had written poetry, not prophecy.

A few weeks later, I sat through another lockdown as two of my friends and colleagues were shot by a student whom they were patting down as a part of a safety plan. And while we were sitting in lockdown, the Denver superintendent announced that he would send SROs back to schools. The following day, the school board, whose members had ignored the community — and had ignored Luis’s family — finally saw the wisdom in having officers on campus and voted 6-0 to bring them back for the spring. (Just a few weeks ago, a divided school board voted to keep SROs on campus next year and beyond.)

My students and I have a very simple desire: safety. What I want is for Denver’s school board members to listen and not assume that they know better than students, teachers, and family members who have lost loved ones to gun violence what is best for schools. The return of SROs is not the only solution to school safety. But it is a piece of a puzzle that includes common-sense safety plans as well as exploring possibilities such as closing the Esplanade in front of the school or adding metal detectors. We need to be open to new ideas. We need to be proactive, not reactive.

Luis wrote about his fear of being shot for being in “the wrong place at the wrong time.” May all of our schools, and East High School in particular, cease being the wrong place at the wrong time. And may we remember Luis not only as a victim of violence but also as a scholar, soccer champion, and poet whose words were painfully prophetic.

Andy Bucher is an English teacher at East High School in Denver. He is a husband and a father. He faithfully follows the Chicago Cubs and semi-faithfully rides his bike.

Mi estudiante compartió un poema sobre su temor a la violencia con armas de fuego. Más tarde ese día, le dispararon.

2023-07-19T00:08:29+00:00

Read in English.

Cada día en mi salón de clases, invito a los estudiantes a que compartan con los demás un poema que hayan escrito. Esta actividad es una manera de hacer que los estudiantes se entre sí y a las diferentes Dénveres en las que vivimos. Los niños de Park Hill comparten sus realidades en Park Hill. Los niños de Swansea comparten sus realidades en Swansea.

Fue en este entorno que, el pasado mes de febrero, Jose Luis Garcia escribió esto: “Mi ciudad es el sonido de disparos … Es que te disparen solo porque estabas en el lugar equivocado en el momento equivocado”. Y luego, más tarde ese día, a Jose Luis — Luis para sus amigos — le dispararon.

Andy Bucher, al centro, con su familia.

El lugar equivocado fue 17th y Esplanade. Está justo al lado del campus de East High School, donde enseño inglés y donde Luis era estudiante de 11º grado e integrante del equipo campeón de fútbol de la escuela. El momento equivocado fue durante el séptimo período. Luis estaba en su coche y murió debido a sus heridas alrededor de dos semanas después de que le dispararan.

Todos pensamos que había escrito poesía, no profecía.

Después del tiroteo, me quedé preocupado por haber hecho algo incorrecto, pero me di cuenta de que mi único pecado fue hacer que los niños se sintieran seguros y compartieran su verdad. La verdad de Luis era que temía que le dispararan.

El mismo grupo de estudiantes se sentó en un círculo dos días después del tiroteo e intentó procesar lo que habíamos escuchado que Luis dijera. Hablamos, lloramos y tratamos de encontrarle sentido a lo que no tiene sentido.

En las siguientes semanas, me obsesioné pensando en formas de abogar a favor del cambio, como con hacer que regresaran los agentes de seguridad armados o SRO [por sus siglas en inglés], quienes por mucho tiempo habían estado presentes en las escuelas de Denver. En junio de 2020, el consejo de educación de Denver votó unánimemente para sacar a los agentes de las escuelas públicas de Denver. Recuerdo cuando nuestro personal se despidió con una ovación de pie, tristemente y a regañadientes, de nuestro SRO, Chris Matlock, su último día. Envié mensajes electrónicos a todos los seis integrantes del consejo de educación de las Escuelas Públicas de Denver; dos de ellos respondieron. Un integrante me dijo, desdeñosamente, que los SRO no regresarían nunca, y otro explicó que estaba equivocado con mi esperanza.

Algunas semanas más tarde, me encontré en una cumbre para la prevención de la violencia con armas de fuego organizada por los estudiantes de East High School. Los estudiantes organizaron la cumbre, pero los participantes eran políticos y administradores.

A mitad de la cumbre, me di cuenta de que la familia de Luis había llegado silenciosamente y encontrado un asiento. Me impresionó que estuvieran ahí, debido a lo que probablemente estarían pasando. Cuando la cumbre terminó, observé mientras su hermano, un estudiante recientemente graduado de East High School, se acercó a un integrante del consejo de educación que se opone a los SRO. Escuché mientras le decía al integrante del consejo: “Si mi hermano hubiera tenido un SRO a quien acudir, quizás estaría vivo hoy”. Escuché cuando el integrante del consejo de educación respondió con: “Siento tu pérdida, pero…” y luego continuó dándole un montón de razones por las que el hermano mayor de Luis estaba equivocado.

Unas semanas después, me senté durante otro cierre de emergencia mientras un estudiante les disparaba a dos de mis amigos y colegas que lo estaban revisando como parte de un plan de seguridad. Y mientras estábamos bajo cierre de emergencia, el superintendente de Denver anunció que enviaría a los SRO de regreso a las escuelas. El día siguiente, el consejo de educación, cuyos integrantes habían ignorado a la comunidad—y habían ignorado a la familia de Luis—finalmente vieron la sabiduría de tener agentes en las escuelas y votaron 6-0 a favor de que regresaran en la primavera. (Hace solo un par de semanas, un consejo dividido de educación votó para mantener a los SRO en las escuelas el próximo año y más adelante.)

Mis estudiantes y yo tenemos un deseo muy simple: seguridad. Lo que quiero es que los integrantes del consejo de educación de Denver escuchen y no supongan que saben más sobre lo que es mejor para las escuelas que los estudiantes, los maestros y las familias que han sufrido la pérdida de un ser querido debido a la violencia con armas de fuego. El regreso de los SRO no es la única solución para la seguridad escolar. Pero es una pieza del rompecabezas que incluye planes prudentes de seguridad, además de explorar posibilidades como cerrar el espacio abierto frente a la escuela o agregar detectores de metales. Necesitamos estar abiertos a nuevas ideas. Necesitamos ser proactivos, no reactivos.

Luis escribió sobre su temor de que le dispararan por estar en “el lugar equivocado en el momento equivocado”. Espero que todas nuestras escuelas, e East High School en particular, dejen de ser el lugar equivocado en el momento equivocado. Y que recordemos a Luis no solo como una víctima de violencia sino también como un estudiante, un campeón de fútbol y un poeta cuyas palabras fueron dolorosamente proféticas.

Andy Bucher es un maestro de inglés en East High School en Denver. Es un esposo y un padre. Sigue fielmente a los Cubs de Chicago y monta semifielmente su bicicleta.

Community violence is traumatizing my students. Here’s how I help them cope.

2023-08-18T14:15:00+00:00

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Half of Chicagoans will witness a shooting before they turn 40. And the average age of a Chicago resident witnessing gun violence: 14. That’s according to a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

What does this disturbing data say about the collective trauma Chicagoans are experiencing? What does it mean for the long-term well-being of our children? These questions loom large for me since I work with teens and preteens who attend Chicago Public Schools. My goal is to help students stay in school by giving them the tools to cope with trauma, set goals, make progress on their graduation plans, and prepare for life beyond high school.

LaToya Winton

For the past two years, I’ve worked at a K-8 school in Chicago’s West Englewood neighborhood, providing one-on-one counseling and other programs through the nonprofit Communities In Schools of Chicago.

West Englewood is made up of sturdy bungalows and two-flats located about a dozen miles southwest of Chicago’s Loop. It also happens to be one of the Chicago neighborhoods where gun violence is most prevalent. As of Aug. 1, 69 people have been shot; that’s about one shooting every three days. Seven of those victims were teens, just like my students.

These are more than grim statistics to me. I grew up in West Englewood, near the school I work in today. One of my extended family members was a victim of gun violence, so I know all too well that every shooting represents a person, a family, and a community devastated.

Despite the neighborhood’s tough reputation, the block I grew up on in the early 1990s was a nurturing place where we watched each other’s back and celebrated graduations and birthdays together. Bad things went on back then, but as a kid, I felt mostly insulated from it because of the strength of my caring family and neighbors.

Things are harder now for kids in West Englewood, despite many families still wanting the best for their children. Many former residents have moved away, leaving old familiar streets frayed. Enrollment has declined in the area’s schools, including the one where I’m based. Poverty and joblessness are a fact of life as well, with almost half the community’s households earning less than $25,000 a year.

Each day, I see young people coming to school with clear signs of distress. Last fall, for example, one of my students lost a brother in a shooting. He tried to keep his emotions under control, but one day a class discussion reminded him of the incident, and he stormed out of the room and punched lockers in the hallway.

Another one of my students who lost an older brother to gun violence broke down in tears in my office. She had come in to speak to me about her loss, and I sat with her, listened, and let her feel those emotions. I also asked her to share with me some of the good times she had with her brother and told her that I was always there to talk if she needed it.

Each day, I see young people coming to school with clear signs of distress.

We don’t keep official records about which of our students have been directly impacted by gun violence, but the numbers are high; by my estimate, at least 20 of the 50 students I provided one-on-one support to last school year either saw a shooting or know a friend or loved one harmed or impacted by gun violence. Gun violence prevention isn’t in my job title, but so much of my work involves me helping young people cope with and curb community violence. I’m lucky to have support from teachers, administrators, and fellow counselors where I work.

How do you teach students to avoid violence? It starts with building trusting relationships with young people and steadily equipping them with the knowledge and skills they need to lead safer lives. This is far from a one-size-fits-all strategy, but there are key principles that the work is grounded in:

Building positive relationships is an essential life skill that can be taught. I want my students to know that they can come to me for encouragement and feedback, and I’ll always strive to be transparent and relatable.
Encouraging effective coping strategies — from deep breathing to creating art to reflective journaling — can help young people learn to manage stress and anxiety. During our sessions, I provide a space for students to sit with their emotions. Often, the young men whom I work with think crying is a sign of weakness; on the contrary, showing their emotions is a sign of strength.
Offering more evidence-based approaches like cognitive-behavioral therapy and brief solution-focused interventions for students who need more robust support. This can reduce fight-or-flight responses and help students choose the path of de-escalation.
Building young people’s self-esteem and sense of purpose in life helps them frame interpersonal conflicts within a broader context, increasing the chances they will pursue peaceful solutions. Small discussion groups, such as the one I hold for girls in fifth and sixth grades, have helped some of my students find their voice.

There are no overnight transformations. This work takes time, patience, and consistency to make a difference. I’m also aware that even when my students embrace these principles and make great progress, we are still sending them out into a city where community violence is all too common and anything can happen. We adults have to acknowledge those risks, even as we work tirelessly to empower young people to lead positive and peaceful lives.

LaToya Winton is a student supports manager at Communities In Schools of Chicago, a Chicago nonprofit helping students succeed in school and stay on the path to high school graduation.

How many out-of-school, out-of-work youth did Chicago reengage last school year?

2024-01-10T11:00:00+00:00

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About 1 in 5 of roughly 2,300 out-of-school, out-of-work youth contacted to participate in a new reengagement program in Chicago took part during the first year, according to a new policy brief from the University of Chicago Crime Lab.

In Chicago, roughly 45,000 teens and young adults are disconnected from school and work. With $18 million from the state, the city launched Back to Our Future in May 2022 to reach 1,000 young people ages 14 to 21 in 15 neighborhoods on the South and West sides. Data indicates fewer than 500 have participated so far.

The findings released today illustrate how difficult it is to reconnect with these young people — often referred to as “opportunity youth” — once they’ve disengaged.

“If it was easy, somebody would have already done it,” said Jadine Chou, chief safety and security officer at Chicago Public Schools. “We knew going into this that it was going to be really hard.”

The Back to Our Future program is a partnership between the Crime Lab, Chicago Public Schools, and the three community organizations tasked with doing the on-the-ground reengagement: Breakthrough, UCAN, and Youth Advocate Programs (YAP), Inc.

Kim Smith, director of programs for the University of Chicago Crime Lab and Education Lab, said the low uptake is not entirely surprising. Back to Our Future is “a very ambitious program” to reach young people that have not been “served well by status quo services,” she said.

“This group of young people are not just going to kind of show up after a phone call,” Smith said. “There is an incredible need to tailor programming, to tailor services, even to tailor outreach strategies.”

The 12-week Back to Our Future program costs roughly $18,000 per young person to run. It includes 20 hours a week of mentoring, mental health services, job training, credit recovery to earn a CPS diploma or GED programming, and a stipend for youth participants.

However, the policy brief found many teens did not engage for the full 20 hours of programming each week. On average, participants attended nearly seven hours each week.

The policy brief analyzed referral and participation data, but was not a full evaluation of the program.

Chou said the district has a database of former students who left school before earning their diploma that they have used and shared with partner organizations in order to track down students. But often phone numbers and home addresses are no longer current or they have left Chicago. A lot of them have also aged out and would not be eligible for Back to Our Future.

“Once you do reach them, you have to really build trust,” Chou added.

She said the district is also learning a lot from the young people in Back to Our Future about how to prevent disconnection before it happens.

“They all have very important information, very important experiences that they are very happy to share,” she said, “which then I bring back to (colleagues at) CPS and say, ‘How can we work on this so that we essentially stem these young people from leaving us in the first place?’”

Chou highlighted school transfers as a signal for a student eventually dropping out.

“Once they do that transfer, that is so disruptive and destabilizing to their experience and to their sense of well-being because now they have to make new friends, now they have to navigate a new path to school,” she said. “And so, if possible, how do we support them in place?”

Smith said prevention is important so the numbers of out-of-school, out-of-work youth do not grow.

“At the point where a young person has not attended their school for 6, 12, 18 months, something has gone really wrong,” Smith said. “But it’s not ever too late, in our opinion, to try to re-engage young people and get them back on a good track.”

The brief only looked at data through May 2023. According to Chou, 346 young people are currently participating in Back to Our Future and outreach continues every day. She said 103 youth have successfully completed the program and of those, 32 earned their high school diplomas and 71 are re-enrolled in school.

“They would not have been able to do that without this program,” Chou said.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

‘Stop the shooting’: Inside the effort to protect students from neighborhood gun violence

2022-09-13T11:00:00+00:00

Cars streaked past Bashir Muhammad Ptah Akinyele last month as he stood at the corner of a busy intersection across from a high school, baking under the midday sun.

Then he stepped off the curb and faced the oncoming traffic.

Desperation drove Akinyele to join the street protest, as it had many times before. A veteran teacher in Newark, New Jersey, Akinyele can name well over 40 former students who have been killed by guns. “One day you have a kid in your class,” he said, “and the next day he’s gone.”

Akinyele realized long ago that the only way to protect his students is to stop the shootings where they occur — not in his school, but in the neighborhoods around it. So he started attending rallies like the one in August, calling for an end to the shootings and the conditions that cause them.

“I have to do something outside of the classroom,” Akinyele recalled thinking. “I was losing too many students to the violence in the city.”

Over the course of his career, Newark teacher Bashir Muhammad Akinyele has lost over 40 students to gun violence.

At the start of this new school year, classrooms across the country were dotted with empty desks, a silent testament to summer gun violence. From June through the end of August, more than 600 fatal shootings were reported nationwide involving children under age 18 as either victims or suspects, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which relies on public records and news reports.

Almost all the shootings occurred away from schools, in homes and neighborhoods. And yet community violence is rarely seen as an education issue. Instead, voters and policymakers tend to focus disproportionately on school shootings, endorsing measures to “harden” schools with armed guards and metal detectors and turning school security into a $3 billion industry.

But out of the spotlight and with far less money, communities across the country are finding innovative ways to combat neighborhood violence.

From Oakland to Chicago and Philadelphia, city agencies and local nonprofits are partnering with the police to both prevent and respond to shootings. Often called community violence intervention, much of this work centers around young people, helping them process trauma and settle conflicts peacefully. Congress and the Biden administration recently expanded funding for such efforts, which are backed by a growing body of evidence.

With the new school year underway, this violence reduction work in communities — where shootings are far more common than in schools — will arguably do as much to protect students as ramped up school security, according to advocates and experts.

Akinyele understood this when he stood in the intersection last month disrupting traffic. He was joined by a crew of community members — parents, recent high school graduates, former gang members — who are paid to prevent violence in the neighborhoods where Akinyele’s students live, play, and go to school.

“Stop the shooting,” Akinyele said over a loudspeaker, the non-violence workers echoing his words. “Stop the killing.”

Most shootings happen outside schools, but learning still suffers

The nation’s epidemic of gun violence is especially lethal for young people.

After shootings surged at the start of the pandemic, 2020 became the first year in which gun violence was the leading cause of death for children and teens. Young Black men run the greatest risk of being fatally shot.

Even with the sharp rise in school shootings, the vast majority of gunfire erupts off campus. According to federal data from 1992 to 2019, less than 3% of youth homicides occurred on school grounds.

But while most shootings happen in communities, they reverberate inside schools. Exposure to violence is closely associated with trauma symptoms, including anxiety, disrupted sleep, and difficulty concentrating, and it can lead to lower grades and more absences.

“It literally gets under their skin and makes children more biologically stressed,” said Daniel Semenza, who directs research on interpersonal violence at Rutgers University’s New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center.

One study found that students performed worse on reading tests after a murder occurred in their neighborhood, even if they didn’t witness it.

“No way somebody is going to be able to pull off the same level of cognitive performance,” Semenza added, “if they have that running through their minds.”

Starr Whiteside, a Newark 12th-grader, is constantly on alert for gunfire in her neighborhood.

Starr Whiteside has seen how the constant threat of gunfire can warp your world, shaping where you go, what you feel, and how you act.

“Young people my age, it makes us feel like we always got to be on guard,” said Whiteside, a 12th grader in Newark. “Even going to the corner store, we have to watch our back.”

She’s also watched violence in the community seep into schools. Last year, her school went into lockdown after a student brought a loaded gun into the building, apparently because he had been jumped outside of school.

“It’s like there’s no escape,” she said.

How Newark’s grassroots groups keep students safe

Newark has emerged as a national model of community violence intervention, thanks partly to pressure by advocates like Akinyele and the support of the city’s mayor, Ras Baraka.

A tight-knit network of local groups leads the anti-violence work, in partnership with the city. They help protect young people in two main ways: by addressing the underlying causes of violent behavior, and shielding students from violent acts.

A member of the Newark Community Street Team, Malachi Muhammad keeps watch over students outside of school.

The Newark Community Street Team does the latter through its Safe Passage program, which hires community members to patrol the routes students take to and from school. Trained in de-escalation, the staffers help defuse tensions between students while watching for external threats.

Last November, a Safe Passage worker was speaking with two students outside a Newark high school when a gunman exited a car and fired nearly a dozen rounds their way. The worker, Malachi Muhammad, a graduate of the high school, rushed the students to safety.

“I’m responsible for them,” he said last year.

The incident illustrates why such groups are essential to student safety: Violence in the community often follows students to school, and school conflicts often spill out into the community. In fact, the impetus for the Safe Passage program came partly from a Newark health department analysis that found neighborhood conflicts frequently originate in schools, said Aqeela Sherrills, who co-founded the Street Team.

“Schools are an extension of the community,” he said. “They’re not these siloed institutions.”

The small number of young people who commit violence usually have been victims themselves, so healing their wounds can help stop the cycle of harm.

To that end, the Street Team offers counseling and life-skills training to young people at risk of violence, while The HUBB Arts & Trauma Center, another Newark nonprofit, provides art therapy and mentoring. Newark’s Office of Violence Prevention and Trauma Recovery sends social workers into some high schools, and the city is paying for 40 students who have been affected by violence to attend college.

The efforts reflect the public health approach that is central to community violence intervention, with education, counseling, and support services used to treat rather than punish perpetrators.

“If you look at it as a sickness,” Baraka said, “then these people are obviously infected and we have to give them treatment.”

The HUBB specializes in such treatment, helping young people address the trauma that is both a symptom and source of violence. One of those young people is Tah’gee.

This spring, the 16-year-old left his Newark charter school after a disciplinary issue, was arrested, and spent a brief time in jail. Not long after, his cousin was gunned down.

The police referred Tah’gee to the HUBB, where Denisah Williamson took up his case. Williamson is what experts call a “credible messenger,” a mentor to troubled youth who has experienced many of the same challenges they have.

As a teenager growing up in Newark, she was sexually assaulted and expelled from school. Later she was arrested and stabbed.

Despite the violence she endured and the discrimination she faced as a Black woman growing up in a low-income community, she pressed on, eventually earning a master’s degree in social work.

“I had a bad childhood, but it didn’t define me,” said Williamson, who directs programs, data, and community relations at the HUBB and mentors students. “There’s no judgment here.”

Williamson convinced Tah’gee to start showing up at the HUBB’s community center, where young people study photography and video production, create podcasts, and record songs in a state-of-the-art studio. They also participate in a youth-led forum called My Thoughts Out Loud, freely discussing relationships, drugs, and whatever else is on their minds.

Tah’gee credits the HUBB for guiding him towards a new path in life.

During a workshop this summer meant to build trust between Newark residents and police and address collective trauma, Tah’gee shared a harrowing story. He said that he was walking with a friend when a crew of 10 or so young men approached and put a gun to his head, then attacked him after he fled.

“Yes, it should never have happened and it’s not normal,” he said, talking about the “crazy stuff” he’s experienced. “But to me it was normal.”

Over time, Williamson watched Tah’gee evolve. He learned to manage his emotions and check his impulses. He signed up for the violence prevention office’s summer work program and applied to Newark Street Academy, a city program that helps out-of-school youth earn GEDs.

Today, Tah’gee credits the HUBB with putting him on a new path.

“It messed up my life,” he said, “in a good way.”

The anti-violence movement gains momentum

Groups like the HUBB curb violence person by person, but evidence of their impact is more than anecdotal.

A number of studies have found that local anti-violence groups play a significant role in reducing shootings and improving public safety.

The Becoming a Man program, which offers weekly group counseling to young men in more than 140 schools nationwide, has been found to decrease arrests and increase graduation rates. Groups like Cure Violence and Advance Peace, which intervene in conflicts and support high-risk individuals, have been associated with fewer shootings. And Safe Passage programs have been shown to reduce crime along students’ routes to school.

The evidence base for such interventions “is now extremely strong,” said Patrick Sharkey, a sociology and public affairs professor at Princeton University, who found that local nonprofits contributed to the historic decline in violent crime that began in the 1990s.

“These organizations have tremendous capacity to create safe communities,” he said. “We just haven’t given them the commitment and the resources that we devote to institutions like law enforcement.”

That is beginning to change.

The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which President Biden signed into law this June, includes $250 million for community violence intervention. Biden has also urged local governments to use some of their federal stimulus money for violence prevention, and over $2 billion has already been earmarked for anti-violence groups, substance-abuse treatment, and mental health services, according to the White House.

The White House also convened 16 counties and cities, including Newark, to share their experiences with community violence intervention. Backed with philanthropic funding, the collaborative is also providing technical assistance to more than 50 grassroots anti-violence groups.

“We’re spreading this model to cities across the country,” said Sherrills, the former Newark Community Street Team leader whose new organization is training other groups through the White House initiative.

Newark is using stimulus funds and other sources to invest $19 million in violence intervention programs. The city’s Office of Violence Prevention and Trauma Recovery also ran a work program this summer that paid students — many of whom had been arrested or struggled in school — to intern at city agencies and nonprofits and take classes on conflict resolution, financial literacy, and other life skills.

“We’re teaching them how to integrate and be a part of something,” said Lakeesha Eure, the office’s director. “We’re teaching them how to belong to the city.”

Lakeesha Eure is the director for the Office of Violence Prevention and Trauma Recovery in Newark.

Now that school is back in session, the city’s small army of anti-violence workers will continue doing what they can to keep students safe. They will keep a watchful eye as children walk to school, step in before teenage taunts escalate into shots fired, and help young people like Tah’gee envision a future — graduation, college, a good job — that does not involve violence.

Akinyele, the Newark teacher and peace activist, knows there will be setbacks.

Last month, he learned that another former student, 20-year-old Yasir Manley, had been fatally shot. Yet when Newark held its annual 24 Hours of Peace festival the weekend before school started, Akinyele still showed up.

He stood on stage facing a crowd of parents and teens, police officers and outreach workers. Knowing he needs their help to protect his students, he began his call-and-response.

“Stop the shooting,” he said, and the crowd repeated it back to him. “Stop the shooting.”

Patrick Wall is a senior reporter covering national education issues. Contact him at pwall@chalkbeat.org.

Vouchers, school safety, retention: Key education issues to watch as Tennessee lawmakers return

2024-01-08T11:00:00+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Sign up for our free Tennessee newsletter to keep up with state education policy and the Shelby County public school system.

Five years after a bruising legislative battle opened the door to private school vouchers in parts of Tennessee, lawmakers are preparing to take up a controversial bill to create a similar program statewide.

Gov. Bill Lee’s universal voucher proposal, which eventually would make all K-12 students eligible to use public funding to attend a private or home school, is expected to dominate debate after the 113th General Assembly reconvenes on Tuesday.

But other issues affecting students and educators are sure to emerge in a state where education reform has been front and center since 2010, when Tennessee won $500 million in the federal Race to the Top competition to jumpstart changes.

And if the last few years are any indication, a few surprises may surface in the months ahead. Politics and tragedy have shaken up the education priorities of several recent sessions, from an 11th-hour Republican drive in 2021 to restrict classroom discussions about racism and bias to last year’s deadly Nashville school shooting that led to new investments in campus safety and dramatic protests over Tennessee’s lax gun laws.

With the GOP supermajority setting the agenda again this year, here’s a look at some big issues to watch as the opening gavel falls.

School vouchers: Lee’s expansion plan renews long-running debate

In November, the governor said he’ll introduce a new Education Freedom Scholarship Act to offer $7,075 in taxpayer money for each of up to 20,000 students statewide next school year to attend a private or home school, with eligibility restrictions for half of them. In 2025, eligibility would open up to all students, regardless of their family’s income.

The proposal would mark a massive expansion of Tennessee’s voucher program, which is now limited to three urban counties and still under-enrolled. But more than a month after Lee’s announcement, few details have been released.

“I have yet to understand where the financing is coming from,” said Sen. Page Walley, a Republican whose district includes eight rural counties in West Tennessee.

“If we jump to statewide vouchers, I don’t see how we fund it without robbing Peter to pay Paul,” he added.

School safety: Renewed discussion, but no gun laws (it’s an election year)

Tennesseans were unnerved when an armed intruder shot and killed three children and three adults at a private Christian school in Nashville on March 27, in the middle of last year’s legislative session. And the growing impact of gun violence on kids across the state is undeniable.

But Republican lawmakers’ response last year was to further harden schools rather than entertain any proposals to restrict gun access — not even for people who are deemed at risk of hurting themselves or others, as the Nashville shooter had been.

“We’ll be back in January,” parents wanting stricter gun laws vowed in August after a special session on public safety yielded little action on guns.

Spectators watch the Tennessee Senate doing business at the State Capitol during a special legislative session on public safety in August 2023. Lawmakers were called back by Gov. Bill Lee after a mass school shooting in Nashville in March.

Some of them have organized news conferences and rallies at the Capitol this week for students, educators, and others to voice their concerns. Meanwhile, a group of parents from The Covenant School in Nashville, where the tragedy took place, say they’ll continue to advocate for changes to “ensure responsible firearm ownership, safe schools, and accessible adequate mental health care for all individuals across Tennessee.”

GOP leaders anticipate the legislature will revisit many of the proposals left on the table.

They include several measures to let certain citizens or school employees carry handguns in schools, and a bill to require all public and private schools to create alarm policies that differentiate emergencies for fire, weather, or an active shooter.

A new bill, from Republican Sen. Mark Pody of Lebanon and Rep. Susan Lynn of Mount Juliet, would let schools purchase lanyards equipped with emergency alert buttons for school staff to wear around their necks.

But don’t expect the legislature to look seriously at bills to restrict gun access in an election year, according to several key Republicans.

“I do not believe there’s an appetite or pathway to success for any legislation that might be introduced that is going to infringe on constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens,” said Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson, of Franklin.

With the latest State of the Child report ranking Tennessee near the bottom nationally for access to mental health resources, Johnson sees more room for discussion on that topic.

“I think a big conversation in the coming session will be how we strengthen our mental health safety net,” Johnson said, “as well as general access to mental health treatment in Tennessee.”

Third-grade reading law: Lawmakers may revisit retention provision — again

Last year, the legislature widened the criteria, beginning this school year, for determining which third graders are at risk of being held back if they aren’t deemed proficient readers under a 2021 law targeting pandemic learning lag.

Now under the same law, the state may have to retain thousands of fourth graders who test poorly this spring.

“I think we have to look into it,” said Rep. Mark White of Memphis, who chairs a House education committee. “We’ve probably got a lot of fourth graders who have already done summer school and tutoring but still won’t pass that test. It’s never a bad thing to have off-ramps and waivers.”

He added: “I want us to continue looking closer at kindergarten, first, and second grades so we’re not waiting until the third and fourth grades to address these challenges.”

But Sen. Jon Lundberg, who chairs his chamber’s education panel, is less inclined to make more changes in the 2021 law.

“We’ve set the standard for proficiency and for showing adequate growth, and I don’t want to move those,” he said.

Federal education funding: Talk about rejecting it looks like just talk, for now

House Speaker Cameron Sexton surprised many in his own party last year when he floated the idea of Tennessee rejecting more than a billion dollars in federal funding for students, which he said could be offset with state tax revenues.

In November, a task force appointed by Sexton and Lt. Gov. Randy McNally held hearings to explore the possibility. But Lundberg, the panel’s co-chairman, told Chalkbeat afterward that he didn’t expect the state to reject federal funds, even if it can find a way.

Legislative leaders polled by Chalkbeat last week said they haven’t heard of any legislation coming out of the hearings.

“It doesn’t hurt to know where our funding is coming from and how it’s being spent,” said White, the House’s education leader, said of the task force’s discussions, “but I don’t see that conversation going anywhere in the short term.”

Teacher shortages: Vacancies could lead to creative thinking

With Sexton declaring that Tennessee has enough state revenues to cover more than $1 billion in federal funding, plenty of public school advocates asked why the state wouldn’t use that excess instead to accelerate the governor’s plan to raise the minimum salary for teachers to $50,000 by 2027. (This year, the base is $42,000.)

Districts struggled to fill nearly 4,000 vacancies statewide last school year, especially in the middle grades, English as a second language, world languages, and special education, according to one report. And shortages of school bus drivers are a nationwide problem.

Lee told reporters that, while state revenues have flattened in recent months, Tennessee’s economy remains strong.

Gov. Bill Lee speaks with reporters on Thursday after a tour of a Nashville ministry. “We should probably look at our investments in public school funding and investments in teacher pay every year,” he said when asked about the prospect of accelerating pay increases.

“We should probably look at our investments in public school funding and investments in teacher pay every year,” he said when asked about the prospect of accelerating pay increases.

But with the teaching profession facing a post-pandemic crisis in Tennessee and nationally, the legislature could also pursue other avenues to elevate the profession.

Currently, the state covers less than half of health insurance premiums for its teachers, while state employees get 100% of their premiums covered. Moving teachers to the state employee plan could be a boost to both teachers and the local districts that employ them.

Professional Educators of Tennessee has also called on the legislature to develop policies to address child care access and affordability for teachers, more than 80% of whom are female.

“If you want to keep good teachers,” said Executive Director JC Bowman, “ease their burdens so they can focus on their work in school to educate and nurture our future generation.”

To follow this year’s legislative business, visit the General Assembly’s website for calendars, committees, legislation, and livestreams.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Los estudiantes de Denver buscan soluciones a la violencia con armas de fuego

2023-03-21T20:00:00+00:00

Una semana después de que cientos de estudiantes de la secundaria East High School de Denver marcharan hasta el Capitolio del Estado en protesta por la muerte a tiros de su compañero de clase, un grupo más pequeño asistió a una cumbre organizada por estudiantes para pedirles soluciones a la violencia con armas de fuego a los funcionarios locales.

“No deberíamos tener que estar aquí”, le dijo a la multitud la estudiante de décimo grado Gracie Taub, miembro del club East Students Demand Action. “Luis debería estar aquí”.

Luis García, jugador de fútbol de 16 años y estudiante de la secundaria East High, fue balaceado a las puertas de la escuela el 13 de febrero y murió a consecuencia de las heridas dos semanas y media después. El Superintendente de las Escuelas Públicas de Denver, Alex Marrero, dijo en la cumbre que el incidente no fue el primer caso de violencia con armas de fuego en y alrededor de las escuelas de Denver este año escolar, y tampoco el último.

“No ocurre porque nuestros pasillos son amenazantes”, dijo Marrero. “No ocurre porque nuestros maestros son monstruos. No está ocurriendo en nuestras escuelas. Es lo que está ocurriendo en nuestra comunidad”.

Los 14 panelistas, entre los que también se encontraban dos miembros del consejo de la Ciudad de Denver, dos legisladores estatales, tres médicos, tres expertos en prevención de la violencia, la directora de la secundaria East High, Terita Walker, y el jefe de policía de Denver, Ron Thomas, coincidieron en que limitar el acceso de los adolescentes a las armas debe ser parte de la solución. Los padres y familiares deben mantener las armas bajo llave en casa, dijeron.

El senador estatal Chris Hansen y el representante estatal Alex Valdez, ambos Demócratas de Denver, se refirieron a otros proyectos de ley que los legisladores de Colorado están considerando este año, los cuales incluyen uno para requerir un período de espera de tres días para comprar un arma de fuego, otro para aumentar la edad para comprar un arma de 18 a 21 años, y otro para añadir a los maestros a la lista de personas que pueden pedir que a alguien se les prohíba ser dueño de un arma de fuego.

Pero los panelistas también coincidieron en que se necesitará algo más que leyes para frenar la violencia con armas de fuego entre los niños y adolescentes.

“La violencia siempre va a existir”, dijo Felicia Rodríguez, gerente del programa de prevención de la violencia juvenil de la Oficina de Asuntos de la Infancia de la ciudad. “Creo que lo más importante que todos han estado expresando aquí esta tarde es la importancia de establecer relaciones sanas y positivas con los niños y adolescentes. Ese es el impacto, desde el punto de vista de los adultos, en el que tenemos que enfocarnos”.

Johnathan McMillan, director de la Oficina de Prevención de la Violencia con Armas de Fuego de Colorado, dijo que los niños y adolescentes que cuentan con un adulto de confianza en su vida, “ya sea un oficial de la ley, un maestro, un consejero, un director, un miembro de la comunidad”, tienen menos probabilidades de verse afectados por la violencia.

La Junta Escolar de Denver votó en 2020 para eliminar a los oficiales de policía de las escuelas de Denver. La secundaria East High era una de las 18 escuelas que tenían un oficial armado en ese momento. Cuando se les preguntó si la policía debería volver a tener una mayor presencia en las escuelas de Denver, tanto el Superintendente como el Jefe de Policía dijeron que la respuesta la deben dar los estudiantes.

“Si los niños y adolescentes que van a estas escuelas y sus padres sienten que la solución para tener escuelas más seguras es tener oficiales en esas escuelas, entonces ciertamente eso es algo que cumpliré, y claro, con la dirección de la Junta Escolar”, dijo el Jefe Thomas.

“Pero no creo que la policía sea la única solución”.

El Dr. Joseph Simonetti, médico e investigador de la Universidad de Colorado que se dedica a la prevención de lesiones por armas de fuego, dijo que la presencia de la policía en el campus puede provocar un aumento de las detenciones y multas a estudiantes. Antes de eliminar los policías de las escuelas, conocidos como school resource officers (o SRO), los datos mostraban que los estudiantes negros en Denver eran desproporcionadamente multados y arrestados. Desde que se retiraron los SRO de las escuelas, los datos muestran que menos estudiantes de Denver han sido referidos a la policía.

Los panelistas también pidieron más inversión en servicios de salud mental para los niños y adolescentes. El Dr. Steven Federico, pediatra que trabaja como jefe de asuntos gubernamentales y comunitarios de Denver Health, dijo que, aunque el número de clínicas de Denver Health dentro de las escuelas ha crecido con los años, la necesidad de servicios de salud mental es “insaciable.”

“Es el servicio que más piden nuestros equipos clínicos”, dijo. “Hay que financiarlo mejor. Y necesita más personal”.

No importa cuáles sean las soluciones, la directora Walker dijo que se necesitan lo antes posible.

“Lo que yo sueño es que los niños que estoy viendo ahora y los que están haciendo este trabajo vean respuesta inmediata para que puedan beneficiarse y sentir los efectos del trabajo que están haciendo”, dijo. “No queremos que otro niño se vea afectado”

Melanie Asmar es reportera senior de Chalkbeat Colorado y cubre las Escuelas Públicas de Denver. Para comunicarte con Melanie, escríbele a masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Agentes de seguridad armados permanecerán en 13 escuelas de Denver según el plan final de seguridad

2023-07-11T21:45:55+00:00

Read in English.

Policías permanecerán en grandes escuelas preparatorias este otoño, agentes armados de seguridad en el distrito escolar ayudarán con la búsqueda de armas, y los líderes de las Escuelas Públicas de Denver “examinará[n] exhaustivamente las prácticas actuales de disciplina estudiantil”.

Esos son algunos de los detalles en el borrador final de un plan de seguridad a largo plazo que el superintendente Alex Marrero publicó a finales de junio. El plan entrará en vigor el próximo año escolar, pero quizás siga modificándose.

“Por ningún motivo quiero que alguien piense que esto es uno y se acabó”, Marrero dijo en una entrevista. “Es el principio de una conversación más amplia, no solo aquí sino también a nivel nacional”.

El consejo le ordenó a Marrero crear un plan después de un tiroteo adentro de East High School en marzo. Un estudiante de 17 años a quien la escuela debía inspeccionar a diario para ver si tenía armas le disparó e hirió a dos administradores. El estudiante se escapó de la escuela y más tarde terminó con su propia vida.

El tiroteo desató un intenso debate y activismo comunitario, incluida la formación de un grupo de padres que exigió mayor seguridad, al igual que una reacción contra el regreso de los policías a las escuelas. Un consejo escolar dividido votó para permitir el regreso de agentes de seguridad armados, conocidos como SRO (School Resource Officers, en inglés).

Un consejo anterior votó en 2020 para sacar a los SRO de las escuelas—una prohibición que se suspendió temporalmente después del tiroteo en East High School.

El consejo de educación no necesita votar por el plan.

Los cambios incluyen que las Escuelas Públicas de Denver (DPS, por sus siglas en inglés):

Harán que regresen los agentes de seguridad armados a escuelas secundarias y preparatorias integrales.

El plan no especifica qué escuelas, pero Marrero dijo en una entrevista que los SRO regresarán este otoño a las 13 escuelas donde fueron colocados esta primavera después del tiroteo en East.

Esas 13 escuelas son: las preparatorias East, North, South, West, Northfield, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Montbello y Manual, al igual que Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Early College y el campus de Evie Dennis.

Dieciocho escuelas secundarias y preparatorias tenían un SRO cuando el consejo votó para prohibirlos en 2020. Marrero dijo que el distrito desarrollará un protocolo para decidir qué escuelas tienen agentes de seguridad.

Permitirán que las escuelas decidan, después de una amplia interacción con la comunidad, si van a usar sistemas de detección de armas.

Las Escuelas Públicas de Denver ya cuentan con cuatro unidades móviles para la detección de armas de la compañía Evolv Technology que el distrito usa para “eventos deportivos y eventos solicitados por administradores”. Un memorándum fiscal dice que “los sistemas de detección considerables y de amplio uso en todas las escuelas o solo en escuelas preparatorias probablemente superen los $5 millones”.

Realizarán un análisis del personal para evaluar la presencia de agentes de seguridad desarmados en las escuelas.

A los agentes sin armas los colocan en escuelas secundarias y preparatorias y son distintos a los SRO. El análisis determinará “dónde puede necesitarse más personal o cómo pueden compartirse los recursos”, el plan dice. Marrero dijo en una entrevista que quizás demuestre que el distrito necesita contratar más agentes desarmados.

Proporcionarán más apoyo al personal escolar para realizar inspecciones de los estudiantes, especialmente si es posible que se encuentren armas.

Por ejemplo, el plan dice que si un estudiante debe pasar por una inspección porque se encontró que tenía un arma afuera de la escuela, un agente de seguridad armado de DPS “se designará un agente de patrulla de seguridad de DPS para que brinde apoyo durante la ventana de tiempo específica que permita realizar una inspección segura y supervisada y el ingreso al edificio”.

Los agentes de patrulla de seguridad son diferentes a los agentes de seguridad desarmados y a los agentes de seguridad armados (SRO). Son parte de una unidad móvil que responde a llamadas en todas las Escuelas Públicas de Denver.

Después del tiroteo en East High School, algunos padres y educadores dijeron que la policía o el personal de seguridad debe realizar las inspecciones, en lugar de los administradores, lo que estaba sucediendo en East. El distrito ha dicho que los SRO no pueden hacer inspecciones de estudiantes sin pruebas suficientes, pero un agente de patrulla de seguridad de las DPS—quien es un agente jurado de policía—sí puede.

Trabajarán con las agencias locales de seguridad para organizar reuniones sobre la violencia juvenil en cada región de la ciudad.

Las reuniones serían “para vigilar las tendencias de violencia que afectan a las comunidades escolares y reforzar las asociaciones para desmantelar las barreras que afectan [el] acceso de los jóvenes a los programas,” según el plan.

Ampliarán la enseñanza preparatoria en línea del distrito y posiblemente ofrecerán aprendizaje híbrido.

Después del tiroteo en East, algunos padres cuestionaron por qué el estudiante que disparó el arma, a quien habían expulsado de un distrito escolar vecino y quien tenía un cargo por posesión de armas, estaba asistiendo a la escuela en persona y no virtualmente.

Aunque Marrero dijo que el distrito cree que el aprendizaje presencial es mejor y “no está en el negocio de solo despachar a los niños”, dijo que las DPS están considerando un protocolo que permita que los estudiantes aprendan virtualmente mientras el distrito desarrolla un plan para que regresen al aprendizaje presencial de manera segura.

Crearán un panel informativo virtual para darle mejor seguimiento y monitorear los “planes de acción e intervención”, los cuales se establecen para estudiantes que quizás presenten una amenaza para sí mismo o para otras personas.

Realizarán auditorias de seguridad en los edificios escolares de DPS y ofrecerán “recomendaciones sobre infraestructuras físicas, como vestíbulos seguros, colocación de cámaras, iluminación, etc.”, el plan dice.

Esas recomendaciones podrían incluir botones de pánico para que usen los maestros, Marrero dijo. Las auditorias ya están realizándose con la ayuda del consultor Murphy Robinson, exdirector del Departamento de Seguridad Pública de Denver.

Harán que los líderes del distrito asistan al Instituto del Programa de Liderazgo en Educación Pública en la Universidad de Harvard este verano para colaborar con otros distritos urbanos grandes en asuntos como la seguridad.

Los líderes de DPS luego examinarán las prácticas disciplinarias estudiantiles con el objetivo de aumentar la seguridad a la vez que protegen los derechos de los estudiantes y promueven la equidad e inclusión de todos los estudiantes, el plan dice.

Aumentarán la capacitación del personal de DPS sobre temas como la prevención del suicidio, las amenazas que presentan los estudiantes, la gestión de emergencias y la recuperación tras una crisis.

Aumentarán los programas que ofrecen a los estudiantes, incluidas clases avanzadas de educación preparatoria, cursos de nivel universitario, aprendizaje basado en el trabajo y programas extraescolares y de verano.

Exigirán programas anuales sobre la prevención del suicidio para todos los estudiantes en 5º, 6º, 9º y 12º grado. Estos programas antes eran opcionales, Marrero dijo.

Exigirán que se evalúe la salud social y emocional de todos los estudiantes tres veces al año, lo cual “representa un aumento drástico” en el uso de la herramienta de evaluación, según dice el memorándum de impacto fiscal. Las DPS planean pagar por las evaluaciones del año próximo con fondos federales del estímulo económico por COVID.

Ofrecerán por lo menos una sesión sobre el duelo y la pérdida para el personal y los padres que lo necesiten.

Melanie Asmar es una reportera principal para Chalkbeat Colorado, cubriendo las Escuelas Públicas de Denver. Comunícate con Melanie por correo electrónico a masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Number of young people killed in Indianapolis reaches five-year high, despite overall drop in homicides

2023-12-12T11:20:00+00:00

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This article was co-published by Chalkbeat Indiana and Axios Indianapolis as part of a reporting partnership about youth gun violence in Indianapolis.

The day before Mother’s Day this year was hot. Hotter than it should’ve been in mid-May, reaching into the 80s. Mourners vigorously waved paper fans while they waited in line to walk past Jamar Ward’s white casket.

He should’ve turned 19 that day.

Instead, his mother leaned over his dead body and wailed to God.

At the time of his death in April, Ward — who graduated early from Arsenal Technical High School — was the 15th teenager to be killed by gun violence in what has become a record year for homicides of young people in Indianapolis. Within the next two weeks, four more teenagers would die from a shooting.

While total homicides in Indianapolis are down this year by over 20% from the record set in 2021, the number of homicides in the 19 and under age group have reached a high since 2018. The majority of such deaths involve gun violence: The number of youth in this age group killed by gun violence has more than doubled from 20 in 2018 to 44 as of Dec. 8 of this year, according to an analysis of Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department records and news articles by Axios Indianapolis and Chalkbeat Indiana. (The analysis only extends to 2018). This year all of the victims have been teenagers.

Homicides among minors, children under age 18, are up more than 25% from last year’s 19 and more than triple the pre-pandemic levels in 2018. Meanwhile, the number of teenagers shot and killed since Jan. 1 is at 44, higher than 34 last year and 36 in 2021 — the city’s most violent year in overall homicides.

The increase has left students, parents, and education officials grappling with how to stop killings that have impacted school districts and charter schools throughout Marion County. Community members who work closely with youth and gun violence attribute the causes to a variety of factors, including social media and the easy access that youth have to guns.

Two days after Ward died, 19-year-old Markes Day was found shot to death in an alley – less than a month before he would have graduated from George Washington High School. Roughly a week later, Jhavon Fisher, 17, and Nicholas Powell, 18, were killed. Three days after that, Austin Tyler Bunn, 19, was killed in what police believed to be an accidental shooting.

“We are at war,” IPS school board Commissioner Angelia Moore said at a board meeting Nov. 16 — one day after 13-year-old Dayon Darnell Lyles was shot and killed near the Meadows neighborhood on the city’s eastside.

That same night, 14-year-old Arsenal Tech High School student Kaleiah Veloise-Mae Dean would lose her life.

Police have called on the community to keep guns out of the hands of children. Last month, IMPD Commander Matt Thomas stood outside just yards away from KIPP Legacy High School, where 15-year-old Devin Gilbert III was shot and killed in an adjacent parking lot.

“We have to do better,” Thomas said. “And we owe it to our youth to lead the way in doing that.”

The deaths have also left families like Kaleiah’s dealing with the loss of multiple family members.

Derico Young lost his 21-year-old daughter Derisha Young in 2021 to gun violence. Now, the death of his stepdaughter, Kaleiah, has left him once again facing the loss of a young life.

“Why?” Young asked. “Why does someone else have to bury another kid?”

The shootings have also left some young people injured.

Andrew Holmes, an activist on gun violence prevention in Chicago, was at the scene of a mass shooting there when he got the call that his grandson Terrell was shot at a party in Indianapolis. Terrell’s mother, Holmes’ daughter, was shot and killed in Indianapolis years earlier.

Terrell, a football player at Lawrence North High School, was one of nine injured in a shooting at an Oct. 29 party on the northeast side that left 16-year-old Kalin Washington dead. Six of those injured were teenagers.

Now, Holmes said, his grandson is recovering from his shooting injury with rehabilitation and therapy as the family prays he is able to play football again.

“That’s a passion that his mother had for him,” Holmes said. “I told him just keep pushing, you shall play football again. Your mother wants you to play football.”

Read the Axios Indianapolis story here.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Arika Herron is a reporter for Axios Indianapolis. You can reach her at Arika.Herron@axios.com.

After Oxford shooting report, a call for stricter safety training requirements falters

2023-11-14T20:42:23+00:00

Michigan’s State Board of Education on Tuesday dismissed a school safety proposal calling for stricter training requirements for public school staff to help prevent gun violence, along with greater accountability for school employees and administrators for safety lapses.

But members who opposed the resolution signaled that they’re still committed to taking steps to improve school safety and are open to taking up the proposal later.

The proposal came from Republican board member Nikki Snyder in response to the release last month of an independent report on the 2021 mass shooting at Oxford High School, where a 15-year-old killed four students and injured seven others. The report found multiple failures by school officials to take steps to prevent the killings.

Snyder’s proposed resolution called for state laws requiring all school administrators and educators to receive behavioral threat assessment and management training, with the Michigan Department of Education enforcing compliance. It also called for MDE to check current student codes of conduct to make sure they align with the federal policies on notifying school resource officers of students who may pose a threat of violence.

Snyder’s proposal also called for removing any liability shield for school personnel and administrators who failed to report potential threats.

“We need to lead now in making sure this is what we expect,” Snyder said during the board meeting.

The board voted 5-3 against adding the resolution to its agenda. Republican member Tom McMillan, and board President Pamela Pugh, a Democrat, voted with Snyder.

Other members of the board agreed with Snyder that school safety is an urgent priority for the board but said they believed the proposal needed more research and input from officials before the board could consider it.

“We definitely are not voting this down and saying we don’t want to do anything with it,” said board member Tiffany Tilley, a Democrat. “We are saying we need more time. We need to make sure there is capacity to get the program, as well as MDE’s capacity to audit.”

Tilley said she would also like to work with MDE to pass additional proactive resolutions on school safety.

“There is no question that school safety is extremely important, and you’re absolutely right that this is the time to lead,” Democratic board member Judy Pritchett told Snyder. “I believe this board has been doing that.”

She cited the board’s October 2022 Resolution on Safer School Environments, which urged lawmakers to adopt Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s request for funding to support school safety and children’s mental health, as well as stronger gun safety laws.

That resolution did not recommend any new requirements in state law.

Snyder and McMillan said they voted against that resolution because it fell short of needed action.

The latest resolution “is about the requirement of that training — not the suggestion that it’s a fancy thought or a good idea,” Synder said.

Snyder added she would support amending the previously passed resolution with what she proposed.

She called the board’s choice to not take up the resolution on Tuesday “disgusting.”

“What we could do today is discuss this resolution, we could come to an agreement, and we could make a statement and lead,” she said. “And then we could work together on building the capacity to make sure students are safe and schools are safe. But you’re choosing not to do that.”

Pugh said she agrees there was room for the board to consider the resolution, but disputed the idea that it has not addressed the gun violence issue urgently enough.

“We’ve acted, and we will continue to provide guidance and support through MDE to our schools,” Pugh said.

“There are those of us who, for a long time, have been acting in urgency,” she said. “So, this resolution falls short of that urgency. We had an opportunity to give that input — and have — a year ago and have continued to work for the safety and healthy environment of children.”

Hannah Dellinger is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 education. Contact Hannah at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

KIPP Legacy High School student fatally shot near school identified

2023-11-06T21:01:40+00:00

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The KIPP Legacy High School student shot and killed near the school on Friday afternoon has been identified as 15-year-old Devin Gilbert III, according to the Marion County coroner’s office.

Gilbert was shot as he was walking home from school just before 1 p.m., the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department and the school said Friday. Police said the shooting was a targeted incident and no other people were injured.

IMPD homicide detectives announced on Friday night the arrest of a 15-year-old for his alleged role in the shooting, but did not release the name of the suspect. The Marion County prosecutor’s office will make the final charging decision, police said.

A spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office said charges will have to be filed in juvenile court due to the age of the suspect.

Since Gilbert’s death Friday, at least two more teenagers were shot and killed in the city over the weekend, according to the Indianapolis Star.

Legacy High School planned to have on-site support available for students and staff on Monday to help them process the tragedy, the school said in a statement on Friday.

Police urge anyone with information about the incident to call Detective Larry Craciunoiu at the IMPD Homicide Office at 317-327-3475 or send an email to Larry.Craciunoiu@indy.gov. People who wish to remain anonymous can call Crime Stoppers of Central Indiana at 317-262-8477.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Student shot and killed outside KIPP Legacy High School

2023-11-03T22:27:05+00:00

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A teenage student at KIPP Legacy High School was shot and killed Friday in a community center parking lot next to the school in what police say was a targeted shooting.

The student, who has not yet been identified, was walking home when he was shot just before 1 p.m. in the parking lot of the Edna Martin Christian Center’s Leadership and Legacy Center, both the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department and the school said Friday afternoon.

Police have detained a teenage male suspect who they said is not a Legacy student.

KIPP Legacy has a close relationship with the center, and uses space for extracurricular programming there. The community center also reserves parking spaces in its lot for KIPP staff. Both are fixtures of the Martindale-Brightwood neighborhood.

“We are in ongoing communication with the student’s family, and will continue to offer support during this extremely difficult time,” the school said in a Friday afternoon statement. “On Monday, we will have on-site supports available for students and staff as our school community processes this tragedy.”

Police said there was a disturbance at the school earlier in the day, which is being investigated, but did not elaborate further. But they said there is not enough information to conclude whether the two incidents were connected. No one else was injured in the shooting.

The homicide marks at least the fourth fatal shooting of a school-aged youth in less than two weeks in Indianapolis. One 15-year-old boy was found fatally shot on Oct. 21, and a 16-year-old girl was killed eight days later. Another 15-year-old girl was found fatally shot on Wednesday.

“It’s unacceptable that as a community, we’ve had conversations about youth violence all week, and this is how our week ends,” said IMPD Commander Matt Thomas. “It’s unacceptable that we have families hurting.”

Mayor Joe Hogsett has responded to such shootings with concerns about the accessibility of guns.

“This afternoon’s shooting of an Indianapolis teen is another example of the horrific combination of access to firearms and a failure of conflict resolution,” Hogsett said in a Friday statement. “No young person should have to worry about gun violence, let alone near a school.”

KIPP Legacy High School is a charter school within the Indianapolis Public Schools’ Innovation Network, and celebrated its first graduating class last spring.

Police urge witnesses or others with information to call the IMPD homicide office at 317-327-3475 or Crime Stoppers of Central Indiana at 317-262-8477 to remain anonymous.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Students’ mental health needs are growing. Here’s how one district is asking taxpayers to help.

2023-10-17T11:00:00+00:00

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After nine guns were found at Fort Wayne schools during the 2022-23 school year, a group of community members approached district leadership with an urgent request: Make schools safer.

Together with the district, a new safety committee made up of law enforcement, mental health professionals, and teachers compiled a list of recommendations to do so. Campuses needed technology updates and more school resource officers. But the group also recommended hiring additional staff to support students’ well-being.

Now, they’re asking voters to support the efforts by approving a property tax increase earmarked for school safety in the November election. At a rate of $0.10 per $100 of assessed value, the safety referendum would generate up to $12 million annually for eight years toward mental health staff and school resource officers, security improvements, and a program that teaches students nonviolence.

If passed, the referendum would create dozens of new positions at Fort Wayne schools working in tandem to address two major safety concerns schools are facing nationwide: An increase in gun violence and the number of weapons found at schools, as well ongoing strains on students’ mental health as a result of the pandemic.

Indiana schools have long relied on property tax increases to fund operations and construction. But in 2019, lawmakers also made it possible for districts to improve safety and security using tax dollars.

Only two districts have asked voters to approve safety referendums since 2019, and just one — Carmel schools — has been successful. Schools generally asked voters for fewer tax increases in the immediate aftermath of COVID, but the number has slowly risen since.

A tax referendum was a logical avenue to secure the funding needed for the committee’s recommendations, said Matt Schiebel, the district’s executive director of safety and community partnerships.

“Technology and security measures are important, but the well-being of students is as much or even more important to improving safety,” Schiebel said.

Referendum funding focuses on mental health staff

Fort Wayne schools, along with Bluffton Harrison schools in Wells County, are seeking to pass safety referendums this year in Indiana.

Bluffton Harrison schools intends to spend just over half of its estimated $445,000 in annual revenue from its referendum on additional school resource officers, and another one-quarter on student mental health supports.

Fort Wayne plans to use two-thirds of its total proposed funding for student mental health supports, like therapists, third-party counseling services, and positions known as student advocates, according to its spending plan.

Another one-quarter of the funding is planned for technology, including over $1 million next year for a weapons detection system. And the remainder is earmarked for more security personnel, including 12 additional school resource officers.

The average Fort Wayne taxpayer would pay a maximum of $76 more annually, though the bill would be less next year as the district intends to use only around $7 million of the available funds, Schiebel said.

Schiebel said the district has already leveraged other funding sources for safety, like its facilities referendum for building improvements, emergency funding for student mental health positions, as well as $100,000 from the state-funded Indiana Secured School Safety grant for a school resource officer. It also partners with the Fort Wayne Police Department and the Allen County Sheriff’s Office to place school resource officers in its middle schools.

But a safety referendum would offer more.

“Safety has always been a priority and we have always used any means necessary to do all we can,” Schiebel said.

The largest proposed expenditure — over $4 million — would go to hiring student advocates, adults who monitor hallways, parking lots, and bathrooms. They also may be responsible for de-escalating situations, but not disciplining students.

Their most important task is building positive relationships with students by serving as another adult to turn to when conflict arises, Schiebel said.

The district has already piloted the role at South Side High School through the use of federal emergency funding, which is now coming to an end, Schiebel said. Through referendum funds, the district hopes to sustainably expand the program and place two student advocates in each of its high schools, as well as one in each elementary and middle school, or 56 total.

They would join other new staff, including 18 new mental health therapists slated to serve middle and high schools.

Data indicates that students need these mental health supports more than ever, with nearly half of all Indiana students reporting feeling persistently sad or hopeless in 2021.

“Being in-person gives students the opportunity to learn social skills, to cope with people with varying viewpoints,” Schiebel said. “Our kids were isolated for 18 months. When students came back, we had to re-learn those skills.”

Expanding a student-led nonviolence program

The advocates and therapists would also work alongside students through a program known as the Peacemaker Academy, which trains high schoolers in the principles of nonviolence espoused by Martin Luther King Jr.

The district hopes to use a share of the referendum funds to expand the program, which is operated by the faith-based nonprofit Alive Fort Wayne. The pilot program has focused on South Side High School students, but the additional funding would allow the nonprofit to place coordinators in each of the five schools as well as hire a director.

Angelo Mante, executive director of Alive Fort Wayne, said the goal of the program is to teach students King’s principles of nonviolence to help them identify and address issues at their schools.

One project involved students beautifying the campus to improve school culture. Another student initiative keeps a “Peace Count” — tallying the number of days that the school has gone without seeing a fight between students. For every 10 days without a fight, students earn an extra minute for their passing period between classes.

Mante said that the combined efforts at South Side High School — of the Peacemakers, student advocates, and other security measures — have already led to a 40% reduction in violent incidents compared to this time last year, as well as more collective awareness of violence.

Students have earned their extra passing period minute twice this year compared to just once by October of last year.

“It’s highly beneficial to have all of these pieces working together,” Mante said.

Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.

Roxborough High remembers Nicolas Elizalde, killed one year ago

2023-09-27T21:47:01+00:00

On a strip of ragged grass adjoining the front steps of Roxborough High School, students planted crocuses.

The bulbs, assistant principal Julian Saavedra explained to them, are perennials, meaning they die out but come back every year, bursting out in vibrant colors on patches of ground still waking up from the cold of winter.

The planting happened Wednesday, on the first anniversary of one of the most devastating events in the history of Roxborough High: a brutal shooting mere steps from the school that took the life of 14-year-old Nicolas Elizalde as he walked home from a football scrimmage at the field nearby.

Nicolas was actually a student at nearby Saul High School of Agricultural Science, which shares a football team with Roxborough.

To cope and remember, the 600-student school observed a Day of Peace on the anniversary, seeking to bring additional support to a community that is still traumatized. To start the day, students held a moment of silence. Over the past year, they helped paint a mural on the wall of the school closest to where the shooting occurred. The mural depicts, among other symbols, a football helmet filled with flowers and a large rendering of Nicolas’ jersey number, 62.

“We’re getting through it as a team,” said assistant football coach Marc Skinner. “We stand by each other, we talk to each other. … We put our focus on the field and the game and making sure we do the right thing, and not be a part of any situation that would have us in this type of tragedy again.”

Since the incident, Roxborough has partnered with organizations including Healing Hurt People to work with students and others affected. Police in the 14th District have stepped up patrols. The school has more security guards and many programs addressing students’ emotional needs.

But the pain is still raw.

“We continue to support our children with trauma-informed best practices. We share resources with our teachers, and all of our staff,” said Principal Kristin Williams-Smalley. “And we all have a schoolwide social emotional learning program that we have implemented. … It’s an ongoing issue that our children are dealing with.”

Roxborough High principal Kristin Williams-Smalley speaks to reporters

She said that Roxborough lost another student to gun violence in May.

During the last school year, 199 city students were shot, and 33 of those died, district officials said. Less than three weeks into this school year, five students have been shot, and one died. Philadelphia’s efforts to restrict gun ownership have been blocked by the courts and a state law that bars municipalities from enacting their own gun control measures.

Shortly before the shooting, Mayor Jim Kenney had signed a law that restricted gun possession at public spaces in the city, including parks, recreation centers, and pools, but it was overturned in a court challenge.

When Nicolas was killed, four other teens were wounded by the bullets flying out of an SUV that had been lying in wait near Roxborough High.

Police don’t believe Nicolas was the intended target. One of the shooters jumped out of the car and chased another, older boy down the street, firing at close range before his gun jammed.

Police have arrested four suspects in the killing and are still seeking a fifth person they believe was the main shooter.

This week, Nicolas’ mother, Meredith Elizalde, called on state lawmakers to enact gun reform. Nicolas was her only child, and he died in her arms.

“I want them to get on the front lines and fight for gun sense, because if you’re not, you’re just part of the problem,” Meredith Elizalde said.

Asked about the chances of gun reform, Williams-Smalley sounded weary.

“I’m tired to go to funerals. I’m tired of visiting my colleagues at their schools when something happens to be a support for them. We are all, my colleagues across the city, we are all tired of the violence that is pervasive.”

As the students dispersed after planting the crocuses, Saavedra called after them.

“We’ll water them later on,” he said.

A mural on one wall of Roxborough High in memory of Nicolas Elizalde features Nicolas’ football jersey number, 62.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Fired McAuliffe principal Kurt Dennis sues Denver Public Schools, alleging retaliation

2023-09-05T21:36:01+00:00

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Kurt Dennis, who was fired in July from his job as principal of McAuliffe International School, sued Denver Public Schools, Superintendent Alex Marrero, and six of the seven Denver school board members in federal court Tuesday.

The lawsuit, filed on Dennis’ behalf by civil rights attorney David Lane, alleges that DPS fired Dennis in retaliation for a televised interview he gave to 9News in March. In the interview, Dennis expressed concerns about a district practice that required McAuliffe staff to pat down a student charged with attempted murder to check for weapons.

Dennis gave the interview just days after a different student at Denver’s East High School, who was subject to the same type of weapons searches, shot and injured two school deans.

“Ultimately, Defendants are retaliating against Mr. Dennis, who exercised his right to free speech when he publicly criticized DPS and its unsafe policies in an effort to protect his students and staff from the horrifying specter of gun violence,” the lawsuit says.

A DPS spokesperson said Tuesday that the district could not comment on the allegations because “the lawsuit has not been served to DPS.”

“The allegations made in any complaint are not facts,” the district said in a statement. “We believe the preponderance of the evidence, some of which has already been released, will support our case and we look forward to responding fully in court.”

But district officials have commented before, and some of those comments are now cited in Dennis’ lawsuit.

Dennis’ initial safety concerns, his firing, rallies calling for him to be reinstated, and a subsequent district investigation into the improper use of a seclusion room at McAuliffe have been extensively covered by the local media for months.

In that time, DPS school board members made multiple public statements about Dennis, including at press conferences before and after the seclusion investigation was complete, and at meetings, such as when the board voted 6-1 last month to uphold his firing. Dennis is not suing Scott Baldermann, the one board member who voted no.

The lawsuit claims those statements were defamatory and “publicly advanced numerous pretextual reasons for the termination.” It claims board members tied Dennis to white supremacy and made statements “smearing him in public as a racist” by claiming that the seclusion room was used only for students of color, which Dennis disputes.

A district investigation found that Dennis placed students — or directed other staff to place students — in two seclusion rooms last year without proper supervision and then locked the door. But it did not find that Dennis disproportionately placed students of color in the rooms.

The lawsuit alleges DPS has not provided Dennis with an opportunity to clear his name, which has made it impossible for him to find a principal job in another school district.

In firing Dennis, DPS said he had improperly “divulged confidential student and legal records” in the 9News interview, put DPS at legal risk, caused the McAuliffe student who was being searched to be ostracized, and “repeatedly attempted to remove a young student of color” from the school, according to a document obtained by Chalkbeat.

The district also cited “a pattern of administrative actions” at McAuliffe that had a negative impact on students with disabilities and students of color, including the “overuse of out-of-school suspensions” for students of color, the document says.

The lawsuit doesn’t address the allegation about out-of-school suspensions. But it does claim that students of color achieved high academic results at McAuliffe, the district’s largest middle school. On average, McAuliffe students of color outperformed 88% of their peers statewide on state standardized tests in the 2021-22 school year, the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit also disputes that Dennis divulged confidential student records or caused the student who was being searched to be ostracized. The records Dennis provided to the press were redacted to remove personal information about the student, the lawsuit says.

Students who are subject to daily weapons searches “are already known by most everyone at the school, including fellow students, as ‘dangerous,’” the lawsuit says.

The student in this case was accused of shooting a liquor store clerk during a robbery attempt, the lawsuit says. The student wore a visible ankle bracelet as a condition of their bond and was escorted by a staff member at all times under a safety plan that deemed the student a threat, according to the lawsuit.

“Through no fault of Mr. Dennis, the identity of these students is, and always has been, widely known by other students and faculty throughout the school,” the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit also claims that Dennis was within his legal rights to request that the student be transferred to an online education program or expelled. DPS denied both requests, the lawsuit says.

In the wake of the East shooting, district leaders have defended a policy that allows students facing criminal charges to attend their regular schools while on bond.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Weapons screening, cameras, and drones: What Philadelphia is doing to make students safer

2023-08-30T21:13:59+00:00

In an effort to save students’ lives and restore parents’ trust, Philadelphia is expanding the district’s use of weapons screening equipment in middle schools, updating surveillance cameras, and piloting drones to watch over school grounds.

The district is also extending its Safe Path program to nine new schools. The program pays adults in neighborhoods to patrol areas where students walk to and from school.

“Despite all of the things that you’ve seen across the city, and we’ve had some tragedy, our schools are the safest places for our kids to be,” Kevin Bethel, the district’s chief of school safety, said in a Wednesday press conference. “It is our job as adults to make sure we make it as safe as possible for them.”

Though law enforcement officials have said shootings in the city have declined this year compared to the same period in the prior year, gun violence has become an inescapable reality for students and young people in Philadelphia.

Nearly 200 students were shot during the previous school year and 33 young people died, according to the district. Eighteen guns were recovered from students in the district last school year, Bethel said.

This year, Bethel, outgoing Mayor Jim Kenney, Philadelphia Superintendent Tony Watlington, and Board of Education President Reginald Streater said they’ll do “everything we can” to ensure student safety. But Kenney said because guns are so easy to come by in Pennsylvania, safety challenges will likely persist this school year.

“Until we get our arms around this commonwealth’s issues relative to the availability of guns we’re still going to be running uphill,” Kenney said. “Everybody seems to have a gun.”

The city’s young people seem to share that sentiment. At a gun violence roundtable in early August, one student told Chalkbeat she felt like “no matter how hard you try to fix something that’s so constant, it’s never ending.”

The Philadelphia district’s school year begins Sept. 5. Here is what the district and city say they will do this year:

— Continue to hire crossing guards to patrol heavily trafficked school areas. So far, the city has assigned 650 crossing guards to schools across Philadelphia, and the city is still accepting applications, officials said.

— Update 150 analog cameras to digital cameras over the next three years and merge the cameras’ monitoring systems with those of the city government. Watlington has pledged this update as part of the district’s five-year strategic plan.

— Introduce new “minimally invasive gun detection systems” in 14 middle schools. Those systems will appear as two stanchions in school doorways that students must walk through, rather than a full standup metal detector or wand.

Students won’t have to take off their backpacks, or send their personal belongings through a conveyor belt like at the airport, to pass through these systems, Bethel said. In previous years, parents, students, and teachers have expressed concerns that metal detectors could make students feel like criminals. Bethel said these new “less intrusive” detectors were chosen because district officials were looking for technology “that did not add to the trauma of our young people.”

— Expand the Safe Path program from 13 schools to 22 schools in partnership with the University of Pennsylvania. Those programs will come online incrementally, Bethel said, as community groups “get on board” with staffing, security clearances, and vetting through Penn. Though maintaining consistent staffing for these programs was challenging when they launched in 2022-23, Bethel said he hopes they will be fully staffed this school year.

— Launch district-owned drones, in some cases piloted by students. Bethel said the district is still in the early stages of planning for drones, but they are looking into expanding the use of drones to patrol violence-prone areas without the need for police on the ground. Bethel said he’s aware of concerns about increasing student and city resident surveillance, but said “the core purpose” of using them would be to “make sure that I’m keeping my children safe. There’s no ulterior motive to try to look for.”

Bethel said students would not monitor the drone footage, however, as the idea of students surveilling other students is highly controversial.

“We don’t want to put kids in a position where their … peers could construe it to be something negative,” Bethel said.

— Increase participation in the city’s many out-of-school-time programs. These include homework help, field trips to ice skating rinks and museums in and around Philadelphia, peer mentoring programs, and community-based prevention programs for youth who have been impacted by violence.

— Increase Philadelphia police presence in and around schools using a new $600,000 grant. At Wednesday’s press conference, Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw did not give an estimate for how many officers this would pay for.

— Train all district employees in ALICE active shooter response training; ALICE stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, and Evacuate. This comes after school staff expressed concern that their prior training was inadequate, and Watlington and the school board committed nearly $1 million to upgrade their approach.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee’s special session on public safety ends with little action on guns

2023-08-30T01:56:49+00:00

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Parents who lobbied for curtailing access to guns after a horrific school shooting in Nashville blasted the Tennessee legislature’s special session on public safety, which ended Tuesday without the passage of a single bill targeting the state’s lax gun laws.

In their six days of work, lawmakers approved three bills designed to speed up background checks, provide free gun locks to Tennessee residents, and require an annual state report on human trafficking.

Another approved measure, which appropriates money to cover the estimated $340,000 cost of the session, also includes extra funding for school safety officers, mental health resources and workers, and an advertising campaign encouraging gun owners to lock up their weapons.

But none of the bills that passed specifically address concerns about easy access to guns that were raised by the March 27 shooting at Nashville’s Covenant School, where a 28-year-old intruder used legally purchased guns to shoot through glass doors and kill three students and three adults. Authorities said the shooter, who died after being shot by police, was under a doctor’s care for an “emotional disorder.”

The disconnect — after days of protests, prayers, and pleas for meaningful reforms — left parents, students, and gun control activists angry.

“We’re talking about life and death, and this legislature has basically done nothing,” said Sierra Barnett, a mother of two preschoolers in Mt. Juliet, near Nashville.

Barnett was among the throng of mostly female demonstrators who showed up daily during the session to urge lawmakers to pass a bill letting judges order the removal of firearms from people at risk of hurting themselves and others.

“I’m devastated, and I hope people are paying attention,” she said tearfully in the Capitol Rotunda after lawmakers had exited. “I’m praying there’s an uproar across the state of Tennessee.”

Governor calls extra funding a victory

Gov. Bill Lee, who was largely absent during the gun debate after lawmakers convened on Aug. 21, framed the session’s output as “important, difficult, and hopeful.”

“We made progress and elevated a conversation about public safety that will continue into the future,” he told reporters.

In his remarks, Lee cited the legislature’s appropriation of more than $100 million in additional one-time funding as a victory, including:

$50 million to bolster community mental health agencies;
$30 million for safety upgrades at higher education education institutions;
$10 million in K-12 safety grants to provide school resource officers for charter schools or school safety officers for schools that can’t immediately hire an SRO due to a shortage of law enforcement officers;
$12 million for sign-on and retention bonuses for mental health workers in the state Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services;
$4 million for behavioral health safety net grants;
$3 million for a scholarship program for people wanting to work in the mental health field;
$1.6 million to provide free gun locks to Tennessee residents and to pay for an ad campaign on gun safety through the state Department of Safety

Gov. Bill Lee speaks with reporters about the results of Tennessee’s special legislative session on public safety that adjourned on Aug. 29, 2023.

“Our state is safer today as a result of this session,” said Lee, noting that the legislature also invested $230 million more in school safety earlier this year.

But outnumbered Democrats slammed the governor and GOP leadership for results that they called “fluff” and “solution-less.”

“It’s been a complete waste of time,” said House Minority Leader Karen Camper, of Memphis. “The people wanted more and expected more.”

“No one should leave this building saying we made Tennessee safer,” said Senate Minority Leader Raumesh Akbari, also of Memphis, where 115 children have been injured or killed in gun violence since January.

“People made a lot of promises. When we come back in January” for the regular legislative session, Akbari added, “we sure as hell better do something.”

Lee’s proclamation put gun control proposals out of reach

More than a hundred bills were filed based on Lee’s official proclamation, which called lawmakers back to the Capitol and identified 18 potential topics, from school safety to juvenile justice to mental health. But the governor backed off of his early proposal for a law to keep guns out of the hands of people having a mental health crisis.

Democrats complained that parameters set by Lee left little room for meaningful gun reforms in one of the most gun-friendly states in America. For instance, Lee said lawmakers could pass measures that encourage safe storage of firearms, but not enact penalties for failing to do so.

A gun control advocate holds up a sign outside the Tennessee State Capitol in Nashville on August 21, 2023, the first day of the legislature’s special session on public safety.

Lee’s proclamation opened the door, however, to proposals that could put more guns in schools — several of which advanced out of House committees but ultimately stalled.

One proposal to let citizens with enhanced permits carry handguns in schools narrowly failed in the House Education Committee after clearing two earlier panels, while Rep. Ryan Williams of Cookeville pulled his bill to arm teachers who meet certain requirements. Williams said the legislature can take up his bill next year in regular session.

The House sought to pass more than a dozen bills, including ones requiring all public and private schools to create alarm policies that differentiate emergencies for fire, weather, or an active shooter; expand handgun carry policies at private schools to include pre-K; enact harsher penalties for juvenile offenders; and increase penalties for stalking.

But the Senate worked to limit the number of bills debated. On the session’s third day, its education committee met for less than a minute and tabled all 21 items on its agenda.

Ultimately, the Senate’s refusal to negotiate differences with the House led to an abrupt adjournment of both chambers.

“You’ve done nothing!” “Do your job!” “Vote them out!” chanted spectators as Republican leaders gaveled out their daily sessions.

Legislative process unraveled amid political infighting

Democratic Reps. Justin Jones of Nashville and Justin Pearson of Memphis speak with supporters and reporters after adjournment.

The session in Nashville was frequently chaotic, with issues about school and public safety often overshadowed by political infighting, the expulsion of protesters, GOP efforts to limit public access to the Capitol, a lawsuit over new House rules prohibiting spectators from holding up paper signs, and several incidents of representatives shoving each other on the floor of the House in the tense minutes after adjournment.

“Things got hot,” House Speaker Cameron Sexton said about brief physical interactions that involved him, Republican Reps. Justin Lafferty of Knoxville and Scott Cepicky of Culleoka, and Democratic Reps. Justin Jones of Nashville and Justin Pearson of Memphis.

“We’re moving forward from it,” Sexton said when asked if he would pursue disciplinary action against those involved. “At this point, I think everybody needs to figure out how to calm down.”

Parents of several students at The Covenant School, who actively lobbied for several bills to bolster school safety and mental health, said they had hoped for more out of their elected officials. Several were in tears at various points throughout the week as they tried to advocate for legislation on behalf of their children and the victims killed at their private Christian school: Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney, all age 9; custodian Mike Hill and substitute teacher Cynthia Peak, both 61, and Katherine Koonce, 60, the head of the school.

Sarah Shoop Neumann, joined by other parents at The Covenant School, speaks during a press conference on the steps of the Tennessee State Capitol on August 21, 2023.

“Today is a difficult day,” said David Teague, a father of two children at Covenant. “A tremendous opportunity to make our children safer and create brighter tomorrow’s has been missed. And I am saddened for all Tennesseans.”

Sarah Shoop Neumann, another Covenant parent, called for respectful, thoughtful, bipartisan debate going forward to work to diminish gun violence.

“Those who are not of this mindset do not deserve a seat in the House or the Senate,” Neumann said, “and we will work toward ensuring every one of those seats is replaced by someone who has a true desire to listen to their constituents over firearm association lobbyists.”

“We will be back in January.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Bills to let Tennessee teachers and citizens carry guns in schools advance in legislature

2023-08-23T01:00:37+00:00

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Two bills that would let some teachers and citizens carry handguns in Tennessee public schools cleared a House subcommittee Tuesday, but Senate leaders signaled they’ll work to stymie the proposals in their chamber.

Meanwhile, House Republican leaders continued to crack down on behaviors from gun control advocates deemed as disruptive during the second day of a special legislative session on public safety.

The developments reflected mounting tensions in Tennessee’s splintering gun debate after Gov. Bill Lee called lawmakers back to the Capitol in response to a Nashville school shooting that left six people and the shooter dead — and prompted mass demonstrations from gun control advocates during the legislature’s regular session.

While GOP leaders want to focus this week on juvenile justice and mental health issues, polls show that most Tennessee voters want them to tighten the state’s lax gun laws. However, because of the limited scope of the governor’s proclamation, the legislature won’t take up gun control measures during its special session.

And Lee, whose wife knew two of the adult victims at The Covenant School, where the shooting occurred on March 27, appears to have abandoned his proposal for keeping firearms out of the hands of people having a mental health crisis. Since issuing his proclamation for the special session two weeks ago, he’s had no visible presence at the Capitol and made few public appearances.

A day after the House’s GOP supermajority passed rules that will limit debate, ban signs, and allow fewer members of the public inside the Capitol, state troopers escorted several women holding up paper signs with anti-gun messages from a legislative hearing room. Minutes later, troopers cleared the packed room of everyone but lawmakers, staff, and media after a handful of people ignored several warnings against clapping during committee business.

“Everything feels really raw right now,” said Linda McFadyen-Ketchum, a retired teacher and leader with her Nashville-area chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.

“People are angry and frightened,” she said, especially over any notion that the solution to gun violence is more guns.

Proposals would put more guns in schools

Both GOP-sponsored bills that advanced in the House Civil Justice Subcommittee would open the door to people other than law enforcement officers having guns in schools.

One measure would let a teacher or school staff member carry a concealed handgun after completing 40 hours of certified training in school policing at their own expense, as well as passing a mental health evaluation and FBI background check.

It would be up to the local district whether to let employees carry firearms under the legislation sponsored by Rep. Ryan Williams of Cookeville and Sen. Paul Bailey of Sparta.

But the school’s parents and students would not have to be notified under this legislation, which runs counter to the GOP’s emphasis on parental rights and notification in other areas of education, such as curriculum and library materials.

A second bill would allow a person with an enhanced permit, which requires eight hours of training, to carry a handgun openly or concealed in any K-12 public school building, campus, or bus. The proposal also would apply to law enforcement officers and military personnel, whether on duty, off duty, or retired.

The bill, sponsored by Bailey in the Senate and Rep. Chris Todd of Jackson, is opposed by Lee’s administration, which budgeted an extra $140 million this spring to place a full-time, armed officer in every public school in the state, beginning this school year.

Todd countered that many schools still don’t have SROs because of a shortage of law enforcement officers. And he noted that private schools already can set policies so that some employees carry handguns.

Several citizens spoke against any measures that would place additional burdens on teachers.

Sarah Shoop Neumann, a parent at The Covenant School, said she believes the tragedy would have been worse if teachers had focused on anything but keeping students safe in their classrooms as the shooter walked the hallways.

Sarah Shoop Neumann, joined by other parents at The Covenant School in Nashville, speaks during a press conference on the steps of the Tennessee State Capitol on Aug. 21, 2023.

Fighting back tears, she recounted conversations with Covenant teachers who described how their hands shook while they worked to keep their students quiet, hidden, and secure.

“They are heroes,” she said. “They enacted every protocol in place perfectly, and they could not have done those things if they were also meant to be armed and go out and attack the shooter.”

More votes are scheduled

Both House bills are scheduled to be taken up Wednesday in the Civil Justice Committee. But their path in the Senate looks harder, judging by the actions and comments of several GOP leaders in that chamber.

The Senate Judiciary Committee was scheduled to take up the Senate version of Todd’s bill on Tuesday, but didn’t vote on it. The committee, chaired by Todd Gardenhire of Chattanooga, passed only three of 55 bills on its calendar before adjourning.

The bills must clear committees chaired by Sens. Todd Gardenhire and Jon Lundberg (front left).

In the days after the Covenant shooting, Gardenhire said he would defer any action on gun-related legislation until next year.

The Senate version of Williams’ bill — to let some teachers carry firearms — is scheduled for a vote Wednesday in the Senate Education Committee.

But on Tuesday, Sen. Jon Lundsberg of Bristol, who chairs the panel, indicated he would vote against it.

Any bills to allow guns in schools “require a great deal of input from multiple stakeholders,” he told Chalkbeat. “I believe they would require several weeks of testimony and input.”

Currently, special session business is scheduled through Thursday, although leaders could extend it several more days.

Also Tuesday, three bills to create so-called extreme risk protection orders failed in the same House subcommittee where members of the public were kicked out. Those bills, sponsored by Democratic Rep. Bob Freeman of Nashville, would allow courts to order temporary removal of firearms from people at risk of hurting themselves or others.

Authorities said the 28-year-old shooter at the Covenant School was seeing a doctor for an “emotional disorder” and had legally obtained multiple weapons.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee legislature will avoid gun control in special session prompted by mass school shooting

2023-08-22T00:12:11+00:00

As Tennessee lawmakers and lobbyists returned to the state Capitol Monday to discuss guns and public safety, 12-year-old student Juliette Dominguez showed up too, in hopes that her perspective would make a difference.

Fresh from two days of classroom instruction on how to respond if an armed intruder breaks into her school, Juliette was frustrated that Tennessee is focusing on preparing school communities to defend themselves from people with guns — instead of taking action to restrict gun access from people at risk of hurting themselves or others.

“Why is this something that children should have to worry about?” asked Juliette, a seventh grader in Goodlettsville, north of Nashville.

Gov. Bill Lee called the special legislative session in response to a school shooting in Nashville in which three 9-year-old children and three adults were killed. The session is expected to last a week.

But any drive to tighten Tennessee’s gun laws has been squelched by a Republican supermajority in one of the nation’s most gun-friendly states, even as a recent poll of Tennessee voters showed significant bipartisan support for various gun regulations.

More than a hundred bills have been filed based on Lee’s official proclamation identifying 18 potential topics, from school safety to juvenile justice to mental health. But Lee’s proclamation never uses the word “gun,” and it mentions “firearms” only in relation to measures that would encourage safe storage of weapons, but with no new penalties allowed.

The House also passed new rules Monday in response to the body’s dramatic expulsion in April of two Democratic members for the way they protested the body’s failure to pursue significant gun reforms this spring. Under the changes, Speaker Cameron Sexton can suspend recognition of members for escalating amounts of time if he determines they are disrupting legislative business, speaking off topic, or impugning another member. The rules also limit the number of people allowed in the chamber’s galleries, as well as the nearby rotunda.

“The rules that are being put forward now are to limit freedom of speech,” said Rep. Justin Pearson of Memphis, who was expelled and then reelected in a special election this month. “With these rules, you are silencing our constituency.”

Lee called lawmakers back after acknowledging that the March 27 attack on The Covenant School confounded many elements of Tennessee’s school safety policies, including a sweeping plan that Lee had proposed just weeks earlier to require all K-12 public schools to keep their exterior doors locked, among other things.

Eventually, the legislature increased funding to further fortify both public and private schools but rejected the governor’s late proposal for a law allowing authorities to temporarily remove guns from people having a mental health emergency.

Gun control advocates, who held mass demonstrations after the tragedy and while lawmakers were in their regular session, returned to the Capitol as lawmakers prepared to start the special session, even as Nashville police recommended that people avoid the downtown area this week if possible.

At the invitation of a coalition of Christian groups, hundreds of people, including Juliette and her family, encircled the stone building in the morning to pray for passage of meaningful gun restrictions.

“I’m tired of people saying there’s nothing we can do, because we seem to be able to do things about everything else,” said Juliette’s mother, Jen. “We’re quick to yank books off of library shelves, or limit how students can dress. Why are guns impossible?”

Jen Dominguez stands outside of the state Capitol with her children Juliette, Alice, and Celia, after participating in a prayer circle for gun control on Aug. 21, 2023.

Meanwhile, a group of parents of surviving students at The Covenant School endorsed 10 bills that they said offer a start. They praised proposals to beef up school safety plans but said there’s an urgent need for new laws to keep guns out of the hands of people having a mental health crisis and for the state to provide more mental health care. They also criticized several bills that could allow teachers to be armed in school.

“As the spouse of an educator and the child of a retired educator, I am acutely aware, especially this time of year as we head back to school, of the heavy demands and lack of margins many of our teachers currently have,” said David Teague, the parent of two children at The Covenant School. “We should not add armed security guard to their list of extracurriculars.”

The Covenant School serves about 200 students in preschool to sixth grade. The six people killed there were students Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney, all age 9; and three school staff members: custodian Mike Hill and substitute teacher Cynthia Peak, both 61, and Katherine Koonce, 60, the head of the school.

Authorities said the 28-year-old shooter was seeing a doctor for an “emotional disorder” and had legally obtained multiple weapons.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia families rejoice at school’s new playground amid fears for children’s safety

2023-08-17T22:24:53+00:00

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When Duane Watts was a student at Edward Steel Elementary School in Philadelphia’s Nicetown neighborhood more than 40 years ago, he remembers running excitedly out of his classroom for recess and being confronted with concrete.

No swings, no slides, no monkey bars to climb on. “We would play tag, but nothing was actually present and given to us to play with,” he said.

But that’s no longer true for the children attending Steel, a pre-K-8 school of more than 300 students. On Thursday morning, school officials and nonprofit leaders cut the ribbon on a new $45,000 playground in Steel’s side yard.

Built over the summer with donated funds, the playground gives children more room to play at a time when policies like the city curfew and restrictions on unaccompanied minors at businesses, as well as gun violence that has affected Nicetown and other Philadelphia neighborhoods, have made it harder for children to congregate and spend productive time together in public spaces.

Teachers and counselors at Steel who fought for the playground by writing grants and building partnerships and community support for it looked on in tears at the ribbon cutting. At least a dozen parents brought their children to be the first to test out the new equipment.

“This is a huge deal for us,” said Nicole Wyglendowski, a special education teacher for K-3 students who helped with the effort. Younger children especially need playgrounds with inviting activities to help them to learn to get along with each other and “just have fun,” she said.

Counselor Maria Lajara, who helped write the grant proposal for the playground with fellow counselor Klarissa Hudson, pointed out most Steel students “don’t really have a nearby city playground that is safe to play in. They want to play, and they didn’t have anything to play with. This is a great asset for them, they deserve that.”

A study in 2019 found that only one third of Philadelphia’s schools had playgrounds, and most of those were in more affluent areas. Advocates have made the case that quality playtime is vital to children’s physical and emotional health, and the lack of playgrounds in some areas of the city has become part of the broader debate about the need for educational equity.

District spokesperson Marissa Orbanek said the situation has improved since then. Of 149 district schools with elementary-age students in the city, 79 have fully equipped playgrounds and 70 don’t, although 11 of those have play equipment in various stages of planning or construction.

The cost of the playground was underwritten by The Block Cares, a two-year-old nonprofit organization with a mission to uplift children; the Robert Half Company, a recruiting firm; and some private donations. The Block Cares is affiliated with The Block Church, a non-denominational Christian congregation founded in 2014.

Maria Little, director at The Block Cares, said her organization has a “mission to empower urban youth and kids to experience a limitless future.” When the organization began working in the Nicetown area, it connected with Steel Elementary and became especially interested in supporting teachers and students as they returned to in-person learning from the pandemic.

Parent Samantha Dowd, who has five children at Steel, had just heard that morning about the playground and the dedication ceremony.

“I was shocked,” she said. “This is really nice. To see something like this is important, especially at a time when so many tragedies are happening,” referring to the gun violence that is plaguing the city.

She was grateful her kids now have a safe space to play. As she spoke, her son Isaac Carter was already on the monkey bars, and her daughters were enjoying the swings. “It’s fun,” Isaac said.

Najalene Bey’s daughter, third grader Amina Ray, made a beeline for the swings as soon as she could. Bey said she had attended Steel herself. When she was a student, they would play sidewalk games like hopscotch, foursquare and jump rope during recess. But surveying the new playground, she said, “I wish we had this.”

Grandmother Darlena Green, watching the children, observed: “They’re not gonna go home now.”

Orbanek said that the district partners with outside organizations for funding what she called “schoolyard transformations.” They include the Eagles Annual Playground Build project and the Trust for Public Land (although not The Block Cares). Grants are provided by the William Penn Foundation, earmarked funds through state legislators, and neighborhood groups connected to schools. (Chalkbeat receives funding from the William Penn Foundation.) The Steel project falls into the latter category.

She noted that the district’s strategic plan includes providing safe, welcoming spaces for students, and that building more playgrounds fits into this.

“We have a vision for our schoolyards to be much more than paved asphalt parking lots,” said Oz Hill, the district’s chief of operations, in a statement. “We strive to provide a dynamic space for playful learning with green space, active recreation, quiet areas, and space to refocus and unwind and creatively engage in learning and socializing through play.”

Watts, who remembers the schoolyard’s concrete during his days as a Steel student, is now the school’s academic teacher leader. After graduating from Dobbins Area Vocational Technical High School and attending college, he went on to a career in finance before switching to education.

He has family members who still live in Nicetown, and he said the neighborhood’s public park is not safe.

“Yeah, this is significant,” he said. “To see this now as a new playground in the area and have it attached to the school that I attended, and the community having access to it, it’s just indescribable.”

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee governor calls lawmakers back to address guns, public safety after school shooting

2023-08-08T23:09:47+00:00

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Defying Tennessee’s powerful gun lobby, Gov. Bill Lee said Tuesday he’s calling lawmakers back to the state Capitol on Aug. 21 to take up public safety proposals after a shooter killed three children and three adults at a Nashville school this spring.

The Republican governor, whose wife knew several of the adult victims at the private church campus known as The Covenant School, wants legislators in one of the nation’s most gun-friendly states to pass a law to keep firearms out of the hands of people who could hurt themselves or others.

The 28-year-old shooter at The Covenant School was shot and killed by police on the campus after using legally purchased firearms in the March 27 attack. Authorities later said the shooter was seeing a doctor for an “emotional disorder.”

In calling for a law allowing “temporary mental health orders of protection,” Lee has tried to satisfy gun rights advocates who view any restrictions as an infringement of Second Amendment rights.

“As our nation faces evolving public safety threats, Tennessee remains vigilant and is taking continued action to protect communities while preserving the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens,” Lee said in a statement.

But Democrats said Lee’s official proclamation doesn’t go far enough to try to address the proliferation of guns across Tennessee.

“For such a broad call, this proclamation somehow manages to miss the target,” said Rep. John Ray Clemmons of Nashville, who chairs the House Democratic Caucus.

Lee’s proclamation is important because it sets the legal parameters for what they can and can’t take up.

The list of what’s fair game is long and includes mental health resources, providers, and related Medicaid coverage; school safety policies; measures encouraging safe storage of firearms; and timely law enforcement access to criminal and juvenile records, as well as to records for individuals “who are subject to mental health commitment.”

It also includes stalking offenses, reports from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation regarding human trafficking, the structure or operations of state or local courts, and limiting the circumstances in which juvenile records may be expunged.

The call comes after the governor met privately this summer with small groups of lawmakers to talk through his proposal and their ideas for quelling gun violence and increasing school safety in hopes of eventually passing meaningful legislation.

Then just a week ago, police in Memphis shot a man suspected of trying to enter a Jewish school with a gun.

Meanwhile, advocates on both sides of the gun debate have pressed Lee to pursue or abandon the special session.

Last weekend, the state’s Republican executive committee adopted a resolution encouraging Lee to back off, while groups like the National Rifle Association and the National Association for Gun Rights have urged legislators to oppose any gun control measures.

“We expect Tennessee Republicans to stand firm in their defense of the Second Amendment and vote to adjourn the special session upon its start in August,” Dudley Brown, president of the gun rights association, said last month.

On the other side, numerous gun control advocates have launched campaigns promoting firearm safety legislation. A Democratic-backed bus tour of the state kicks off Wednesday in Memphis to talk with Tennesseans about gun violence. Everytown for Gun Safety is spending $100,000 on digital ads, while Voices for a Safer Tennessee released a video message featuring the mother of Evelyn Diekhaus, one of the victims, on what would have been her 10th birthday.

“What’s more important?” asked Katy Dieckhaus, in her emotional plea for “responsible firearm safety laws that will work toward protecting our children and their right to life.”

The shooting at Covenant happened as lawmakers were meeting in their regular session, sparking daily mass demonstrations at the Capitol by Tennesseans protesting loose gun laws, especially those allowing easy access to military-style semiautomatic weapons.

Lawmakers responded by passing the governor’s sweeping school safety plan, which pumped $230 million more into hardening public and private K-12 schools by hiring additional armed security guards, upgrading school buildings, and placing a homeland security agent in every Tennessee county, among other things.

But most of them rebuffed Lee’s proposal to pass a law to restrict gun access for people experiencing a mental health crisis. Instead, after a House vote to expel two Democratic representatives for the way they protested the failure to pursue significant gun reforms, the GOP-controlled legislature rushed to adjourn in May without revisiting those laws. Lee quickly vowed to call a special session on the matter.

The governor has lobbied for Tennessee to pass a law on “extreme risk protection orders” and has avoided references to a so-called red flag law, which he has described as a “toxic political label.” Nineteen states have such laws on the books, including Florida, which passed its version after 17 people were murdered in the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, despite numerous complaints to law enforcement about threatening statements by the 19-year-old gunman.

An extreme risk order allows courts to temporarily remove guns — typically for up to a year — from people deemed a threat to themselves or others. Family members or law enforcement often must petition a court for an order.

Soon after issuing his proclamation, Lee came under fire from both sides of the debate.

Senate Democratic Leader Raumesh Akbari of Memphis said the governor’s proclamation will prevent most gun safety reforms from being debated during the upcoming session.

“A promise to do something to stop future shootings was made to Covenant parents, but sadly this proclamation eliminates many paths forward,” Akbari said in a statement.

Victims in the Nashville shooting were students Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney, all age 9; and three school staff members: custodian Mike Hill and substitute teacher Cynthia Peak, both 61, and Katherine Koonce, 60, the head of the school.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tickets and arrests didn’t increase when SROs were reinstated at Denver schools, police data shows

2023-07-27T22:42:33+00:00

Tickets and arrests of students at 13 Denver Public Schools campuses were lower when police officers were not stationed inside the school buildings than when they were, according to state and local data from the 2019-20 and 2022-23 school years.

The data backs a key criticism of school resource officers, which is that they increase tickets and arrests and feed the school-to-prison pipeline.

But when SROs were reintroduced on those 13 campuses for the last two months of the 2022-23 school year, after a shooting inside East High School, the monthly average of tickets and arrests did not go up, according to data from the Denver Police Department.

East High student Stella Kaye has a theory as to why.

When Kaye, a 16-year-old junior, thought about the data on SROs, “I thought about, Wow, they probably know how many people don’t want them to be there,” she said. “So if they start arresting kids left and right, it would not look good for the police or DPS. It’s almost like they had to be on their best behavior. It’s like they were put in their place a little bit.”

It’s a theory shared by parents, students, advocates, and elected officials on both sides of the issue. Those who support the return of SROs point to the data as a hopeful sign that students won’t be overpoliced. Those opposed to SROs are skeptical that two months of data, at a time when school safety was closely watched, proves that anything will be different.

When school starts in Denver next month, SROs will be back at the same 13 high school campuses. The data from the 2019-20 and 2022-23 school years provides a window — albeit a limited one — into what parents and students can expect.

DPS had SROs starting in the 1990s. In the 2019-20 school year, SROs were stationed at 18 middle and high schools. Those 18 campuses included the 13 that will have an SRO this fall.

In 2019-20, there were 30 student arrests and 160 tickets issued on those 13 campuses, according to the Colorado Division of Criminal Justice, which uses data from law enforcement agencies and school districts to track student interactions with police.

In the summer of 2020, amid nationwide protests against racist policing, the Denver school board unanimously voted to end DPS’ contract with the Denver Police Department. The 18 SROs were phased out of schools the following year, and gone by June 2021.

The pandemic made it difficult to assess the impact of removing SROs. The 2020-21 school year was largely remote for high school students, and the following year, 2021-22, was interrupted by returns to remote learning as COVID variants spiked.

This past school year, 2022-23, was the first prolonged test of in-person school without SROs. Data from the Denver Police Department shows that arrests and tickets at the 13 campuses were lower this past year than in 2019-20 when the campuses had SROs.

In 2022-23, there were 18 student arrests at the 13 campuses, compared to 30 in 2019-20 for those same campuses — a 40% decrease. Similarly, there were 75 tickets issued to students at the 13 campuses this past year, compared to 160 in 2019-20 — a 53% decrease.

A majority of the tickets — 57 of the 75 — were for assault or public fighting.

The 2022-23 data includes the months of April and May, when SROs were temporarily placed at the 13 campuses following a shooting inside East High on March 22. A 17-year-old student shot and injured two deans before fleeing and taking his own life.

After SROs were reinstated, the number of tickets and arrests at the 13 campuses held steady at about 10 incidents per month across all 13 campuses, the data shows. Most of the incidents were tickets. Only two students, both 15 years old, were arrested in that time period: one for third-degree assault and one for indecent exposure, according to the data.

School board member Scott Baldermann wrote the policy to reintroduce SROs. The policy includes a requirement that DPS monitor the number of times SROs ticket or arrest students to ensure marginalized students aren’t disproportionately targeted.

Before SROs were removed, Black students were targeted more often. In 2018-19, one in four tickets or arrests involved Black DPS students, even though only about one in seven students were Black, state data showed. The monitoring is meant to safeguard against racist policing.

“Now they’re being watched,” Baldermann said.

But the 2022-23 data also shows a disproportionality. White students were underrepresented in tickets and arrests, while Black students were overrepresented. A third of tickets and arrests in 2022-23 involved Black students, but only 14% of DPS students are Black.

Steve Katsaros, an East High parent who helped form a safety advocacy group after the March shooting, is supportive of SROs. But he said the bigger issue is DPS’ rules for when educators can suspend or expel students or call the police. Those rules are spelled out in a chart known as the discipline matrix, which DPS amended in 2021 to limit calls to police.

“The elephant in the room is that the discipline matrix says educators cannot refer to [the Denver Police Department],” Katsaros said.

Given the changes to the discipline matrix and other factors, such as the effects of the pandemic on students’ behavior, Katsaros said it’s hard to draw conclusions by comparing data from before and after remote learning. “The data can be twisted,” he said.

Elsa Bañuelos-Lindsay is also skeptical of the data. She is the executive director of Movimiento Poder, an advocacy organization that strongly opposed the return of SROs.

“Our worry as an organization is we will see an increase … in the criminalization of [Black, Indigenous, people of color] working-class young people,” Bañuelos-Lindsay said, and “a lot of schools relying on policing to deal with issues that should be dealt with in schools, like mental health.”

Seventeen-year-old Skye O’Toole is a student at Denver School of the Arts, which doesn’t have an SRO. At a closed-door school board meeting held the day after the East High shooting, Superintendent Alex Marrero said DSA had turned down the offer of an SRO this past spring, a recently released recording revealed.

But that’s no guarantee DSA won’t get an SRO sometime in the future. It’s an outcome that O’Toole, who is an active member of Marrero’s student cabinet, opposes.

Even though the recent data does not show a spike in tickets and arrests after SROs were reintroduced this past spring, O’Toole said she still fears that could happen.

“We can’t jump to any conclusions based on two months of data,” O’Toole said. “The first few months or the first few years, [the SROs are] likely going to be on their best behavior. They were being brought back with a lot of caution and concern around them.

“We can start judging the data more when we’re one or two years into the process. I have a feeling that arrests will go up. I’ll be watching very closely.”

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Newly released recording of Denver board’s closed-door meeting reveals tensions

2023-07-24T02:14:54+00:00

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In a closed-door meeting the day after a shooting at East High School in March, Denver school board members worried about being blamed, about Superintendent Alex Marrero overriding their authority by returning police to schools, and about the technicalities of how to proceed.

Board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson, a chief proponent of removing school resource officers back in 2020, said he was scared for his personal safety. Marrero expressed frustration that board members had not asked right away about the health of the two East High deans who were shot and injured the day before by a student who later died by suicide.

Denver Public Schools leaders fought for four months to keep the conversation private. Chalkbeat and other media organizations sued in April, alleging that the meeting violated the Open Meetings Act. A Denver District Court judge agreed and ordered the recording released in its entirety. DPS refused and appealed that decision, but on Friday, the school board voted unanimously to release a redacted version.

Chalkbeat reviewed the four-hour recording that was released Saturday to the media organizations through their attorneys. The audio quality is poor, and the sound sometimes cuts in and out. But the recording provides new insight into how and why the Denver school board initially decided to approve returning school resource officers to Denver campuses — a major policy reversal made unanimously with no public discussion.

The recording shows that school board members mostly treated the return of SROs as inevitable, even as several said SROs would not entirely solve the problem of gun violence.

Tensions flared at times, especially between Marrero and Anderson.

A few hours after the shooting on March 22, Marrero informed board members that he would return armed police officers to high schools in violation of board policy.

During the March 23 closed-door meeting, known as an executive session, some board members were upset about it — not necessarily about what Marrero had done, but about how he’d done it.

“The school board is the ones being blamed for this,” Anderson said of the shooting. “You’ve made yourself the hero. Everybody is applauding you. … We got the emails thanking you: ‘Go SROs! Go SROs! Thank you for your courage, Superintendent Marrero. But f—k the rest of the seven board members.’ Those are the emails: ‘Resign today.’”

Marrero said he acknowledged that Anderson, who co-authored a 2020 policy banning school resource officers from Denver schools, was bearing the brunt of the criticism.

But Marrero said he too was getting calls to resign, and that his decision to reinstate police in schools could have repercussions for his career as a superintendent.

“People are calling for my resignation because I am pro-cop all of a sudden,” Marrero said. “I have a career beyond this. Fifty percent of the districts won’t see me from here on out.”

Meeting redacted after question about legal liability

Only 20 seconds of the recording were redacted. The redaction involves a discussion of the Claire Davis Act, named for a Colorado student killed in a school shooting. The state law creates a legal obligation for schools to exercise “reasonable care” to protect all students, faculty, and staff from “reasonably foreseeable” acts of violence that occur at school.

In the meeting, a DPS staff member asked DPS attorney Aaron Thompson if the Claire Davis Act could “open the door” to school board members or Marrero being held liable.

“Yeah, it could,” Thompson said. “I don’t think we’re there yet based on the incident that happened at East.” Then the recording cuts out.

Throughout the meeting, board members said the community wanted SROs back.

“I think that the community is clamoring for SROs,” board member Carrie Olson said. “And we all know that is not the answer.”

Board member Scott Esserman said, “We can’t simply respond with SROs. It’s the easy response. It’s the convenient response. But it can’t be the only response.”

Board member Michelle Quattlebaum said that if DPS moved to bring back SROs, “it needs to be thoughtful. They can’t come back the way they were.”

Anderson repeatedly said the board’s hands were tied. Marrero had said former Mayor Michael Hancock told him he would issue an executive order to put police in schools. Because of that, Anderson said, “the decision has already been made without the duly elected school board.”

But at another point, Marrero implied Anderson was in favor of SROs. In a tense exchange, Marrero said that Denver Police Chief Ron Thomas told him Anderson had called Thomas after the East shooting and demanded Thomas put 80 officers in the schools. And Anderson himself said he had asked for SROs to return after East student Luis Garcia was shot in February.

A previous school board that included Anderson, Olson, and board member Scott Baldermann voted unanimously in 2020 to remove SROs from Denver schools amid concerns about racist policing and how Black students were disproportionately ticketed and arrested.

Baldermann came to the executive session with a resolution he’d drafted to temporarily suspend the SRO ban. The resolution backed what Marrero had said he’d do the day before, but it put the decision back in the school board’s hands, where board members said it should be.

“What I’m most interested in is that we as a board take action,” Baldermann said. “And I think the public is expecting us to take action as well.”

However, Baldermann’s proposed resolution sparked a lengthy debate about a wonky topic that dominated the executive session: whether the board was acting in accordance with policy governance, the governance structure that dictates how the board should operate.

Under policy governance, resolutions that order the superintendent to take a certain action are discouraged. Instead, the board is supposed to govern by setting policies and goals that the superintendent must follow and achieve. The board can also set limitations that spell out what the superintendent can’t do. At the time, there was a limitation — called executive limitation 10.10 — that said the superintendent could not staff schools with SROs.

Marrero argued during the executive session that the board passing a resolution would violate his contract, which said the board must operate using policy governance.

Board members questioned if meeting should be public instead

In the end, the board members decided to turn Baldermann’s resolution into a memo. They spent an hour and a half wordsmithing it, debating changes as small as whether to capitalize certain words and as big as whether to delete a sentence that implied “trained professionals,” and not school staff, would pat down students for weapons.

The East High student who shot the deans had a safety plan that required him to be patted down daily by an assistant principal. On the day of the shooting, the assistant principal wasn’t available and a dean had taken over, Marrero said.

Some board members said the phrase “trained professionals” implied that SROs would be patting down students. But a DPS attorney told them that wouldn’t be allowed unless the SROs had probable cause. The board ended up deleting the sentence.

The board held a brief public meeting when it came out of the session. Board members read the memo aloud and voted unanimously to adopt it without discussion.

Chalkbeat and the other media organizations sued on the basis that the board made a major policy decision behind closed doors, and that the meeting was not properly noticed. State law allows elected officials to meet in private for certain reasons, but says that the “formation of public policy is public business and may not be conducted in secret.”

The meeting notice said the executive session would cover confidential matters, specialized details of security arrangements, and information about individual students who would be harmed by the public disclosure of that information.

After listening to the recording, Denver District Court Judge Andrew Luxen found the school board’s discussion didn’t match the meeting notice, and that the board didn’t discuss any confidential matters. He ordered DPS to release the recording, but the district appealed that decision.

The recording reveals that board members asked at various times during the executive session whether they should be meeting in public instead.

“As we are talking about suspending policy, this conversation doesn’t need to be public?” Anderson asked DPS attorney Thompson at one point.

“I think what we’ll have to do is present this memo and then vote to suspend the policy,” Thompson said.

The board’s decision to temporarily return SROs kicked off several months of intense community and board debate about whether to keep SROs next school year, and whether Denver has the right safety and discipline policies.

On June 15, the board voted again to reinstate SROs — but that time, the debate was public and the vote was divided. Anderson, Esserman, and Quattlebaum voted no.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Denver school board votes to release recording of closed-door meeting about police

2023-07-21T22:57:07+00:00

The Denver school board voted unanimously Friday to release a recording of a March closed-door meeting at which board members discussed returning police officers to schools.

“In the interest of transparency of the board, it’s best that we release it now and be done with it,” board member Charmaine Lindsay said. “I don’t think anybody has anything to hide.”

However, the board voted to withhold any parts of the recording in which members discussed “confidential student information.” The March 23 closed-door meeting, called an executive session, happened one day after East High student Austin Lyle shot and injured two deans and later took his own life.

Board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson said at a press conference after the vote Friday that the board had discussed Lyle during the closed-door meeting.

Anderson also gave a brief description Friday of other topics the board had discussed, including a fear that former Denver Mayor Michael Hancock would issue an executive order reinstating police in schools without the school board’s approval.

Anderson said the board also talked about “the need to have a personnel discussion” about Superintendent Alex Marrero, the board’s sole employee. Hours after the East shooting, Marrero sent a letter to the board indicating he planned to return armed police to high schools even though it violated a board policy banning police from schools.

A coalition of news organizations, including Chalkbeat, sued Denver Public Schools to release the recording of the five-hour executive session. That lawsuit was still underway when the board voted Friday.

It was not immediately clear when or how the recording would be released. Several board members said they wanted the recording to be widely available to the public, not just to the media organizations who sued or to people who filed open records requests for it.

DPS attorney Aaron Thompson told the board that the length and format of recording may make it difficult to post the video online, and that the district may have to distribute it via USB drives.

The school board emerged from the closed-door meeting on March 23 and, with no public discussion, voted unanimously to temporarily return police officers to some high schools. The board subsequently voted in June to make that decision permanent. When school starts next month, 13 high school campuses will have a school resource officer, or SRO.

Chalkbeat and six other media organizations argued in a lawsuit that the topics of the closed-door meeting were not properly shared with the public beforehand, and that the board made its decision about returning SROs in private. State law says the “formation of public policy is public business and may not be conducted in secret.”

A Denver District Court judge listened to the recording last month and ordered DPS to release it. DPS is appealing that decision. Earlier this month, the coalition of news organizations asked a judge to hold DPS in contempt for not releasing the recording.

Late Friday afternoon, Anderson tweeted a two-minute clip from the executive session that shows he and Marrero discussing a possible executive order from Hancock. “The Board President attempted to censure me for sharing this information with our communities and the Mayor denied making this remark,” Anderson tweeted.

Board President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán moved in April to censure Anderson for holding a press conference at which he talked about the potential executive order, which Gaytán alleged was confidential information. But the other school board members rejected the effort to censure Anderson.

Much of the discussion among board members Friday was not about whether to release the recording but about the timing of the meeting. The board does not typically meet in July. Gaytán called a special meeting to discuss the recording — a move questioned by board members Anderson, Michelle Quattlebaum, and Scott Esserman.

“Why now?” Quattlebaum asked. “Why the urgency during the month of July when there was no urgency in June?”

Anderson said he’d written an email to his fellow board members on June 23, the day Judge Andrew Luxen ordered DPS to release the recording, saying the district should comply. But the district appealed Luxen’s ruling instead.

“I raised this on June 23 and there was no response from anybody whatsoever on my inquiry to go ahead and release this footage,” Anderson said.

Gaytán explained that she wanted to get this issue out of the way before school starts next month. Voting now to release the recording would allow the district and board to “move on to other issues that actually impact our students positively,” she said.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Denver school board to vote on whether to release recording of closed-door meeting about police

2023-07-20T18:10:17+00:00

The Denver school board will hold a special meeting Friday to vote on whether to release the recording of a closed-door meeting it held in March. Several news outlets, including Chalkbeat, are suing Denver Public Schools for the recording of the meeting.

DPS spokesperson Bill Good said Thursday that he didn’t know when the recording would be released if the board votes to do so.

The board held the closed-door meeting on March 23, one day after an East High School student shot and injured two deans before fleeing and later taking his own life.

The school board emerged from the five-hour meeting, which is called an executive session, and with no public discussion voted unanimously to temporarily return police officers to schools — a decision board members made permanent in June.

In a lawsuit, Chalkbeat and six other media organizations argued that the topics of the meeting were not properly noticed and that the board made its decision in private. State law says the “formation of public policy is public business and may not be conducted in secret.”

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago swears in new members to city’s last fully appointed Board of Education

2023-07-19T19:58:21+00:00

Chicago’s Board of Education ushered in a new era of leadership Wednesday by swearing in five of Mayor Brandon Johnson’s appointees.

The new members, who include vocal critics of the system, took an oath of office during a meeting to review agenda items ahead of the board’s full meeting next week. They will be part of the last fully appointed board before it shifts to an elected body in 2025.

As board members introduced themselves, Mariela Estrada, director of community engagement at the United Way of Metro Chicago, recounted being a “fierce” parent advocate. New board president Jianan Shi, former executive director of influential advocacy organization Raise Your Hand, noted that he is the first educator appointed as board president.

“I am used to sitting on your side of the glass fence,” new board member Mary Fahey Hughes told the audience at the meeting. Fahey Hughes formerly worked for Raise Your Hand as a parent liaison for special education and is an outspoken advocate for students with disabilities.

The inclusion of board critics at the decision-making table is in some ways similar to Johnson’s path, who rose to power through his teachers union ties.

Earlier this month, Johnson nearly cleaned house by appointing six new board members, who come from advocacy, philanthropy, and business backgrounds. In addition to Shi, Estrada, and Fahey Hughes, the mayor also tapped Michelle Morales, Rudy Lozano, and Tanya Woods (read more about each here). Lozano and Morales were not present at Wednesday’s meeting; a spokesperson for CPS did not explain why but said they will be sworn in at the board’s July 26 meeting.

The only holdover from former Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration is Elizabeth Todd-Breland, who will be the board’s vice president.

All seven members’ terms end Jan. 1, 2025, when the city’s partially elected, 21-member school board will be seated. Several members highlighted that shift. Todd-Breland called her term a “bridge” to that elected board with “so much hope and optimism for Chicago Public Schools.”

Wednesday’s agenda review meeting was the third of its kind, allowing board members to publicly ask questions about agenda items ahead of the meeting where they’ll vote.

During the meeting, members reviewed and asked questions about a slew of agenda items expected to come up for approval next week, including a new agreement for marketing services, the opening of a comment period for a new parental leave policy for CPS employees, and a renewed contract for math tutoring.

One agenda item — about X-ray machines in school — signaled a possible shift in approach that Johnson’s appointees may bring to the board.

Shi asked a school safety official whether there is research that such machines, which are meant to detect weapons, make schools safer. The official said it’s hard to determine exactly what makes schools feel safe, but that such machines have found weapons in the past. Last month, the old board approved a slightly costlier contract for campus police.

Shi asked that district officials engage in “actual community dialogue” on school safety policies as the district continues work on its Whole School Safety initiative. The CPS official said it’s the district’s goal to get more “buy-in” from the community.

Board members like Shi have also previously expressed interest in making meetings more accessible to the public, such as working parents who can’t attend the meetings that are held downtown during weekday mornings.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Firing of McAuliffe principal is having a chilling effect, Denver educators say

2023-07-13T01:24:53+00:00

Natalie Barrios said her colleagues were worried about her taking the microphone at a rally Tuesday in support of fired McAuliffe International School Principal Kurt Dennis.

“They’re worried that speaking out will backfire on us,” said Barrios, the athletic director and assessment coordinator at the Denver middle school, who said she considers Dennis a friend and mentor.

Dennis was fired last week in the aftermath of a televised March interview he did with 9News expressing concerns about gun violence and school safety.

Current and former Denver Public Schools staff say Dennis’ removal reflects a new lack of tolerance for dissent at a time when discipline and safety policies are under intense scrutiny after a shooting inside East High School this spring.

Dennis, meanwhile, is gearing up to fight his dismissal with a grievance and a lawsuit. He’s most upset, though, that the timing means a school community he cherishes has little time to find a new leader before the school year starts.

“Waiting until the middle of July to do this was really punitive,” Dennis said in an interview Wednesday. “It’s not fair to the kids or our staff. That part really bothers me. It’s one thing if you’ve got a bone to pick with me and you want me gone, but to take it out on the kids and my teachers just to me feels like it’s not a very student-centered approach.”

In a letter to staff last week, Superintendent Alex Marrero said accusations that Dennis was fired for speaking up were “100% false,” according to a copy of the letter obtained by Chalkbeat. Rather, Marrero said, Dennis was terminated for sharing private student information.

Dennis had expressed concerns in the 9News interview about McAuliffe International staff being required to pat down a student who was accused of attempted murder.

In his letter, Marrero referenced a 2022 district memo that said principals should keep any concerns about district policies or decisions internal and report them only to their supervisors.

“As an organization dedicated to continuous improvement, we cherish the feedback we receive from our leaders, even if it is sometimes hard to hear,” Marrero wrote in the letter.

The impact of Dennis’ firing is being felt beyond McAuliffe International. Two recently retired DPS principals said they worry it will have a chilling effect on the speech of other DPS staff.

“I feel like everyone needs to be on watch,” said Suzanne Morris-Sherer, a longtime DPS educator who retired earlier this year as principal of McAuliffe Manual, the sister middle school to McAuliffe International. “That’s not a good way to feel.”

John Youngquist, the former principal of East High who’s now running for a seat on the Denver school board, said the timing of Dennis’ firing “lends to leaders having less confidence in what their status might be and what their situation might be. We retain leadership when they have confidence that people believe in them and they’re being invested in.”

In a statement, DPS said it followed its normal process for terminating an employee. “It is important to note that not all employee discipline data would be publicly known or shared with other school leaders,” the statement said.

The principals union has filed a grievance

The Denver School Leaders Association filed a grievance Tuesday alleging that Dennis’ termination violated the process outlined in an agreement between DPS and the Northeast Denver Innovation Zone, which oversees McAuliffe International and two other schools, according to a copy of the grievance obtained by Chalkbeat.

Innovation zones are groups of semi-autonomous public schools. The schools are governed by a separate zone board of directors, but their teachers and principals remain DPS employees, which can create confusion over who’s in charge. An agreement between the zone and DPS says the district won’t remove principals without seeking the zone’s approval.

But zone leaders said they were blindsided by Dennis’ firing. In addition to the grievance, the zone’s board of directors sent a letter to DPS Tuesday. It says that if DPS doesn’t admit it acted improperly, the zone board will invoke its right under state law to have a neutral third party review the firing, according to a copy of the letter obtained by Chalkbeat.

Ulcca Joshi Hansen, a McAuliffe parent and zone board member who’s also running for a seat on the Denver school board, said Dennis’ firing is “an indication that the district is not operating as it should. That things are arbitrary. That things can be capricious. That we can’t trust the processes. The community — this says to them, ‘Well, yeah, you don’t matter.’”

A Denver Public Schools spokesperson said Wednesday that the district can’t comment on the grievance because it is a personnel issue.

Dennis’ attorney, David Lane, said he is planning to file a lawsuit on Dennis’ behalf after the grievance plays out “alleging retaliation for First Amendment free speech.”

The Denver school board is set to vote next month on whether to accept Dennis’ termination. Such votes are usually routine and merit no discussion. But this one could be different.

Supporters hold homemade signs in support of Kurt Dennis, who was recently fired as principal of McAuliffe International School.

District alleges disparate discipline

In March, Dennis gave the televised interview to station 9News in which he expressed concerns about his staff having to search students for weapons, including the student who was accused of attempted murder. He said the district had blocked McAuliffe’s attempts to transfer the student to an online school or expel the student.

A few days before the interview, an East High student shot and injured two deans during a search for weapons. The search was part of a safety plan developed because administrators feared the East student, Austin Lyle, might pose a threat. Lyle had a prior weapons charge.

Dennis told 9News he was speaking out because parents deserved to know that the weapons searches happening at East were happening at other schools, too, and that “it needs to stop.”

The East shooting sparked intense debate and calls for change. The school board voted last month to reverse its ban on police in schools, and Marrero released a new safety plan that calls for armed safety officers to help school staff with weapons searches.

Dennis’ attorney Lane told 9News that DPS put Dennis under investigation after the televised interview, which did not name the student accused of attempted murder.

But a DPS investigator concluded that Dennis “divulged confidential student and legal records” in the interview, which violated district policy, put DPS at legal risk, and caused the student to be singled out and ostracized, according to a document provided to Chalkbeat.

The investigator also concluded that Dennis “repeatedly attempted to remove a young student of color from McAuliffe International,” despite being told removal “was not available or appropriate.” In the wake of the East shooting, district leaders have repeatedly defended a policy that students facing criminal charges can attend their regular schools as long as a judge has decided the student can be out in the community and not behind bars.

A July 3 letter informing Dennis that he was terminated cited those findings, according to a copy of the letter provided to Chalkbeat. The letter also cited “a pattern of administrative actions” that had a negative impact on students with disabilities and students of color.

More specifically, an investigator found that McAuliffe International’s “overuse of out-of-school suspensions … was having a disparate impact on students of color,” the letter said.

Data shows McAuliffe not alone

McAuliffe International is the district’s largest middle school with nearly 1,500 students, and one of its most diverse. In the 2022-23 school year, McAuliffe issued 106 out-of-school suspensions for a rate of 7%, according to data obtained by Chalkbeat in a public records request.

That’s a lower rate than many other large Denver middle schools. Hamilton Middle School had a suspension rate of 26%, while Skinner Middle School had a rate of 22%. Lake Middle School had a rate of 12%, and Merrill Middle School had a rate of 10.5%.

Racial disparities in discipline did exist at McAuliffe International last year. The data shows 14% of McAuliffe students were Black, but 30% of the suspensions were issued to Black students.

The same type of disparity existed for Black students at Hamilton and Merrill, though not at Lake. Skinner had too few Black students to calculate a percentage.

Colleen O’Brien, the executive director of the Northeast Denver Innovation Zone and Dennis’ direct supervisor, said McAuliffe was aware of the discipline disparity and was taking steps to address it, including hiring a new part-time staff member to mentor boys of color.

She also pointed out that students of color at McAuliffe International scored higher than students of color districtwide in both literacy and math on state tests last year.

O’Brien called Dennis’ termination “a shock” and said the timing “is unbelievable to me.”

O’Brien said that in her opinion, as the person responsible for conducting Dennis’ annual evaluations, his performance as a principal did not warrant being fired.

“I would not have terminated him, no,” she said.

Supporters want Dennis back at McAuliffe

On Tuesday evening, hundreds of parents, students, and community members gathered outside McAuliffe International before a wall of television news cameras to rally for Dennis’ return. The rally was organized by Denver school board candidate Kwame Spearman. Most of the crowd was white. But several speakers were staff or alumni of color.

Shemar Magee was a student when McAuliffe International opened in 2012. He said Dennis, the founding principal, always promoted doing the right thing and “swiftly corrected” any unkindness. Magee said he left McAuliffe a stronger student and became the first person in his family to graduate college and go on to graduate school.

“Without Kurt, the little small boy who walked through those doors in 2012 would not be standing here today doing big things that he never thought he could do,” Magee said.

Barrios, the school’s athletic director, said it was Dennis who encouraged her to take a job in the public schools 20 years ago when she was a young single mom.

“It has been my goal to make sure my kids are better than me,” Barrios said. “But I had to do that by showing them you have to work hard and have integrity. Kurt taught me that.”

Barrios’ daughter, Cecilia Pablo, also spoke. A former McAuliffe International student who now works at the school with students learning English as a second language, Pablo said Dennis — who she calls “Great Uncle Kurt” — has been a role model for her.

“I am proud to say I broke the cycle of teenage pregnancy and am the first in my family to graduate college with a degree in social work,” Pablo said. “If it were not for the opportunities and doors Mr. Dennis opened for my family and I, we would not be where we are today.”

Prateeti Khazanie, whose son will be in eighth grade at McAuliffe International this fall, stood in the crowd and listened to the speeches. She said she disagrees that the school is an unwelcome place for students of color like her son. Dennis’ firing, she said, was wrong.

“This feels like retaliation,” she said.

For his part, Dennis said in an interview that he wants one thing most.

“I’d like my job back,” he said. “I want to be with my kids and my staff. I want to get this school year off to a great start.”

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

7 preguntas para el nuevo jefe de seguridad de las Escuelas Públicas de Denver, Greg Cazzell

2023-07-08T00:22:01+00:00

Read in English.

Las Escuelas Públicas de Denver (DPS) tiene un nuevo jefe de clima y seguridad: Greg Cazzell, que fue director de seguridad de las Escuelas Públicas de Aurora por ocho años.

El puesto en DPS había estado vacante por seis meses cuando el distrito anunció que había contratado a Cazzell, que estuvo 22 años en el departamento de policía de Glendale antes de trabajar en Aurora.

Greg Cazzell

En estos momentos, la seguridad escolar es una prioridad para muchos estudiantes, familias y educadores de Denver. Los tiroteos dentro y alrededor de las escuelas secundarias este año han provocado protestas de estudiantes, la formación de un grupo de padres, llamados a la renuncia de la junta escolar, un debate sobre la reintroducción de los agentes de recurso escolar (SRO), y el desarrollo de un plan de seguridad a largo plazo.

Chalkbeat habló con Cazzell sobre sus prioridades y su enfoque de seguridad antes de su empleo comience oficialmente el 10 de julio. Esto es lo que tenía que decir.

Usted está llegando a DPS de las Escuelas Públicas de Aurora y una comunidad que también ha lidiado con la violencia armada de menores de edad. ¿Qué traerá a Denver de lo que aprendió en Aurora?

Asociaciones con la comunidad. Las escuelas no pueden hacerlo solas. Tenemos a nuestros estudiantes unas 7 horas y 40 minutos al día. Y eso no es tiempo suficiente. Por eso necesitamos asociarnos con la comunidad, asociarnos con las familias y unir a todas las partes interesadas para que juntos podamos resolver algunos de los retos.

Si hay violencia en la comunidad, va a tener impacto en nuestras escuelas. Así que en realidad no hay diferencia entre las dos. Nuestros estudiantes están en la comunidad, ven la violencia y se ven afectados por ella. Se necesita la participación no solo del distrito escolar, sino también de organizaciones sin fines de lucro, organizaciones comunitarias y ciudades. Se necesita de todos.

¿Hay algún ejemplo de una colaboración en Aurora de la que se sienta especialmente orgulloso?

Creo que el trabajo que están haciendo todos nuestros programas después de la escuela: Boys and Girls Club, COMPASS, Rocky Mountain Kids. Todos están proporcionando un poco de estructura y eso logra que los estudiantes participen, los mantiene en la escuela, los mantiene protegidos y es parte de todo ese sistema de apoyo.

Entonces, diría que esos tres programas después de la escuela. Y he tenido muy buenas relaciones con los tres. Y de hecho, espero, traer algunos de esos programas a DPS.

La junta escolar de Denver recién levantó la prohibición de los agentes de recurso escolar y permitió que la policía regrese a las escuelas. Las Escuelas Públicas de Aurora han tenido agentes de recurso escolar (SRO) desde hace años. ¿Qué opina de los SRO?

Como mencionaste, ellos llevan más de 20 años en las Escuelas Públicas de Aurora. En cada secundaria tenemos dos, además de un agente de seguridad armado. Ese es el modelo que han adoptado el superintendente y la junta escolar de APS.

Ellos decidieron tener esa política, y es parte del debate que se está oyendo ahora mismo en las reuniones de la unta de DPS. Y yo seguiré la dirección que se decida.

Una de las mayores preocupaciones es que los estudiantes traigan armas de fuego a la escuela. Algunas personas han propuesto instalar detectores de metal. Aurora ha utilizado perros detectores de drogas que también podían detectar residuos de pólvora. ¿Qué medidas sugeriría que adoptara Denver para mantener las armas fuera de las escuelas?

Todo lo que has mencionado sería una buena respuesta para eso.

Tenemos que examinar toda nuestra tecnología, y todas las opciones que puedan ser beneficiosas para asegurar que tengamos un ambiente seguro y propicio para el aprendizaje. Y eso nunca se detiene. Es algo que siempre se va a cuestionar. Nosotros tenemos que asegurar que siempre estemos reevaluando.

No se trata de un plan integral de seguridad para el DPS que se hace una vez y ya. Habrá que evaluarlo. Nosotros tendremos que determinar qué está funcionando y qué no. Ese será el camino a seguir.

No creo que debamos eliminar ninguna de las opciones que tenemos. Pero de nuevo, todas estas medidas van de acuerdo con la política establecida y con lo que la junta escolar de DPS decidió.

DPS dijo que estaba buscando un nuevo jefe de seguridad que tuviera experiencia en “seguridad y protección” y con “una mentalidad enfocada en el estudiante”. Los líderes del distrito han hablado de la importancia de ponerle fin al problema de los estudiantes que van de la escuela directo a la prisión. ¿Usted opina lo mismo? ¿Qué haría para ayudar a resolver ese problema?

Absolutamente. Tenemos que asegurar que no estemos criminalizando el comportamiento normal de un adolescente.

Por eso necesitamos trabajar de cerca con nuestros agentes colaboradores, ya sea con el SRO que atienda la situación o cualquier otro componente adicional de la policía. Necesitamos asegurar que nuestro personal entienda las comunidades de las que proceden nuestros estudiantes, algunos de los retos que enfrentan, y entender ese enfoque integral para asegurar que no estemos operando de manera aislada o en una burbuja. Es importante que tengamos esa visión completa y nos demos cuenta de cómo todo eso impacta el ambiente de seguridad cotidiano en nuestras escuelas.

¿Por qué quería el puesto en DPS?

Aparte de la diferencia en tamaño de los dos distritos [Aurora Public Schools tiene unos 39,000 estudiantes, mientras que Denver Public Schools tiene unos 88,000], creo que son muy similares. La composición socioeconómica [de las familias de los estudiantes], la cantidad de estudiantes que reciben comidas gratis o a precio reducido.

Creo que el distrito de Aurora es probablemente un poco más diverso que DPS. Sé que el DPS podría no querer oír esto, pero Aurora es una comunidad muy diversa y tenemos que asegurarnos de reconocer esa diversidad, de reconocer a esos grupos de refugiados — sé que no se limitan a Aurora, claramente, pero esa ha sido mi experiencia — y asegurar que ellos entiendan cuál es nuestro papel en la seguridad del plantel escolar.

Es importante entender que no somos la policía. Nuestro enfoque es la seguridad. Esas personas vienen de países donde ven un uniforme y lo asocian con lo que les ha oprimido. Así que tenemos que asegurarnos de reconocer esa diversidad.

En el pasado, en DPS y en los distritos escolares de todo el país, ha habido una desproporción en la disciplina. Algunos lo llaman exceso de vigilancia sobre los estudiantes de minorías raciales. ¿Cómo usted resuelve y mitiga este problema?

Es algo que está ocurriendo. No hay una solución única.

Tienes que mirar esos datos. Hay que asegurarse de contar con las personas correctas. Si la junta decide tener SRO en las escuelas, tenemos que asegurarnos de trabajar con la policía de Denver y encontrar los SRO correctos que van a ser ideales en cada una, que van a ser la persona correcta para esa cultura escolar. Nuevamente, tenemos que reconocer de dónde vienen esos estudiantes, entender sus antecedentes. Una vez más, hay que asegurar que tanto el SRO, como mi equipo son la combinación perfecta para esa escuela.

No ocurría a menudo, pero hubo veces en que íbamos a la policía de Aurora y decíamos: ‘Oye, esta persona no encaja bien en esta escuela. Busquemos otro candidato’. Esa puede ser una opción si la junta aprueba los SRO.

De nuevo, mi trabajo se basa en la política establecida. Cualquiera que sea la dirección final que la junta le indique al superintendente, esa será la dirección que tomaré en cuanto a seguridad y protección.

Melanie Asmar es reportera senior de Chalkbeat Colorado y cubre las Escuelas Públicas de Denver. Para comunicarte con Melanie, escríbele a masmar@chalkbeat.org.

‘It awakened a part of us’: How NYC students are turning the trauma of gun violence into action

2023-07-05T15:30:00+00:00

Leslie R., a recent Brooklyn high school graduate, still thinks about the February afternoon that three people were shot outside her campus.

She watched police gather at the scene from a window inside the Williamsburg Charter High School. Her brother, a ninth grader with no cellphone, had already left the building. She had no way to ensure he was safe.

“You shouldn’t have to worry about that,” she said. “You shouldn’t have to worry about somebody being shot, or somebody dying.”

Students and educators at the school continue to reel from that day, when violence arrived at their doorstep. A teenager, who didn’t attend the school, allegedly shot two students and a staff member. All three of the shooting victims survived. But the trauma of the incident has lingered among members of the school community.

In the immediate aftermath, reporters flocked to the scene to interview students — carrying cameras and microphones — an ordeal students described as further traumatizing as they tried to make sense of the situation. Though the overwhelming attention has for the most part faded, the community continues to feel its impact. (Some students’ last names are being withheld to protect their privacy.)

The school bolstered security efforts, installing metal detectors and conducting bag checks after the shooting. It brought in additional counseling services. Teachers gave space for discussion in class. And in the months that followed, the community stood unified in pushing for changes that could help prevent other shootings from happening at local schools.

While gun violence at schools remains rare, it often occupies outsized space in the minds of children. Young people in New York City also feel the impact of shootings in their larger community. As of April, roughly 20% of shooting victims in New York City this year were under 18, NYPD data showed. And between 2018 and 2022, the number of teenagers arrested and charged with murder grew at a rate twice as fast as adults, according to the state’s Division of Criminal Justice Services.

As high-profile school shooting incidents have spurred national movements over the past decade — mobilizing students to advocate for change — that trend has continued on a smaller scale locally, as students call for action to help make their neighborhoods safer.

For Williamsburg Charter High School, that meant holding a rally, with students making signs and performing, as they called for local changes they believe could help make their community and others safer. So far, their efforts haven’t resulted in any concrete changes, but that hasn’t stopped further action from teachers and students. The school is planning to hold another rally in the fall, along with encouraging students to write letters to legislators in a continued push for policy changes in New York.

The city has taken some steps to address concerns about youth-related gun violence: holding weekly meetings between school administrators and local police precinct commanders, bringing violence interrupters to schools, and creating opportunities for discussions between students and NYPD officers. This year, though the number of shooting victims in New York City has dropped by nearly a quarter from more than 700 last year, young people still feel the urgency.

“After the shooting, in some students, it awakened a part of us,” Leslie said. “This is the world that we live in. This is reality. So what can we do now to help?”

Students push for change, even as fear lingers

After the shooting, the school transitioned to remote learning for seven days, followed by the week-long mid-winter break and a phased-in return. During that time, teachers Alexandra Sherman and Ryan Fuller felt an urgency to take action.

“Something like this can’t just happen and we go on as usual,” Sherman said. “As a community, we needed to heal emotionally.”

It began with a petition calling for an end to gun violence, along with concrete measures — like expanded partnerships between neighborhood schools and the NYPD and legislation to support school-to-school information networks. The petition also called for improvements to violence interrupter coordination in the community, streamlining communication between schools and the groups who work to de-escalate potentially violent situations. They also called for expanded funding for schools’ social-emotional support and after-school programs, and job opportunities for young people. The petition has since garnered nearly 4,000 signatures.

From there, Shante Martin, an assistant principal at the school, connected with New Yorkers Against Gun Violence to organize the rally in March.

“I feel like the students gave us a push,” she said. “Because they were really like, ‘We need to do something.’ They kept reaching out, they kept emailing us, and telling us that we have to do something so that we can move forward.”

A student at Williamsburg Charter High School holds up a newspaper clipping about their rally against gun violence.

Witnessing violence or tragedies can often spur young people into action, said Sara Suzuki, a researcher at Tufts University’s Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement.

For students who do get engaged, though, it’s critical they find support from their community, she said.

“The link between mental health and political activism can be negative, unless there is a supportive environment for the young person,” she said. “It’s not that if a young person gets engaged post-massive political event, that will automatically help them process that trauma or help them heal. It really needs to be in a supportive civic environment.”

At Williamsburg Charter High School, students encouraged one another to come to the rally, and to speak with social workers and other support staff, Martin said. To Sherman, the experience has brought the school community closer together. But the teacher still feels the aftereffects of the incident. She’s still on edge when hearing sudden loud sounds in her apartment.

The shooting weighs heavily on the students, too.

“That fear is still here,” said Arianna S., a recent graduate of the school. “Sometimes, we’ll be feeling wary about coming to school.”

Students seemed more subdued and anxious in the aftermath of the shooting, said Brittany Gozikowski, a social work counselor at the school. She saw a slight initial drop in attendance, too.

“A location where an incident took place can be triggering,” Gozikowski said in an email. “It can ignite overwhelming emotions that the body is naturally adapted to flee from. So that can look like skipping school, requesting to do learning remote, or finding a new school altogether. However, coming back to that space and finding it safe — finding a supportive community and people who care — that can be healing.”

She worked with some students and their families to “process the trauma,” she said. She helped them “take small steps toward eventually getting back in the building and not being hindered by anxieties.”

Anti-gun violence rallies in Bed-Stuy

At another school in Brooklyn, anti-gun violence rallies are an annual occurrence, featuring student poems and performances at Restoration Plaza in Bed-Stuy.

Middle schoolers at Launch Expeditionary Learning Charter School have been holding walkouts and rallies against gun violence for eight years — an act that has given Tiayana Logan, the school’s director of enrichment, a “renewed sense of hope.”

Students and school staff gathered in the plaza last month, sporting orange T-shirts calling for an end to gun violence.

Neighborhood violence impacts everything from student mental and physical health to academic performance, Logan said, adding students are constantly considering how they can stay safe moving to and from school.

“These are things that 10-year-olds and 12-year-olds are thinking about,” she said. “It’s our job as school officials, as teachers and leaders, to reassure them every day that they will be safe.”

Sonali Rajan, associate professor of health education at Columbia University’s Teachers College, noted the impacts of gun violence on mental health can be devastating.

“It’s not just individuals who are shot and killed with firearms,” she said. “But even for children who survive a school shooting, who witness gunfire, who regularly hear gunshots, who have lost a close friend or family member to firearm violence — these are examples of indirect experiences with gun violence that absolutely shape a child’s sense of stability and safety.”

Both short- and long-term intervention are critical in helping children and teenagers process a traumatic incident, particularly as students may face multiple, compounding incidents over their time in school, Rajan said.

Diamond Smith, an alumni of Launch and recent high school graduate, has been thinking deeply about gun violence and its impact on her community for years. She remembers a time before students at Launch had a plaza to host the rallies — when they gathered just outside the nearby Applebee’s to make their voices heard.

Students and staff from Launch Expeditionary Learning Charter School gather at Restoration Plaza in Bed-Stuy for their eighth annual rally against gun violence.

Smith was in sixth grade during the second rally, and since her time in middle school she has worked with Save Our Streets to help keep students safe from gun violence. To her, the anti-gun violence rally helped her understand what was happening in her community around her — a realization she equated to landing in a pool and needing to learn how to swim.

“I want to give kids a safe space,” she said of her work with SOS and as an after-school teacher for younger students. “Because out there isn’t always safe, maybe sometimes home isn’t safe, but you have somewhere to put all your emotions. When you come here, we’re here for you.”

Her time at Launch and with SOS helped crystallize her own goals beyond school. Smith, who will soon attend Albany State University in Georgia, hopes to help those who are struggling — first as a social worker, and eventually, as a lawyer.

“I want to do public service work. I feel like that is my path,” she said. “The gun violence work, the outreach, all of it — it made me realize that.”

‘The activist years’

Students at Williamsburg Charter High School watched in the weeks that followed the incident as more shootings occurred across the country — including one in Nashville that sparked national coverage. Seeing those incidents brought back memories of their own experience, and students said they empathized with the victims on a deeper level.

“It’s one thing to realize and know about it, and it’s another thing to experience it,” said Savannah F., a recent graduate. “It made me more aware of how much not only legislation is not doing enough for us, but also just how exhausted we are.”

It’s been challenging balancing advocacy work with their studies, college applications, and more — but it’s also helped fortify their interests moving forward. Leslie said she plans to work in government in some capacity after college to address systemic issues, including gun violence. For Arianna, this experience has given insight she’ll carry forward as she hopes to study psychology and work in counseling after graduation.

“I never envisioned having such a close connection to this topic,” Arianna said, noting their time in high school has also been disrupted by major incidents like the murder of George Floyd and the pandemic.

“It’s just mind boggling. We already didn’t have the best four years, because of COVID and everything in general. So we tried to make the best of it,” she said. “But I feel like the last four years have been the activist years.”

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

SROs to stay at 13 Denver campuses, armed officers to help with weapons searches under safety plan

2023-06-30T21:00:53+00:00

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Police officers will stay at large secondary schools this fall, armed school district safety officers will help with weapons searches, and Denver Public Schools leadership will “comprehensively examine current student discipline practices.”

Those are among the details in the final draft of a long-term safety plan that Superintendent Alex Marrero released Friday in line with a deadline set by the school board.

In an interview, Marrero called the plan “an index of what we have to offer.” He implied that the plan would continue to evolve with the district’s needs.

“By no means do I want anyone to think this is one and done,” Marrero said. “It is the start of a larger conversation, not only here but also nationally.”

The board ordered Marrero to create the plan after a March shooting inside East High School. A 17-year-old student who was required by the school to be searched daily for weapons shot and injured two deans. The student fled the school and later took his own life.

The shooting spurred intense debate and community activism, including the formation of a parent group that called for increased safety, as well as backlash against returning police to schools. A divided school board ultimately voted to allow the return of armed school resource officers, known as SROs.

A previous board had voted in 2020 to remove SROs — a ban that was temporarily suspended following the East shooting.

The final safety plan released Friday is its third iteration. Marrero released the first and second drafts last month. The final version is clearer in that it lists the “current state” of certain district safety programs and the “future state” — to show what will change.

The school board does not need to vote on the plan.

The changes include that DPS will:

Return SROs to comprehensive middle and high schools.

The plan doesn’t specify which schools, but Marrero said in an interview that SROs will return this fall to the 13 campuses where they were stationed this spring following the East shooting.

Those 13 campuses are: East, North, South, West, Northfield, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Montbello, and Manual high schools, as well as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Early College and the Evie Dennis campus.

Eighteen middle and high school campuses had an SRO when the board voted to ban them in 2020. Following this fall, Marrero said in an interview that the district will develop a protocol for deciding which campuses have SROs.

Allow schools to determine, after extensive community engagement, whether to employ weapons detection systems.

DPS already has four mobile weapons detection units by the company Evolv Technology that the plan says the district uses for “athletic events and events requested by administrators.” A fiscal memo says “substantial and widespread detection systems at all schools or at high schools only would likely exceed $5 million.”

Conduct a staffing analysis to evaluate the presence of unarmed campus security officers.

Unarmed officers are stationed at middle and high schools and are different from SROs. The analysis will determine “where more staff may be needed or how resources can be shared,” the plan says. Marrero said in an interview that it could show the district needs to hire more unarmed officers.

Provide more support to school staff in conducting student searches, especially if weapons may be found.

For example, the plan says that if a student is required to undergo a search because they were found to have a gun outside of school, an armed DPS safety patrol officer “will be designated to support that for the specific window of time that allows for a safe, supervised search and entry into the building.”

Armed DPS safety patrol officers are different from both unarmed campus safety officers and SROs. They are a part of a mobile unit that responds to calls throughout DPS.

In the aftermath of the East shooting, some parents and educators said searches should be conducted by police or security staff rather than administrators, as was happening at East. The district has said SROs can’t search students without probable cause, but an armed DPS safety patrol officer — who is not a sworn police officer — can.

Work with local law enforcement to host youth violence meetings in each region of the city.

The meetings would be “to monitor trends of violence impacting school communities and strengthen partnerships to dismantle barriers impacting access to programming for youth,” according to the plan.

Expand the district’s online high school and potentially offer hybrid learning.

After the East shooting, some parents questioned why the shooter, who had been expelled from a neighboring school district and had a weapons charge, was attending school in person and not online.

While Marrero said the district believes in-person learning is best and is “not in the business of just shipping kids out,” he said DPS is considering a protocol that would allow students to learn online while the district figures out a plan for them to safely learn in-person.

Develop an online dashboard to better track and monitor “action and intervention plans,” which are put in place for students who may pose a threat to themselves or others.

Conduct safety audits of DPS school buildings and make “physical infrastructure recommendations such as secure vestibules, camera placement, lighting,” the plan says.

Those recommendations could also include wearable panic buttons for teachers, Marrero said. The audits are already underway with the help of consultant Murphy Robinson, who was formerly head of the Denver Department of Public Safety.

Have district leaders attend the Public Education Leadership Program Institute at Harvard University this summer to collaborate with other large urban districts on issues including safety.

DPS leaders will then “comprehensively examine current student discipline practices with the goal of enhancing the experience of safety, while maintaining compliance with federal and state law, and achieving the goal of equity and inclusion for all students,” the plan says.

Increase training for DPS staff on issues such as suicide prevention, threats posed by students, emergency management, and crisis recovery.

Increase offerings for students, including advanced high school coursework, college-level courses, work-based learning, and after-school and summer programming.

Require annual suicide prevention programming for all students in 5th, 6th, 9th, and 12th grades. This programming was previously optional, Marrero said.

Require all students be screened for social and emotional health three times per year, which “represents a dramatic increase” in the use of the screening tool, the fiscal impact note says. DPS plans to pay for the screener next year with federal COVID stimulus funds.

Offer at least “one session on grief and loss” for staff and parents who need it.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

The ‘Tennessee 3’ created a historic teachable moment. Will schools be allowed to teach it?

2023-06-16T19:34:07+00:00

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When Wyatt Bassow and Ava Buxton missed classes one morning this spring to see democracy in action in Tennessee, they witnessed history that they acknowledged probably wouldn’t be fully taught at their high school less than a mile away.

Justin Pearson, one of two young Democratic lawmakers who were dramatically expelled from office just a week earlier by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, was taking his oath of office again that day outside the state Capitol in Nashville after being voted back in by officials in Shelby County.

A few days earlier, Rep. Justin Jones of Nashville had been reinstated after a similar vote by his city’s council.

Both men had been ousted from the legislature for staging a protest on the House floor urging gun reforms after a mass school shooting in Nashville. The votes temporarily robbed some 140,000 Tennesseans in the state’s two largest cities of their representation.

“What I’ve learned these last few weeks is that democracy is incredibly fragile,” said Bassow, a senior at Nashville’s Hume-Fogg High School, as he cheered Pearson’s reinstatement in the shadow of the Capitol building.

“But because of the power of the people,” he added, “we were able to fix this.”

Less certain, the students said, is whether the controversial ouster of the two young Black Democrats by the House’s all-white GOP supermajority would be fully discussed at their school, or any public Tennessee school, as part of a course in U.S. government, civics, history, contemporary issues, or social studies.

While Republican leaders maintain the ouster was not racially motivated, the racial optics were undeniable, as was the supermajority’s suppression of legislative voices with whom they disagreed.

Cameron Sexton, a Republican from Crossville, is the speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives.

Meanwhile, Tennessee is at the front of a conservative-driven wave of censorship about what can and cannot be taught in K-12 schools.

A 2021 state law restricts classroom discussions about systemic racism, white privilege, and the ongoing legacy of slavery. Republican Gov. Bill Lee, who signed the law, has championed civics education that emphasizes American exceptionalism and plays down the origins of present-day U.S. injustices.

School libraries are under scrutiny too, especially for materials that have to do with race and gender. A 2022 law gives the state unprecedented authority to overrule local school boards and remove certain materials from libraries statewide. And a 2023 law puts book distributors and publishers at risk of criminal prosecution if materials they provide to Tennessee schools are deemed obscene.

“We definitely have noticed that a silencing is happening in our schools.” —Ava Buxton, student

“We definitely have noticed that a silencing is happening in our schools,” said Buxton, also a senior at Hume-Fogg, when asked whether the expulsions of Jones and Pearson had been discussed in her classes.

“Thankfully, our teachers are wonderful and intelligent educators who do their best to give students the space we need to have important conversations,” she continued. “But I think these conversations would go much deeper if our teachers didn’t have the fear of these new laws hanging over them.”

The rise, fall, and rise of the Tennessee Three

The expulsions of the two Black lawmakers came during the dramatic last weeks of a tumultuous legislative session gripped by large citizen protests over Tennessee’s lax gun laws, after an armed intruder killed three children and three adults at The Covenant School in Nashville on March 27.

Frustrated that House Speaker Cameron Sexton was not allowing them to voice the concerns of demonstrators during debates, Pearson, Jones, and Rep. Gloria Johnson of Knoxville took their protest to the House floor, where Jones and Pearson alternately used a bullhorn to shout “Gun control now!” and “Power to the people!”

In the process, the trio broke the chamber’s rules of decorum. GOP-sponsored ouster resolutions accused the so-called Tennessee Three of “knowingly and intentionally bringing disorder and dishonor to the House of Representatives.”

(From left) Reps. Justin Jones of Nashville, Gloria Johnson of Knoxville, and Justin Pearson of Memphis speak at a press conference on April 4, 2023, about GOP-sponsored resolutions to kick the three Democrats out of office.

Ultimately, Republican representatives voted overwhelmingly to kick out the two young Black men, while Johnson, who is older and white and was less vocal during the protest, kept her seat by a single vote.

The last time the House had expelled multiple members was in 1866, when six representatives were thrown out for conspiring to deprive the chamber of a quorum during a special session to ratify the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Two others have been expelled in more recent times, one for soliciting a bribe, and the other for sexual misconduct.

By contrast, the ousters of Jones and Pearson over their peaceful protest of gun violence — now the No. 1 killer of children and teens in America — seemed heavy-handed to their supporters. The House could have chosen simply to censure them for breaking House rules of decorum instead of kicking them out altogether.

In a subsequent four-page rebuke, the nation’s professional organization for social studies teachers denounced Tennessee’s House as attacking foundational principles of democratic and republican norms. Intentionally or not, the state was sending Tennessee students a message that the rights to free speech, peaceful protest, and holding their elected officials accountable are “reserved for those who have a specific view or perspective,” the National Council for the Social Studies wrote.

“Just as disturbing,” the group continued, “this action sends a message to the larger community that civil discourse and active citizenship will result in punishment rather than in finding consensus in ways that uphold the principles of democracy and the functioning of our republic … (which) will have a long-term impact on our students’ faith in the democratic process and our constitutional principles.”

Tennessee’s living history drama was filled with teachable moments

Political science and social studies experts say it’s hard to narrow down the events in Tennessee this spring to one teachable moment.

Tens of thousands of citizens descending on the Capitol to protest gun violence after a school shooting and the subsequent expulsions and reinstatements of Jones and Pearson are rich runways for academic inquiry. Among the issues: freedom of speech, legislative rules of decorum, the enduring influence of racism on public policy, and — as Bassow, the Nashville student, articulated — the fragility of democracy.

Students protest outside the Tennessee State Capitol on April 3, 2023, during a demonstration against gun violence and the state’s lax gun laws after a deadly school shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville.

John Geer, a political science professor who helped to launch the Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy, heartily agrees with Bassow.

“The teachable moment is that democracy fundamentally rests on genuine competition among political parties,” said Geer. “But because of supermajorities in our state legislatures, the minority party has no real influence and is left to scream or complain. They’re not part of the governing process. There’s no give and take, no compromise. Meanwhile, the majority party has so much power that they don’t need to negotiate, and that leads to excesses.”

It didn’t take long for resources to become available to help teachers broach the controversies in Tennessee as well as in Montana, where that state’s House speaker silenced Democratic Rep. Zooey Zephyr, a transgender lawmaker who refused to apologize for telling colleagues they would have “blood” on their hands if they supported a ban on gender-affirming care for youths.

Facing History and Ourselves, a nonprofit group that creates resources about current events to spawn thoughtful classroom discussions, zeroed in on two issues in its lessons: how to discuss politics in non-polarizing ways and the implications of using rules of decorum to censure legislators.

“What norms should guide our conversations about political issues?” asks the group’s lessons designed for middle and high school students.

“How could rules around speech be used to silence people?”

Parameters have narrowed on what teachers can teach

The availability of resources doesn’t mean such questions are being regularly asked in Tennessee classrooms, however.

The state’s public school teachers don’t have much wiggle room on what they’re allowed to teach. They’re also under increased scrutiny over the resources they can use.

“Tennessee civics is really nowhere in the standards. If something isn’t in the standards, it’s probably not going to be taught.” —Bill Carey, Tennessee History for Kids

Teachers are guided by hundreds of state-approved academic standards that set learning goals by subject and grade, and that dictate decisions around curriculum and testing. And social studies teachers already are hard-pressed to cover all of the standards for their subjects during a single school year. Even if they do, only a few courses offered in grades five, eight, and 12 include standards that might lend themselves to discussions about the Tennessee Three.

“Tennessee civics is really nowhere in the standards,” said Bill Carey, who sells resources for educators through his nonprofit Tennessee History for Kids. “And if something isn’t in the standards, it’s probably not going to be taught.”

Social studies lessons, in particular, are monitored closely by parents and activists.

In 2015, some complained that some Tennessee teachers were “indoctrinating” students into Islam in their seventh-grade world history classes, prompting state officials to order an early review of those standards.

More recently, amid a conservative backlash to anti-racism protests after a white policeman killed Black American George Floyd in Minneapolis (an incident that prompted a federal investigation into systemic racism on the police force), Tennessee was among the first states to enact a law intended to restrict K-12 classroom discussions about race, racism, and gender.

Specifically, the 2021 law prohibits teachers from discussing 14 concepts that the state has deemed divisive, including that the United States is fundamentally or irredeemably sexist or racist, or that an individual is inherently privileged, racist, sexist, or oppressive because of their race or gender.

Educators have complained that the law and the state’s rules for enforcing the statute aren’t clear about exactly what teachings cross the line. But teachers found in violation could have their licenses suspended or revoked, while their school districts could face financial penalties.

“To be honest, I just didn’t mention this in class. I am just overly cautious with what I cover in class for now.” —Tennessee social studies teacher

The potential fallout has influenced small but pivotal decisions that educators make every day in Tennessee and in other states that have passed similar laws targeting so-called critical race theory: how to answer a student’s question, which articles to read as a class, how to prepare for a lesson, which examples to use.

That includes whether to discuss the Tennessee legislature’s vote to expel Jones and Pearson, which made national headlines.

“To be honest, I just didn’t mention this in class,” said one Tennessee social studies teacher who asked not to be identified, for fear of retribution. “I am just overly cautious with what I cover in class for now.”

Students ‘come up with all these great questions’

Mark Finchum, executive director of the Tennessee Council for the Social Studies, says the law — and a related climate of fear — has had a chilling effect on teachers who might normally contemplate lessons about the Tennessee Three, or perhaps about the insurrection at the Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. But it also depends on the teacher.

“If you’re a new teacher who is teaching in an area of the state where you feel insecure, you may not want to go there,” Finchum said. “But if you’re an experienced teacher and feel strongly about these events and how your students can learn from them, you may go ahead.”

Erika Sugarmon falls in the latter category.

One Friday at White Station High School in Memphis, students showed up to Sugarmon’s weekly current events discussion with lots of questions about the expulsion. The day before the legislative vote, many White Station students had walked out of school to show support for gun reforms called for by the Tennessee Three.

“The kids come up with all these great questions. Sometimes there’s not an answer,” said Sugarmon, a veteran educator who teaches courses in U.S. government.

Protesters listen from the gallery of the House of Representatives at the Tennessee State Capitol on April 3, 2023, while demanding gun reform and justice for The Tennessee Three.

But it’s important to give students a safe and constructive space to discuss hard things, added Sugarmon, who is also an elected official on the Shelby County Commission, where she cast a vote to reinstate Pearson to his seat.

One student in her class brought up racism, she said, prompting a conversation about why Tennessee lawmakers have sought to ban some books and squelch classroom discussions about racism.

“Students have been very vocal about not just what happened with Pearson, but with state laws in general,” said Sugarmon.

She encourages them to explore source documents to formulate their own options.

Evidence-based discussions are the way that teachers should take up politically charged topics with their students, Vanderbilt’s Geer said.

“The evidence should be your guidepost,” he said, “while avoiding injecting ideology into the classroom.”

“Yes, facts need to be interpreted,” Geer added. “But if we can agree on a basic set of evidence, we can have a conversation. And that’s an important part of democracy.”

Maya Logan, a rising senior in Memphis at Germantown High School, talked about the lawmakers’ expulsions with her friends, but didn’t discuss the event as part of her 11th-grade American history class. Just the same, the deadly shooting at Nashville’s Covenant School, which prompted the protest and led to the expulsions, was a big deal to her. And as a young Black person, she related to Pearson and Jones, who are among the youngest members of the House.

Logan hopes this year’s events at the state Capitol will resurface as discussion topics during her senior year when she takes a U.S. government class. She has important questions. And she’s looking for answers.

“These are people,” she explained, “that are setting things up for us for our futures.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Laura Testino is a reporter for Chalkbeat Tennessee, where she covers K-12 education in Memphis. Contact her at ltestino@chalkbeat.org.

Divided Denver school board votes to keep police in schools

2023-06-16T02:24:08+00:00

Police officers will return to Denver schools next year, after the school board voted 4 to 3 Thursday to allow “the persistent presence of school resource officers” at schools.

The new policy reverses a 2020 board decision to remove SROs from Denver schools and puts to rest — at least for now — a debate that has raged in the community for nearly three months.

The split vote came after nearly four hours of debate, several amendments to the proposal, and accusations that some board members intentionally delayed the vote.

Board President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán and members Scott Baldermann, Charmaine Lindsay, and Carrie Olson voted in favor of bringing police back to schools.

“This is about deterrence,” said Baldermann, who authored the proposal. “If it stops one kid from bringing a loaded gun into a school, I think it’s worth it.”

Board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson and members Scott Esserman and Michelle Quattlebaum voted no. The three board members had backed an alternate proposal that would have established a group of “community resource officers” that would have responded to schools when necessary but would not have been stationed inside them.

Anderson said returning SROs was going “back to an oppressive system.”

“The police system in America is designed to oppress,” Esserman said.

The much-anticipated decision comes after a particularly violent school year. A shooting inside East High School in March, in which a student shot and injured two deans and later took his own life, most forcefully reignited the debate about police in schools.

The new policy doesn’t specify which schools will have SROs. It simply directs the superintendent to establish a memorandum of understanding with the Denver Police Department for when SROs are necessary at district-run and charter schools.

However, it does allow the superintendent to “promptly remove” SROs who don’t follow district policy and best practices. It also requires the district to monitor the number of times SROs ticket or arrest students to ensure marginalized students aren’t disproportionately targeted.

Denver Police Chief Ron Thomas has said that his preference is to have school resource officers in high schools but that he will work within the parameters established by the district.

A majority of board members removed other guardrails that Baldermann had included in the proposal, including that SROs not be involved in student discipline, not store firearms at schools, and that the officers “reflect the students at the school” demographically.

Baldermann said he included those limits to prevent disproportionate policing of students of color — something opponents of police in schools say is nearly inevitable.

But Anderson, Esserman, and Quattlebaum criticized those guardrails as getting too deep into operational details. Olson said she preferred the simplified policy.

The Denver school board uses a governance model that calls for board members to set policy and leaves the superintendent responsible for operations. Criticizing an idea as too operational has become a way for board members to reject ideas they oppose.

Over the course of the meeting, Anderson and Esserman proposed numerous amendments that would place fewer limits on how police operate in schools — the opposite of the position they have advocated for. Other board members accused them of purposely extending the debate.

“To me, this feels more like a delay to not vote on the original motion,” Gaytán said after Esserman offered one of his amendments.

Esserman disputed that he was trying to delay. “This is about getting it right,” he said.

Lindsay also expressed frustration about delays. “So all I have to do is make a motion in the middle of a motion and I can stifle everybody else’s speech?” she said.

“If you get a second,” Anderson said.

Denver school board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson led the effort to remove SROs from schools and has strongly opposed their return.

A previous board voted three years ago, in June 2020, to remove school resource officers from Denver schools. At the time, 18 SROs were stationed in middle and high schools across the district. Denver Public Schools and the Denver Police Department split the cost.

But amid protests against racist policing following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the Denver school board unanimously decided to sever ties with the police department. Anderson, Baldermann, and Olson were on the board at the time and voted in favor.

After SROs were removed, the number of DPS students ticketed and arrested at school went down. But the number of real and fake guns confiscated at schools went up. And several high-profile shootings in and around East High sparked community concern.

A day after the shooting inside East in March, the school board temporarily lifted its ban on SROs. For the last two months of school, 14 SROs were stationed on 13 high school campuses.

The temporary suspension was set to expire June 30. That’s also the deadline the board gave Superintendent Alex Marrero to come up with a long-term safety plan for the district.

Public opinion on whether to reinstate SROs varied widely. In an April survey conducted by DPS, 33% of staff, 41% of students, and 48% of parents who responded said SROs would help.

At a raucous school board meeting last week, Deputy Superintendent Tony Smith said more recent surveys showed more support for SROs. But the feedback from a series of telephone town hall meetings in May was that parents consistently ranked SROs second behind weapons detection systems as the resource they wanted DPS to invest more money in.

The advocacy group Movimiento Poder has strongly opposed reintroducing SROs. The Denver-based organization has pushed for years to disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline. In a press release after the vote, Executive Director Elsa Bañuelos-Lindsay condemned the decision as “a false solution that will directly endanger students.”

“It will mean plunging students back into the harm and criminalization that cops are known to bring to classrooms and especially students of color, while not providing protection to students,” she said.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

7 questions for Denver Public Schools’ new safety chief, Greg Cazzell

2023-06-13T23:37:46+00:00

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Denver Public Schools will soon have a new chief of climate and safety: Greg Cazzell, who served for eight years as the director of safety for neighboring Aurora Public Schools.

Greg Cazzell

The DPS position had been vacant for six months when the district announced it had hired Cazzell, who spent 22 years with the Glendale police department before working in Aurora.

School safety is top of mind for many Denver students, families, and educators right now. Shootings in and around high schools this year have led to student protests, the formation of a parent advocacy group, calls for the school board to resign, a debate about whether to reintroduce school resource officers, and the development of a long-term safety plan.

Chalkbeat spoke to Cazzell Tuesday about his priorities and approach to safety before he officially starts the job on July 10. Here’s what he had to say.

You’re coming to DPS from Aurora Public Schools and a community that also has grappled with youth gun violence. What did you learn in Aurora that you’ll bring to Denver?

Community partnerships. Schools can’t do it alone. We have our students for about 7 hours and 40 minutes a day. And that’s just not enough time. So community partnerships, family partnerships, bringing all the stakeholders together to tackle some of the challenges.

If it’s violence in the community, it’s impacting our schools. So there’s no really differentiating between the two. Our students are in the community, they see the violence, they’re impacted by the violence. And so it takes not only the school district but nonprofits, community organizations, cities. It’s all-encompassing.

Is there an example of a partnership in Aurora that you’re particularly proud of?

I think the work that all of our after-school programs are doing: Boys and Girls Club, COMPASS, Rocky Mountain Kids. Those are all providing some after-school structure that engages the students, keeps them at the school, keeps them safe and part of that overwhelming umbrella.

And so all of those after-school programs, I’ve had great relationships with all three. And will continue to, I hope, bring some of those over to DPS.

The Denver school board is currently debating whether to lift a ban on school resource officers and allow police back into schools. Aurora Public Schools has had school resource officers for years. What is your opinion on SROs?

As you mentioned, they’ve been in Aurora Public Schools for over 20 years. We have two at every high school, along with an armed campus safety officer. So that’s the model that the superintendent and board of education in APS has adopted.

It’s a policy decision, and so that’s some of the debate you’re hearing right now in the DPS board meetings. And that will be the direction that I follow.

Students bringing weapons to school is a major concern. Some people have proposed installing metal detectors. Aurora has used drug-sniffing dogs that could also detect gunpowder residue. What approaches would you suggest Denver take to keep weapons out of schools?

All of the above would be kind of a good answer for that.

We really got to look at all of our technology, all of our options that may be beneficial to ensuring that we have a safe environment that’s conducive to learning. And that never stops. That is always going to be challenged. And we need to make sure we’re re-evaluating.

This isn’t a one-and-done comprehensive safety plan for DPS. It will have to be evaluated. We’ll have to determine what’s working, what’s not working. That will be the path forward.

I don’t think we should eliminate any of the options before us. But again, they’re all based on policy and what has the DPS board of education decided.

DPS said it was looking for a new safety chief with both “safety and security chops” and “a student-centric mindset.” District leadership has talked about the importance of disrupting the school-to-prison pipeline. Do you believe in that work? How would you further that work?

Absolutely. We need to make sure we are not criminalizing adolescent behavior.

So we need to work closely with our partners, whether they are the SRO that responds or any additional law enforcement component. We need to make sure that our staff understand the communities that our students are coming from, some of the challenges that they are faced with, and understanding that comprehensive approach to make sure that we’re not operating in a silo or a bubble. It’s important for us to get that big view of the big picture and realize how that impacts the day-to-day safety environment of our schools.

Why did you want the job in DPS?

Aside from the size of the two districts [Aurora Public Schools has about 39,000 students, while Denver Public Schools has about 88,000], I think they’re very similar. The socioeconomic makeup [of student families], the free and reduced-[price lunch] population.

I think Aurora is probably a little more diverse than DPS. I know DPS might not want to hear that, but Aurora is a very diverse community and we need to make sure we are recognizing that diversity, recognizing those refugee populations — I know they’re not limited to Aurora, clearly, but that’s been my experience — and making sure they understand what our role is in campus safety.

It’s important to understand we’re not law enforcement. We are safety-focused. And they’re coming from countries where they see the uniform and that’s what has been oppressive for them. So we need to make sure that we’re recognizing that diversity.

In the past, in DPS and in school districts all over the country, there has been that disproportionality in discipline. Some people call it over-policing students of color. How do you approach that and mitigate that?

It’s ongoing. There’s not one solution.

You need to look at that data. You need to make sure you’ve got the right people. If the board chooses SROs, we need to make sure that we’re working with Denver police and finding the right SROs that are going to fit with those schools, fit in with that school culture. Again, recognizing where those students come from, understanding their background. And again, making sure that the SRO, as well as my team, is a good fit for that school.

It didn’t happen often but there were times when we did go to Aurora police and say, ‘Hey, this person just isn’t fitting in well with this school. Let’s look at a different candidate to come on board.’ That may be an option should the board approve the SROs.

Again, my work is all based on policy. And so whatever that ultimate direction given from the board to the superintendent to me, that will be the direction I take safety and security.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Raw emotions, shouting, and prayers as Denver school board debates police in schools

2023-06-06T18:45:21+00:00

A Denver school board discussion of police in schools Monday began with board members shouting to be heard after the president cut off their microphones and ended with a series of ministers praying that the district’s children be safe and that its leaders show good judgment.

“This topic is too important for us to gloss over,” board member Michelle Quattlebaum, who opposes stationing police officers inside schools, said after her microphone was cut off. “I will continue to press back on structures of oppression.”

The tumult at Monday night’s Denver school board meeting reflected ongoing conflict on the board, the deep division in the community over police in schools, and how strongly each side feels their solution is safest for students. The debate follows several incidents of gun violence, including a shooting inside East High in March that prompted the board to temporarily lift a ban on police in schools.

Now the board is weighing whether to bring the officers back on a long-term basis. But with dueling proposals on the table, the seven board members don’t agree.

Superintendent Alex Marrero invited Denver Police Chief Ron Thomas to Monday’s meeting to explain how police would partner with Denver Public Schools if the board reinstates school resource officers, known as SROs. The agenda item read only “Superintendent’s Update.”

Thomas promised specialized training in de-escalation and the adolescent brain. He pledged that the officers would come from the community and want the assignment. He said they would focus on positive interactions with students and deterring crime, not on discipline.

“I’ve seen it work where young people have had a great opportunity to develop relationships with police officers in their schools,” Thomas said.

Deputy Superintendent Tony Smith then read off a long list of just-in survey results overwhelmingly in favor of police: 95% of students at Montbello High, 90% of parents at Northeast Early College, and 85% of staff at Lincoln High are in support of SROs, Smith said.

The results were notably different from previous survey results. An April survey conducted by the district found just 41% of students in favor of SROs. At a series of telephone town hall meetings last month, parents consistently ranked SROs second behind weapons detections systems as the resource they wanted DPS to invest more money in.

Quattlebaum questioned the validity of the survey results presented by Smith. Black students, she said, “do not feel safe speaking their truth” for fear of being seen as opposing school safety. The survey, she said, supports what Marrero, board President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán, and board members Scott Baldermann and Charmaine Lindsay want: to return SROs to schools.

“But have we done the real research, is what I’m asking,” Quattlebaum said. “Creating and holding the space that’s actually required to address the situation?”

Gaytán tried to cut Quattlebaum off. She said it wasn’t Quattlebaum’s turn to speak.

“Please, I ask for your respect,” Gaytán said. “As president of the board, I’m asking you kindly and respectfully to respect procedure.”

Quattlebaum kept speaking. “When we go down the list of traits of white supremacy, this is actually one of them,” she said.

Gaytán gestured toward the technical crew controlling the microphones. Board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson jumped to Quattlebaum’s defense. “Do not cut her mic!” he said.

But Gaytán did. Quattlebaum stood up and spoke loudly.

“I will continue to be a voice and a beacon,” Quattlebaum said.

Anderson’s microphone was cut off a few minutes later, after Marrero said it was “impossible to fathom” that Denver’s students of color would be over-policed by SROs under his watch, even though it happened in the past. “Then is not now,” Marrero said.

“Respectfully, Dr. Marrero, I have to just,” Anderson began.

“Vice President Anderson,” Gaytán said. “Would you please follow procedure and ask for the floor?”

“I’m not doing this with you today,” Anderson said to Gaytán.

When Anderson’s microphone went dead, he also stood up and shouted.

“Just because we have new faces doesn’t mean we trust what you’re going to do!” he said.

The board is considering two proposals. One, authored by Baldermann, would let the superintendent decide when, where, and for long SROs should be stationed in schools. While Gaytán and Lindsay have not formally endorsed Baldermann’s proposal, Gaytán called the return of SROs “inevitable,” while Lindsay has said they could help.

Another proposal, backed by Quattlebaum, Anderson and board member Scott Esserman, says the district should instead work with the city to create community resource officers who would be available to schools only when necessary.

The bulk of Monday’s meeting was set aside for public comment — and the topic of SROs dominated among the speakers in the packed auditorium. Nearly all speakers, including a large group with the advocacy organization Movimiento Poder, were opposed to bringing back SROs.

They said SROs cause trauma, ticket and arrest Black and Latino students, and do nothing to stop school shootings. They accused the school board of being reactionary and ignoring data.

“For my sake, and thousands of students’ sake, please stop ignoring the Black and brown voices,” said Carold Carter, a sophomore at Denver School of the Arts.

“It’s important we show our community of beautiful students that we truly care about them and will refuse to treat them as criminals or their schools as prisons,” the 15-year-old said.

At a press conference just a half hour before the meeting Monday, some parents expressed a more complicated view. Dorian Warren, a Black mother with a son at East High, said that the SROs at East have tried to build a rapport with her son.

Warren is part of a group called Resign DPS Board that is calling on all seven board members to step down — or at least for voters to get rid of any incumbents who run for reelection.

In a year filled with gun violence, Warren said there were no incidents after the SROs returned.

“I don’t want to see another child die and more finger pointing,” Warren said. “This board needs to be proactive and stop dragging their feet, stop making excuses, stop being divisive.”

Before Monday’s board meeting was over, Quattlebaum had apologized for “stepping out of order.” More than three hours of public comment ended with a series of nine ministers who used their allotted three minutes each to stand at the microphone and pray.

“I’ve been here for a few hours, so I’m tired,” said Brandon Washington, pastor of Embassy Christian Bible Church. “And I know you are too. One of the things that was fatiguing was not just the passage of time, but the manner in which this conversation occurred. So I want to be careful to give some attention to remembering that the agenda here is not self. It is others.”

School safety, Washington said, is “a complex matter.” “Let everyone here think the best of the other,” he said, “knowing that everyone here desires the welfare of children.”

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Denver board divided on competing school policing proposals

2023-06-01T23:55:08+00:00

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A divided Denver school board failed to find much common ground in an hourlong debate Thursday over two competing proposals on the role of police in schools.

The meeting concluded with no decision, with no scheduled vote, and with uncertainty about next steps. The board even discussed setting aside both proposals until they held an up-or-down vote on the policy that was in place for almost two years — a ban on armed police officers on Denver campuses.

Superintendent Alex Marrero had asked the board to decide whether to allow police on campuses and in what circumstances as he finalizes a new school safety plan, and board members presented two different visions.

Board member Scott Baldermann’s proposal would allow Marrero to decide when, where, and for how long to station police at Denver schools. The proposal says police would not get involved in discipline but would be present for ensuring safety, deterring crime, mentoring students, and building community.

Baldermann said he hopes Denver schools can benefit from the presence of police without seeing a return to disproportionate discipline, tickets, and arrests that affected students of color.

“I don’t want to fall back,” Baldermann said.

Board member Scott Esserman countered: “This policy is falling back.”

Esserman backs a proposal from Vice President Auon’tai Anderson to direct the superintendent to negotiate a memorandum of understanding with the Denver Police Department to create community resource officers who would receive special training and get to know schools within regions of the city — without being stationed inside buildings.

Anderson called it a “third way” between having school resource officers on campus and the recent status quo, in which school leaders called 911 when safety issues arose and any on-duty officer responded.

“We need to center the needs of our students and not make reactionary decisions,” Anderson said.

With Anderson leading the charge, the Denver school board voted in 2020 to remove school resource officers amid the protests that followed the murder of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis. Community groups such as Movimiento Poder, formerly known as Padres y Jóvenes Unidos, had been working toward that change for a decade.

Then in March, after a student shot two administrators inside East High School, the board temporarily suspended the ban. Marrero had already publicly stated his intention to bring police back to schools, and after spring break, Denver police officers were stationed at 13 Denver campuses.

The first version of Marrero’s safety plan would have allowed building principals to decide whether police should be stationed at their schools. After many principals said they didn’t want that responsibility, Marerro asked the Denver school board to make a long-term decision.

In a written statement emailed to Chalkbeat, Denver Police Chief Ron Thomas said he would work with the district wherever the board lands but has a “clear preference” for full-time school resource officers in every large high school.

“They will serve as a layer of safety planning and, more importantly, maintaining positive relationships with youth in schools,” Thomas said. “This position was shared with members of the school board. The decision will ultimately be that of DPS. DPD will comply with the direction of the DPS Board and School Administration.

“There are still a number of uncertainties with multiple options still on the table. While the department has begun logistical planning internally for different options, we will not comment about those plans until after a final determination has been made.”

The unanimous March vote to temporarily allow police on campuses occurred after a five-hour closed-door meeting and with no public discussion. Thursday’s meeting gives the public more insight into how board members are thinking about safety and policing. Esserman said the disagreement is a sign of healthy democracy in action, not dysfunction.

Board President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán called the return of police “inevitable” and said the board should set guidelines such as proposed by Baldermann for what their role should be.

But board member Michelle Quattlebaum said the decision only becomes inevitable after the board votes. She said the board’s first decision should be whether it wants to stick with the policy in place from 2020 until March of this year — a ban on police in schools. Only once that policy has been overturned should the board consider a new policy.

Quattlebaum said she wanted to name the “elephant in the room.”

“I have Black sons who have gone through DPS and I know what their experience was,” she said. “We are talking about policing Black children. That is what we are talking about, without saying it. How do we make sure the white students are safe when they are in school with Black students?”

“I’m just as concerned as about my brown boys and my brown community,” Gaytán said. “What I want is a say in what that looks like.”

Board member Charmaine Lindsay says she has seen the impact of disproportionate policing and discipline on her 10 grandchildren, who are all children of color. Lindsay, who is white, said she also has seen children meet a bad end that might have been avoided if there had been earlier intervention.

“I’ve seen kids end up dead and kids end up with 20- or 30-year prison sentences that could have been prevented if someone said, ‘you’re going to get a ticket’ or ‘you’re going to go to a pathways school,’” she said.

She also said school resource officers could help teachers feel safer, and that shouldn’t be overlooked.

Board member Carrie Olson, who was attending remotely, did not weigh in.

With the board reaching a self-imposed deadline for wrapping up the discussion, Anderson suggested holding an up-or-down vote on the previous ban at a future meeting before taking up either of the new proposals. It takes three board members or the president to place something on the agenda.

Baldermann said he feared that ending the ban without agreement on a replacement policy — one possible outcome of an up-or-down vote — would leave Denver students without protections and the superintendent without guidance.

The board’s next meeting is Monday, when the board is scheduled to hear public comment. However, the board doesn’t have a meeting allowing voting until June 15. The board could also schedule a special meeting.

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Denver school district hires safety chief from Aurora schools, filling 6-month vacancy

2023-06-01T22:26:33+00:00

Denver has hired longtime Aurora Public Schools safety chief Greg Cazzell to be the district’s next chief of climate and safety.

The key position has been vacant for more than six months as Denver Public Schools grapples with rising community violence and shootings both inside and just outside school buildings. Superintendent Alex Marrero is developing a new safety plan, the school board is debating the role of police in schools, and community groups are advocating for competing visions.

In a press release announcing the hire Thursday, the district said Cazzell would be responsible for overseeing and implementing the safety plan set to be finalized later this month. Cazzell is scheduled to start July 10.

Greg Cazzell

“I am very proud to accept this role with Denver Public Schools,” Cazzell said in the press release. “I am very aware of the work in front of us, and I am excited to get started on implementing the safety and security features of the new plan in support of our students, staff and community.”

A district spokesman said Cazzell is on a family trip and not available for interviews.

Cazzell has worked as Aurora Public Schools’ director of safety and security for eight years. Before that, he spent 22 years with the Glendale, Colorado, police department. He also has been an adjunct professor teaching criminal justice classes at Johnston & Wales University.

The neighboring Aurora school district has dealt with similar challenges with community violence. In 2021, within weeks, nine students were shot and injured in two incidents, one in the parking lot of Hinkley High School and the other in a park near Aurora Central High School.

Aurora, though, has maintained school resource officers throughout social justice protests and student advocacy. Then-Superintendent Rico Munn said the district put its own money toward mental health supports and restorative justice, while the city paid for police salaries, striking a good balance.

During his tenure, Cazzell implemented ID check procedures at Aurora schools that raised concerns among advocacy groups that work with immigrant parents and faced questions about the use of drug-sniffing dogs in schools.

“I know that Chief Cazzell will help DPS move forward in our ongoing commitment to providing a safe environment for every student to thrive,” Marrero said in a press release. “He will play a pivotal role in safeguarding our students and building trust among parents and staff.”

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Denver board to weigh competing proposals on police in schools

2023-06-01T00:55:11+00:00

The Denver school board is divided on whether to keep police officers on campuses, with two competing proposals on the board agenda for Thursday.

One proposal, authored by board member Scott Baldermann, would give the superintendent authority to decide when, where, and for how long police should be stationed in Denver school buildings. School communities would be informed and their opinions considered, the proposal says, but the decision would rest with the superintendent.

The superintendent would deem when police presence is necessary and would work to ensure officers don’t get involved in school discipline and have special training and certifications, the proposal says.

The proposal says that police should be in schools for preserving safety, deterring crime, mentoring students, and building community and that they should have a softer presence, wearing less formal uniforms and not parking their cars where students would have to walk around them.

Baldermann, who voted to remove school resource officers back in 2020, said he changed his position due to the number of weapons being confiscated in Denver schools and feedback he has heard from the community.

He hopes his proposal will provide safety benefits and deter students from taking weapons to school without leading to more tickets and arrests for students of color — the reason advocates wanted police out of schools in the first place.

“At the end of the day, I do want this to be a positive relationship, and I think we can do that,” he said.

The other proposal, authored by Vice President Auon’tai Anderson and endorsed by members Scott Esserman and Michelle Quattlebaum, says police should not be stationed in schools — district- or charter-managed — on a regular basis. Instead the district would develop a memorandum of understanding with the city to create community resource officer positions.

Those officers would be assigned by region and available to schools when necessary. Their role would be limited to protecting the physical safety of students and staff, responding to a threat from someone outside the school community, and responding to situations in which schools are required to call law enforcement. The memorandum would include guidelines for when it’s appropriate for police to be on school grounds and when school staff should handle a situation, the proposal says.

Anderson’s proposal says that any officer engagements with students should include district support staff, restorative justice workers, and if needed a special education caseworker to help de-escalate the incident and intervene without criminalizing students.

Anderson said during a news conference Wednesday that the proposal represents a middle ground. The district won’t place police officers in schools but schools will have a police presence when needed.

“We cannot turn back on the progress that we have made,” he said.

While Baldermann’s proposal calls for officers to be trained by the National Association of School Resource Officers, Anderson lays out more extensive training requirements with curriculum to be developed by community groups. Topics would include restorative practices, culturally responsive de-escalation, working with students with disabilities, trauma-informed approaches, racial equity, and the school-to-prison pipeline.

Both proposals call for not spending school district funds on school resource officers. Instead, the city, state, or grants should cover police salaries, the proposals say.

The school district cannot unilaterally compel the city or the police department to agree to its terms.

Anderson said he’s spoken with Denver Police Chief Ron Thomas about the proposal. Questions remain about details of the memorandum of understanding, such as officers’ duties, the number of officers, and school assignments, Anderson said.

Baldermann said he hasn’t talked with the police chief, but he hopes the department would find the guidelines he’s proposing reasonable.

The role police will play in Denver schools is a significant question as Superintendent Alex Marrero develops a new safety plan that also emphasizes mental health resources for students, after-school programming, and community partnerships. Last week, in a second draft of the plan, he asked the school board to adopt a districtwide policy rather than leave the decision up to school principals in consultation with teachers and parents.

The Denver school board voted unanimously in March to temporarily return armed police officers to high schools the day after a student shot and wounded two administrators inside East High School. That decision reversed a ban adopted in 2020 in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis. Anderson was the leading advocate for removing police from schools.

The district was supposed to develop a new agreement with the Denver Police Department, but that never happened.

Without police on campuses, tickets and referrals to law enforcement fell, a major goal of advocates who pointed to significant racial disparities in student interactions with police.

Since then, rising community violence, more weapons being found on school grounds, and three prominent shootings in or near East High School — including one in which a student was killed — all pushed questions of school safety, discipline, and school resource officers to the forefront.

For the last two months, 13 Denver campuses have had school resource officers. Community surveys have found parents, students, and educators all divided on whether the presence of police would make schools feel safer. Advocacy groups like Movimiento Poder have urged the district not to return police to campuses, while many school principals say they would prefer to have officers in their buildings who know and are familiar with their students.

Board member Esserman, who supports not putting police back into schools, said the district shouldn’t switch its approach every time an incident occurs.

“When we do that, we’re just swinging a pendulum back and forth,” he said. Instead, the change will modify the district’s approach to keeping cops out of schools while also getting cops more involved with the city’s communities, he said.

Baldermann said those pendulum swings are one reason he wants the superintendent to make the decision on an as-needed basis.

“Right now, the board was saying you can’t do this, and Dr. Marrero did it anyway,” Baldermann said. “If there is a known threat or intelligence from the community, the superintendent should be able to respond. The board does not need to be involved in the operational level of where and when and how long.”

School Board President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán said that as she’s met with Latino community groups, the large majority — especially mothers — want to see police in schools provided they have training and understand the community and its culture.

“It’s important we all come to the table with an open mind, that we come from the heart as well as bring analytical and critical thinking skills to determine what the best route is with this divisive SRO issue,” she said.

This article has been updated throughout with quotes from school board members.

Jason Gonzales contributed to this article.

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

New Denver schools safety plan asks board to decide on police on campus

2023-05-26T21:41:08+00:00

The second draft of Denver Public Schools’ new safety plan doesn’t answer a key question — whether Denver schools will station armed police officers on campus next school year.

While the first draft suggested that school principals would have the authority to decide for themselves, the second draft released Friday kicks that question back to the school board, which still hasn’t voted on whether to permanently end a ban on school resource officers enacted in 2020.

Superintendent Alex Marrero now recommends the board decide for all comprehensive high schools and all 6-12 schools. The board is scheduled to discuss police in schools next week.

School principals would be able to decide whether to install metal detectors or other weapons detection systems after “extensive community engagement,” according to Marrero’s plan.

The plan reiterates that every student has the right under federal law to access a free and appropriate public education — a response to those in the community who said students with a history of concerning behavior should be required to attend alternative schools or online school. However, the plan also says the district is expanding hybrid and online options.

The plan does not recommend specific changes to the discipline matrix — another source of concern for some educators and parents who feel the district has gone too far in keeping certain students in school — but mentions that Denver Public Schools leadership will work with a team from Harvard and large urban school districts on effective discipline strategies.

The board directed Marrero to draft a long-term safety plan one day after a student shot two deans at Denver’s East High School in March. Marrero released a first draft of the plan on May 1. He has until June 30 to finalize it.

Whether police officers should be stationed on DPS campuses is among the most hotly debated aspects of the plan. The school board had removed officers — known as school resource officers, or SROs — from schools in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. But after the East High shooting, the board held a lengthy closed-door meeting and temporarily suspended its ban on police.

Thirteen Denver high school campuses now have SROs. But the temporary suspension is set to expire next month.

The topic was on the agenda at the board’s May 18 meeting. However, after voting to give Marrero a 10% raise, the board ran out of time to discuss the SRO policy.

Board President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán said Friday that the board is set to discuss the policy, known officially as executive limitation 10.10, at a work session Thursday. The board could vote later in June, Gaytán said. Currently, the policy says the superintendent shall “not staff district schools with school resource officers or the consistent presence of security armed with guns or any other law enforcement personnel.”

Opinions vary on whether schools should have SROs. In a survey conducted last month, 33% of DPS staff, 41% of students, and 48% of parents who responded said SROs would help. White parents were overrepresented among the respondents.

The draft plan says a majority of Denver school principals want to host school resource officers at their schools but also want the school board to make the decision, rather than make the decision themselves. In contrast, classroom teachers are less likely to support having school resource officers on campus but want the decision made at the school level.

Should the school board decide to keep police on campuses, the plan says the district would work closely with the department on selecting and training officers.

DPS held four telephone town hall meetings about the first draft of the safety plan. Marrero briefly discussed the feedback at the May 18 school board meeting.

He said more than 24,000 people attended the telephone meetings, and participants ranked SROs and weapons detection systems as the top two systemwide strategies in which the district should invest more resources. The other choices included unarmed and armed DPS security guards, communications, student discipline, and out-of-school programming.

A high-level summary of the townhall feedback included in the new safety plan shows a majority of participants did not feel the proposed strategies addressed student safety very well, not at a personal level, a school level, or a district level.

At 48 pages long, the first draft of the safety plan largely repeated things DPS already does or policies it already has in place. For instance, it talked about expecting schools to have the equivalent of one-full time mental health worker on staff and highlighted 20-minute daily lessons on social and emotional learning that happen in elementary schools.

The first draft also detailed DPS’s existing summer school programs, its commitment to culturally relevant curriculum, and its bullying prevention efforts.

The second draft is 62 pages and very similar to the first. The executive summary says in response to feedback, the district made an effort in the second version to better distinguish between programs that are already in place and those that are planned for future years.

The plan rejects the idea of requiring clear backpacks as unlikely to be effective and says that small class sizes — a top priority of the teachers union — do “not address all aspects of school safety.”

The draft plan doesn’t include any cost estimates yet but promises that the final version will.

Read the plan here.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Papá de Luis García: Si ese día hubiese habido policías en la East High, ‘quizás mi hijo estaría todavía con nosotros’

2023-05-24T23:48:52+00:00

Read in English.

El viernes la familia de Luis García regresó por primera vez a City Park Esplanade, la carretera asfaltada que pasa por el frente de la Secundaria East High de Denver y se adentra al parque, desde que el adolescente de 16 años murió por un balazo allí en febrero.

Ellos notaron la presencia de policías de Denver en la escuela, una medida de seguridad que no existía cuando Luis fue baleado mientras estaba sentado en su auto, estacionado en la calle City Park Esplanade. Los policías de Denver no regresaron a la secundaria East hasta un mes y medio después, cuando hubo otro tiroteo en el que un estudiante de la escuela disparó e hirió a dos adultos dentro de la escuela.

“Todos los adultos a cargo, que se supone deben hacer que la escuela sea segura, le fallaron a mi hermano”, dijo Jovana García, hermana de 20 años de Luis, en una conferencia de prensa el viernes con el abogado de la familia.

“Ningún tipo de seguridad o protección. Pero eso no es lo peor. Lo peor es que semanas después de morir mi hermano, hubo un incidente y dos adultos resultaron heridos. Heridos, no muertos. Y entonces quisieron cambiar. ¿La vida de Luis no era suficiente?”

La familia le notificó a las Escuelas Públicas de Denver que tiene previsto presentar una demanda por homicidio culposo contra el distrito, dijo el abogado Matthew Barringer. El aviso también nombra a la junta escolar, que votó en 2020 a favor de remover a los policías de las escuelas de Denver.

El asesinato de Luis, un talentoso futbolista cuyo padre lo describía como “la felicidad de nuestro hogar”, sigue sin resolverse y no han arrestado a nadie. La policía ha dicho que todo parece indicar que los disparos que alcanzaron a Luis procedían de otro auto.

El padre de Luis, Santos García, dijo que si la policía hubiera estado dentro de la secundaria East en febrero, con sus autos patrulla estacionados al frente, “creo que quizás mi hijo estaría hoy aquí con nosotros”

Cuando la familia preguntó por qué no había seguridad en la escuela, García dijo que la policía les había dicho que la junta escolar no quería que los oficiales detuvieran o multaran a los estudiantes por cosas como drogas.

“Ellos se ocupan de esos niños, pero ¿quién se ocupa de los nuestros?”, dijo García. “Los estudiantes que van a la escuela, que trabajan, que hacen deporte. Los buenos.

“¿Quién los cuida?”

Al remover a la policía de las escuelas, la junta dijo que su deseo era detener el flujo de estudiantes de la escuela a la cárcel, conocido en inglés como school-to-prison pipeline, porque es algo que afecta desproporcionadamente a los estudiantes de minorías raciales. En las escuelas de Denver, los estudiantes negros tenían más probabilidades que los blancos de ser multados y arrestados.

Luis Garcia, a la derecha, jugaba en el equipo de fútbol de East High.

Después del incidente en el que dos adultos fueron heridos de bala en marzo, la junta escolar suspendió temporalmente la medida de remover a los policías de la escuela. La secundaria East High y otras 12 escuelas tienen oficiales de recurso escolar hasta que termine este año escolar, y se espera que pronto la junta discuta si va a cancelar de manera permanente su decisión de eliminar los policías.

García dijo que a su familia le gustaría que se mantuviera la seguridad adicional.

“No queremos 100 ni 200 policías”, dijo, “pero queremos algún tipo de seguridad para que los estudiantes se sientan protegidos”. No queremos que tengan miedo. Solamente queremos que se sientan seguros”.

La rueda de prensa del viernes fue la última de una serie de eventos semanales organizados por Parents - Safety Advocacy Group, un grupo que se formó después del tiroteo de marzo. También fue la primera vez que muchos familiares de Luis hablaron públicamente de su muerte.

Varios familiares describieron el 13 de febrero, el día en que le dispararon a Luis. El padre de Luis recordó su última conversación con él esa mañana, en la que le dijo a su hijo que tuviera un día estupendo.

Omar Bobadilla, un primo de 17 años, recordó haber hablado con Luis 20 minutos antes de que le dispararan. Era el cumpleaños de Omar y estaban haciendo planes para salir más tarde.

Jovana, la hermana de Luis, recordó cómo el superintendente del DPS Alex Marrero, a quien calificó como “desconocido para nosotros”, fue al hospital y pidió ver a su hermano.

“Se sintió con derecho de preguntar, cuando ni siquiera a sus hermanos se les permitía verlo”, dijo. “Esa fue la última vez que yo personalmente lo vi dar la cara por mi hermano”

El hermano de Luis de 19 años, también llamado Santos García, dijo que nunca quiere que otra familia pase por lo mismo que la suya. “Te sientes perdido”, dijo. “Sientes un hueco. Yo solamente quiero un cambio en quién toma las decisiones y que la gente asuma su responsabilidad”.

Melanie Asmar es reportera senior de Chalkbeat Colorado y cubre temas sobre el Distrito de Escuelas Públicas de Denver. Para comunicarte con Melanie, escríbele a masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Father of Luis Garcia: If police had been at East High, ‘maybe my son would still be here with us’

2023-05-19T19:59:19+00:00

Leer en español.

The family of Luis Garcia returned Friday to the City Park Esplanade, a paved road that runs in front of Denver’s East High School and loops into the park, for the first time since the 16-year-old was fatally shot there in February.

They pointed out the presence of Denver police at the school — a security measure that was absent when Luis was shot while sitting in his car, parked on the Esplanade. Denver police officers didn’t return to East until a month and a half later, after another shooting in which an East student shot and injured two deans inside the school.

“All the adults in charge that are supposed to make school safe failed my brother,” Luis’ 20-year-old sister Jovana Garcia said at a press conference with the family’s attorney Friday.

“No type of security or protection. But that’s not the worst part. The worst part is that weeks after my brother passed, there was an incident where two other adults were injured. Injured, not dead. And then they wanted change. Was Luis’ life not enough?”

The family has given Denver Public Schools notice that it plans to file a wrongful death lawsuit against the district, said attorney Matthew Barringer. The notice also names the school board, which voted in 2020 to remove police officers from Denver schools.

Luis Garcia, right in the red and white jersey, played on the East High School soccer team.

The murder of Luis, a talented soccer player whose father described him as “the happiness of our home,” remains unsolved without an arrest. Police have said it appeared the gunshots that hit Luis were fired from another car.

Luis’ father, Santos Garcia, said that if police had been inside East in February, with their patrol cars parked out front, “I think maybe my son would still be here with us today.”

When the family asked why there was no security at the school, Garcia said the police told them that the school board didn’t want officers arresting students or ticketing for things like drugs.

“They are taking care of those kids, but who is taking care of our kids?” Garcia said. “The kids that go to school, that they work, that they actually do sports. The good kids.

“Who takes care of them?”

In removing police from schools, the board cited a desire to disrupt the so-called school-to-prison pipeline, which disproportionately affects students of color. Black students were more likely than white students to be ticketed and arrested in Denver schools.

After the two deans were shot in March, the school board temporarily suspended its ban on police. East High and 12 other campuses have school resource officers through the end of the school year, and the board is expected to discuss soon whether to permanently lift the ban.

Garcia said his family would like to see the extra security remain.

“We don’t want 100, 200 policemen,” he said, “but we want some type of security so the students feel safe. We don’t want them to fear. We just want them to feel safe.”

Friday’s press conference was the latest in a series of weekly events hosted by Parents - Safety Advocacy Group, a group that formed in the wake of the March shooting. It was also the first time that many of Luis’ family members spoke publicly about his death.

Omar Bobadilla, 17-year-old cousin of Luis Garcia, speaks to the media Friday.

Several family members described Feb. 13, the day Luis was shot. Luis’ father recalled his last conversation with him that morning, in which he told his son to have a wonderful day.

Cousin Omar Bobadilla, 17, remembered speaking with Luis 20 minutes before he was shot. It was Omar’s birthday, and they were making plans to hang out later.

Luis’ sister Jovana recalled how DPS Superintendent Alex Marrero, who she called “a stranger to us,” came to the hospital and asked to see her brother.

“The entitlement he had to even ask, when not even his siblings were allowed to see him,” she said. “That was the last time I personally saw him show up for my brother.”

Luis’ 19-year-old brother, also named Santos Garcia, said he never wants another family to experience what his family has. “You feel lost,” he said. “You feel a hole. And I just want a change in who makes the decisions and for people to take accountability.”

Correction: A previous version of this story listed the wrong age for Luis’ brother Santos.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Denver school board set to discuss ban on police in schools amid pushback on proposed rollback

2023-05-17T22:30:56+00:00

As the Denver school board prepares to discuss its policy banning police from schools, some students, educators, and advocacy groups are pushing back on a proposal to roll back the ban.

“There is no such thing as a good person with a gun, the same way there is no such thing as a good cop with a badge,” Veneno Quezada-Montoya, a sophomore at Denver’s North High School, told school board members at a public comment session Monday.

“Because behind that badge is centuries and centuries of oppression.”

On Thursday the board is set to discuss — and possibly revise — a policy that says the superintendent shall “not staff district schools with school resource officers or the consistent presence of security armed with guns or any other law enforcement personnel.”

The board adopted the policy, known officially as executive limitation 10.10, in 2021 after voting in 2020 to remove police known as school resource officers from schools.

The board temporarily suspended that policy in late March after a shooting inside East High School, which has sparked public outcry and a debate about Denver’s discipline policies.

Thirteen high school campuses have had police officers for the past month and a half. Those campuses will continue to have officers, known as SROs, until the last day of school on June 2.

Superintendent Alex Marrero has proposed that for next school year and beyond, each school would be able to decide whether or not to have a police officer on campus. But Marrero’s proposal would require the school board to reverse its ban.

Movimiento Poder, an advocacy group that campaigned for decades against police in schools, is pushing Denver Public Schools to keep the ban. In a report released Wednesday, Movimiento Poder, which was formerly called Padres & Jóvenes Unidos, called the ban “the most significant advance in racial equity within the city’s education system in decades.”

“The elimination of SROs has already been clearly and hugely beneficial to thousands of students and families,” the report says, “yet the superintendent’s proposal would send the district backwards, reviving the racism of its recent past in which school policing caused profound harm to students, families, and communities of color.”

Denver students were ticketed or arrested 4,929 times in the six school years from 2014 to 2020, according to the report, which attributes those statistics to the Colorado Department of Criminal Justice. The report says the vast majority — 87% — of those tickets and arrests affected students of color, who make up about 75% of all DPS students.

In the two full school years since SROs were removed from Denver schools, students have been ticketed or arrested just 175 times, which is a 90% reduction, the report says. One of those school years was partly remote due to the COVID pandemic.

When Chalkbeat asked Marrero about similar statistics back in January, he said he was proud of the reduction in the number of students involved with law enforcement. But just hours after the East shooting, in which a student shot and injured two deans, Marrero pledged to return police to schools, a move he acknowledged violated school board policy.

“I can no longer stand on the sidelines,” he wrote in a letter to school board members, who eventually endorsed the move by temporarily suspending the policy.

A survey of students, families, and staff conducted by DPS last month found that none of the three groups ranked SROs as the top solution to the problem of school violence. Only a third of DPS staff, 41% of students, and 48% of parents who responded to the survey said SROs would help. White parents were overrepresented among the respondents.

At Monday’s public comment session, several students and parents spoke against permanently reintroducing police in schools. Skye O’Toole, a student who serves on the superintendent’s student cabinet, urged the board to keep the ban.

“These policies are heavily reactionary and will do next to nothing to ensure we are truly safe in our hallways,” O’Toole said. “Every time I think about this issue I just can’t get over the fact that hiring school resource officers is effectively hiring staff with a license to kill our students.”

As part of her leadership role on the student cabinet, O’Toole said she’d spoken to hundreds of students across the district. “One of the most resounding strains I’ve heard is that we don’t want schools to be militarized,” O’Toole said. “We want to be students, not prisoners.”

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Denver Public Schools has lacked a safety chief for 6 months amid rising gun violence

2023-05-16T21:55:50+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to keep up with education news from Denver and around the state.

Denver Public Schools has lacked a safety chief for six months as the district grapples with rising youth gun violence and a shooting inside its largest high school.

The district attributed a delay in filling the position to several factors, including media coverage of the school board, whose infighting has been widely reported, and a desire to find a candidate who understands both safety and students’ social and emotional needs, according to a district document obtained by Chalkbeat.

The former chief of the DPS climate and safety department, Mike Eaton, left the district in November after more than a decade. The department has other vacancies as well. The interim safety chief, Robert Grossaint, is out on medical leave, according to a district spokesperson. And one of two deputy chiefs, Melissa Craven, left DPS last month.

The short staffing comes at a time when students, parents, and educators are particularly worried about school safety. Three shootings in and around East High School this school year have heightened those concerns, leading to student protests, the formation of a parent advocacy group, calls for the school board to resign, the reintroduction of school police officers, and the hastened development of a long-term safety plan for the entire district.

Two East High students died in shootings this year. Sixteen-year-old Luis Garcia was killed while sitting in his car outside the school in February, a crime that remains unsolved. And Austin Lyle, 17, took his own life in March after shooting and wounding two East High deans.

But Trena Marsal, the district’s chief of operations, said in an interview that despite the vacancies in the DPS safety department, Denver’s public schools are safe. Other staff members have been stepping in to fill the empty roles, she said.

“I want to make sure people understand that our buildings are safe,” Marsal said. “We have highly trained experts in the field of safety that are in place and continue to be in place.”

The district’s safety chief is responsible for setting a long-term vision for safety in DPS, overseeing investigations, leading the response to emergencies, coordinating with law enforcement, and other duties, according to the job listing.

Safety chief role is ‘a key player’

The vacancy came up at a school board meeting last month when Superintendent Alex Marrero was giving a brief update on the long-term safety plan the board directed him to develop in the wake of the March shooting at East.

Board member Michelle Quattlebaum said to Marrero: “A pressing question for me is centered around: You’re doing all of this work, and you’re missing a key player.”

Marrero promised to explain why it’s been difficult to hire a new safety chief, but he declined to do it publicly. “It’s best for you all to receive it in memo form,” he said to the board.

When Chalkbeat filed an open records request for that memo or any documents that explain the hiring difficulty, the district provided a two-page document that appears to have been last updated in late March.

It says the chief job was posted on Sept. 28, and 121 people had applied as of March 20. Twelve candidates were “brought forward,” the unsigned document says.

But five candidates withdrew and seven were eliminated after interviews. One candidate who made it to the second round of interviews backed out “after a student death in his current district” outside of Colorado, the document says.

“While we’ve interviewed numerous people for the role, we’ve had trouble finding a candidate that has both the safety and security chops in addition to a student-centric mindset — and in particular a person who understands the needs of communities and students of color,” the document says.

It notes that the district hasn’t had a shortage of candidates, but rather “a shortage of qualified candidates (based on both experience and mindset).”

About three-quarters of DPS students are students of color. The district’s approach to safety and discipline leans toward keeping students in school rather than suspending or expelling them — a philosophy that has come under scrutiny since the March shooting at East.

The document also says the salary DPS was offering “was initially a concern for many candidates,” but that a salary increase “has gotten us much closer.” The job posting currently lists the salary range as between $123,711 and $143,466.

Board turmoil is a concern for some candidates

Media coverage of the school board has also complicated the hiring process, the document says. The board has been plagued by infighting and power struggles for a year. Many media outlets have covered the turmoil, and newspaper editorials have decried the dysfunction.

“Some candidates researched the district, in particular the Board of Education, and declined to pursue the opportunity,” the document says. “In two specific cases, desired candidates withdrew applications due to the Board media coverage.”

Bill Good, a spokesperson for the board, said Tuesday that the board had no comment.

But at the meeting last month, Quattlebaum implored her fellow members to “focus on what’s important.” At that same meeting, President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán had tried to get the board to discuss accusations of policy violations she’d levied against Vice President Auon’tai Anderson. But the other board members refused.

“Our community expects us to lead, not to be wrapped up in a title that we all hold,” Quattlebaum said. “And leading is staying focused on the task at hand.”

Marsal said the search for a new chief continues, and that DPS has hired two search firms to help find candidates. She said the district hopes to announce a hire in the next several weeks.

“We want someone aligned with DPS’s core values around students,” Marsal said. “We want a balanced leader — a leader that understands the needs of emergency management and safety, but also understands the needs of our students.

“We are a district. We’re here to educate kids. We have to make sure we’re creating safe learning spaces that are cognizant of all students.”

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Dean Wayne Mason says there were ‘red flags’ before East High shooting

2023-05-09T23:11:53+00:00

The moment Austin Lyle pulled the trigger and shot Wayne Mason inside Denver’s East High School on March 22, Mason said he forgave him.

“The regret I have right now is that he’s not here for me to tell him that,” said Mason, who was a dean at East when 17-year-old Lyle shot him and another dean. Lyle later took his own life.

Mason told his story publicly for the first time Monday at a weekly press conference held by a group called Parents - Safety Advocacy Group that formed in the wake of the shooting. The other dean who was shot, Eric Sinclair, hasn’t spoken publicly.

Mason also revealed new details about Lyle, including that another East student had reportedly seen Lyle with a gun in class a few weeks before the March shooting, and told East High staff. But when staff members tried to search Lyle, he ran out of the school, Mason said.

“That is the biggest red flag there,” Mason said, “and then he was allowed back into the school.”

Lyle had a previous weapons charge, had been expelled from another school district, and was supposed to be searched every day by East staff because of his past behavior — a protocol that was in place before another student reportedly spotted him with a gun, Mason said.

But Mason said he and Sinclair didn’t search Lyle that day. The Denver police and school district officials have said the shooting happened while the deans were searching Lyle for weapons.

On March 22, Mason said he was in the front office when Lyle came into school and asked for a specific assistant principal. Mason said he called for the assistant principal on the radio, but there was a school assembly going on and the assistant principal didn’t answer.

Sinclair offered to take Lyle into the deans’ office, Room 129, Mason said. Sinclair then tried calling for the assistant principal and for security officers. But still no one answered, Mason said.

“Shortly after that, Eric was yelling in the radio, ‘Wayne, Wayne, help me, help me!’” Mason said.

“I ran back to 129, opened the door. Eric and Austin were wrestling. I grabbed Austin, and Eric said, ‘Gun, gun!’ Austin fired off some shots, I think two or three shots.”

Mason said he saw Sinclair go down. Mason grabbed Lyle’s arm, he said, and then Lyle “turned his wrist toward me and he fired two shots and he hit me. Austin broke away from me and he stood there, staring at Eric and I, still pointing the gun at us. And then he ran out of the room.”

Sinclair was bleeding badly, Mason said. He grabbed some towels and began putting pressure on Sinclair’s wound. It was only after paramedics who happened to be at the school for an unrelated medical issue arrived that Mason told them he’d been shot too.

“I just started praying and I was holding Eric’s hand,” said Mason, who was shot in the chest.

“I’m sad that my friend had to go through that. There should have been procedures put in place that he did not have to be alone with Austin. But he was.”

Denver Public Schools spokesperson Scott Pribble said on Monday that the press conference was the first time he’d heard a different version of events and could not comment on whether Lyle had been spotted with a gun on campus several weeks before the shooting or why he was allowed back at East after that.

On Tuesday, Pribble confirmed that another student reported seeing Lyle with a gun in school about two and a half weeks before the shooting. But Pribble said that when school staff searched Lyle, they found nothing. That’s when Lyle fled the school, Pribble said. A followup investigation also found nothing, Pribble said, which is why Lyle was allowed back.

Mason said, “If that’s the case, then we should have had armed safety patrol every morning that Austin came into the school because we knew his history. … They should have met Austin at the door with a show of force and saying, ‘Okay, we’re going to search.’”

“Maybe, just maybe, that would have stopped that behavior.”

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee governor sets special legislative session for Aug. 21 after Nashville school shooting

2023-05-08T22:45:00+00:00

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee announced Monday that he will call the legislature back Aug. 21 for a special session to address firearms and public safety concerns following a deadly school shooting in Nashville this spring.

“There is broad agreement that action is needed,” Lee said in a statement.

The goal, he said, is to “pursue thoughtful, practical measures that strengthen the safety of Tennesseans, preserve Second Amendment rights, prioritize due process protections, support law enforcement and address mental health.”

The governor also invited Tennesseans to provide input about the issues through an online form.

Lee’s announcement came just over two weeks after GOP lawmakers raced to complete their business early for the year while refusing to take up gun reform legislation from the Republican governor or their Democratic counterparts.

It was an anemic ending to a tumultuous session gripped by massive citizen protests after the shooting at The Covenant School left six victims and the gunman dead. The tragedy sparked calls for stricter gun laws and led to the ouster of two young Black lawmakers who took the protest to the House floor. Both men, Reps. Justin Jones of Nashville and Justin Pearson of Memphis, were quickly reinstated by local officials.

Meanwhile, gun violence continues to ravage communities across the nation, most recently in Texas where a gunman killed eight people and wounded seven others during a weekend shooting spree at a Dallas-area outlet mall.

In Tennessee this spring, lawmakers approved new policies and funding to further fortify school campuses, including at private schools like Nashville’s Covenant. Legislative discussions about limiting gun access mostly focused on people who are having a mental health crisis. Authorities said the Nashville shooter, who was later killed by police, was seeing a doctor for an “emotional order.”

Lee signed an executive order aimed at strengthening background checks on firearm purchases. He also proposed legislation that he said would help keep guns out of the hands of people deemed at risk of hurting themselves or others, his first embrace of a gun reform measure in one of the nation’s most gun-friendly states.

But his proposal hasn’t garnered much support from either side in the intense debate about gun access.

Joining forces with gun lobby groups, Republican leaders called Lee’s plan a “non-starter” and ended the session without taking up the measure. Groups advocating for gun control argued that Lee’s proposal — which allows three to five days before a court hearing would occur after law enforcement petitions for an order to seize firearms — doesn’t go far enough. That waiting period “could be the difference between life and death,” according to the group Everytown for Gun Safety.

Lee has avoided the phrase “red flag law” in describing his desire for new “order of protection” legislation.

“My proposal is not a red flag law,” he told reporters last week in Memphis. “It is unique to Tennessee (and) based on existing laws that we have in place.”

He continued: “We all believe that we should find a way to separate those who are of a dangerous mental condition who are a danger to themselves and others from having access to weapons. I have asked the General Assembly to look at multiple ways to do that. I’ve actually given a proposal to find a way forward to do that. We have to remember, too, that it is important that while we find a way to separate those that are a danger from weapons, we also have to protect the constitutional rights of every Tennessean. That is a balance that we have to find going forward.”

On Monday, Lee said he expects the General Assembly to bring forth its own ideas and pledged that discussions will take place throughout the summer before the session convenes.

Gov. Bill Lee delivers his 2023 state address to a joint session of the Tennessee General Assembly on Feb. 6.

But Doug Kufner, a spokesman for House Speaker Cameron Sexton, was cool about Sexton’s leadership in forging a workable solution.

“The speaker will continue his travel schedule throughout the state this summer and fall to assist members and meet with Tennesseans on a wide array of issues and policies,” Kufner said. “He is looking forward to those discussions as we all await Gov. Lee’s proposed legislative package for the announced special session.”

Democrats, by contrast, called the special session an opportunity to address the longstanding problem and growing threat of gun violence.

“The people demanding action have brought us to this moment,” said Sen. Raumesh Akbari of Memphis, “and now we need every Tennessean who cares about this issue to tell their elected leaders to show up in August and support legislation that truly addresses gun violence.”

Akbari, who is Senate minority leader, added: “Once we see the official call for the special session, we’ll know exactly what kind of legislation can be introduced. But we already know that broad majorities of voters, from all parts of the state and all political backgrounds, support common sense gun reforms, like extreme risk protection orders, waiting periods, and universal background checks.”

According to a recent Vanderbilt University poll, 82% of registered Tennessee voters support a so-called red flag law that would temporarily restrict access to guns for individuals who are at a high risk of harming themselves or others.

Two former governors, Republican Bill Haslam and Democrat Phil Bredesen, wrote recently that red flag laws are a good place to break through the impasse over gun reform.

And in an opinion piece published last week by Forbes, former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, a Republican who is also a physician, wrote that lawmakers should not only pass a red flag law, but consider raising the legal age for purchasing guns and banning high-capacity magazines and assault-style weapons.

Frist called firearm-related deaths “an official public health crisis.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Chalkbeat reporter Laura Testino contributed to this report from Memphis.

Denver teachers lack confidence in safety plan, want mental health support and smaller classes

2023-05-04T02:56:30+00:00

Reduce class sizes, hire more mental health workers, and make it clearer when schools can suspend or expel students.

Those are among the recommendations the Denver teachers union said it provided Wednesday to Denver Public Schools Superintendent Alex Marrero. The recommendations come two days after Marrero released a 48-page draft safety plan. The school board directed him to develop a long-term safety plan in the wake of a March shooting inside East High School.

The Denver Classroom Teachers Association surveyed its members about school safety, according to an email from the union. The findings include:

89% of respondents “expressed their lack of confidence in the district’s existing plan to address safety threats,” according to the union email.
72% of respondents said smaller class sizes and caseloads would make them “feel safe in schools.” In addition, 70% of respondents said more mental health support in schools would make them feel safe.
Only 42% of respondents said school resource officers — city police who are stationed inside schools — would make them feel safe. The school board voted in 2020 to remove police from schools but suspended that decision following the East shooting. For the past month, 13 high school campuses have had police officers.
Almost 50% of respondents “reported insufficient training on restorative practices and de-escalation techniques in schools,” the union email says. Restorative practices is a philosophy that focuses on repairing harm rather than punishing students.

School staff who responded to a separate safety survey from the district rated as most important improving discipline policies and practices, followed closely by better mental health support. Just a third ranked police in schools among their top three.

The union’s recommendations for the district’s long-term safety plan include:

Expanding mental health support for students in every school.

The draft safety plan Marrero released on Monday says DPS has more than 400 school social workers and psychologists for its 205 schools, exceeding the district’s minimum expectations of one full-time mental health worker per school.

But the union says that’s not enough. In response to the survey, many educators “stated that they believe the district provides less than half of the necessary support to address students’ mental health needs,” the union email says.

Reducing class sizes and caseloads.

Social workers, psychologists, counselors, speech pathologists, and other service providers who work for DPS have long expressed concerns that they have too many students on their caseloads.

Teachers feel the same about class sizes. “By reducing class sizes, educators can establish strong connections with students and foster a welcoming and supportive learning environment,” the union email says.

Reviewing the district’s discipline matrix.

The discipline matrix is a spreadsheet with rules for when schools can suspend or expel students. It was last revised in 2021 with an eye toward keeping more students in school.

DPS leaders have defended the matrix, even as some principals have spoken out about being unable to remove even students accused of violent crimes. The Denver principals union has also called for changes.

Providing staff with training on restorative practices and de-escalation techniques.

The union’s recommendations note that educators are “constantly being asked to be everything, everywhere, all at once without the time and resources to do so.”

Enforcing the part of the teachers union contract that deals with student discipline.

Article 18 of the contract says school principals should collaborate with teachers and parents on a school discipline plan, which should be reviewed annually.

But 70% of educators who responded to the union survey said they didn’t get any training about their school’s discipline plan. Only 5% said their school’s collaborative school committee, which includes teachers and parents, reviewed their plan for effectiveness.

Creating protocols for educators to address student safety needs.

The East High shooting happened when two deans were searching a student for weapons. The student, Austin Lyle, had a “safety plan” due to past behavior that required daily searches. Lyle later took his own life.

The union says educators want to play a bigger role in student behavior and support plans. About 45% said they are “rarely or never” involved in creating the plans, while more than 57% said they were unaware of the process altogether.

Allowing for school-based decisions on police.

Because opinions on police in schools vary, the union says it supports having each school decide whether they want an officer — which is what Marrero proposed.

But the union says DPS shouldn’t pay for it. The 14 officers currently stationed on 13 DPS campuses are being funded by the city. In the past, DPS split the cost.

The union also says police “should not ticket students for infractions that do not relate to physical safety within the school building.” Before police were removed in 2020, data showed Black students were ticketed and arrested at disproportionately high rates.

Marrero is expected to release a second draft of the safety plan by May 26 and a final version by June 23. The school board gave him a deadline of June 30.

“As the district moves forward with developing a safety plan, we will continue to gather feedback from members through various channels,” the union email says. “We ask the superintendent to take our recommendations seriously, and work collaboratively with us to achieve the shared vision of safe and supportive learning environments.”

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Each Denver school would make its own decisions about police under draft safety plan

2023-05-02T01:33:28+00:00

Denver middle and high schools would make the choice each year whether to have a police officer stationed on campus under a draft school safety plan released Monday.

School leaders would need to reevaluate the decision annually and be required to involve the school community. The 48-page school safety plan also emphasizes the district’s focus over the years on mental health, social support, and equity.

Denver Public Schools released the plan Monday afternoon. It summarizes many of the district’s practices in school safety while adding in recommendations. More details of recommended changes will be highlighted in a second draft, a district spokeswoman said.

The school board tasked Superintendent Alex Marrero with drafting a plan a day after a student shot two East High School deans in March.

The shooting happened while the deans were searching the student for weapons, a practice that happens daily in some district high schools. Linking to a slide presentation given to deans districtwide, the draft plan implies deans will continue to conduct student searches, though it says an unarmed campus safety officer or an armed DPS mobile patrol officer should be involved “when you are searching for a firearm or dangerous weapon.”

The plan also calls for the district to retrain all employees in emergency response procedures.

The student who shot the deans at East had previously been expelled from the neighboring Cherry Creek School District. The draft plan says that when a student transfers from another district, “the school team should be requesting prior school records as part of the enrollment process,” including “any prior safety protocols.”

The district also is in the process of reviewing the physical safety of entrances and the interior of buildings, the plan says.

Two other shootings have also occurred near Denver’s largest high school campus this year, including one that led to the death of a student. And schools across the district have also dealt with violence on campus or in the community.

Marrero drafted the plan after he said he consulted with experts. The district also surveyed about 7,700 students, staff, and parents about safety concerns. The top concerns across groups included students bringing weapons on campus and student-on-student violence.

Next, but ranked at varying levels of priority, were the mental and emotional well-being of students, outsiders entering school buildings, and community violence.

Each group ranked potential solutions to school safety differently. More than half of students said more mental health support was important to school safety, followed by discipline policies and police in schools.

School staff also rated mental health support very highly, but put discipline policies first. Just a third ranked police in schools among their top three. Almost half of parents ranked police officers first, followed closely by discipline policies and student mental health.

As with most Denver Public Schools surveys, white parents were overrepresented, and families of color were underrepresented. Survey results were weighted to account for this.

According to his plan, Marrero will seek community feedback on the first draft. In an email to parents, Marrero encouraged them to talk to their school principal or email him directly with feedback. Two town halls are scheduled for later this month and the district will also gather feedback through a survey. His administration will then release a second version by May 26 that will also be available for community feedback.

Marrero will release a final version on June 23 that will be reviewed by the school board.

The school board tasked Marrero with coming up with a plan after a five-hour closed-door meeting. At that same meeting, the board suspended its 2020 policy that phased out police officers in schools.

Parents call for more transparency

When students returned from spring break, the district added a school resource officer at 13 campuses, with East High School getting two officers.

DPS previously removed police from schools and made other changes to its discipline policies because Black and brown students were more likely to be arrested, ticketed, suspended, and expelled than their white peers.

More recently, Denver principals and parents have criticized the district for allowing students accused of serious crimes to remain in the classroom. District officials have defended their approach.

Parents also have called for the school board and Marrero to be more transparent about safety decisions and communicate more with parents. Some parents also have called for the entire board to resign.

East High School parents have held weekly meetings calling for an end to the violence and for the district to do more. They’ve called on the board to work with families to make the district safer.

During Monday’s meeting of the East High School parents safety group, parent Steve Katsaros said he wants to see Denver schools commit to transparency and engagement of community and families. The plan was released during the group’s weekly meeting and he said he wasn’t able to review the plan.

But he said parents want transparency. He said he wants the district to detail whether the emailed survey reached parents as intended and how many families opened the email.

Short-term, he said he does not have confidence in the district or board. The city and community, however, will get this right in the long term, he said.

“Right now we are dealing with the same people that put us in this position,” Katsaros said. “We need to move fast so we have to work with the folks that we have, and we will see where we get.”

Report highlights existing plans, partnerships

Much of the plan is a recitation of things the district already does or policies it already has in place.

Examples include expecting schools to have the equivalent of one full-time mental health worker on staff, screening all students for emotional and behavioral concerns, and doing more in-depth reviews when a student is flagged for potentially hurting themselves or others. It highlights 20-minute daily lessons on social and emotional learning that happen in elementary schools.

The draft plan also talks about DPS’s existing summer school programs, its commitment to a curriculum that teaches Black, Indigenous, and Hispanic history, and its bullying prevention efforts.

It also includes a chart that shows the types of safety personnel in schools, including armed city police officers at some high schools, an armed DPS patrol unit that’s mobile and responds to calls that don’t require police, and unarmed security guards stationed inside schools.

Parents and others have questioned why students who are being searched daily for weapons are allowed to attend in-person school. The draft plan says, “as a district we strongly believe in-person learning is the best option for students because it allows us to support students developing resiliency, visions for their futures, and the skills needed to achieve their dreams,” which it calls “key components of youth violence prevention efforts.”

But the plan also says DPS is planning to expand its online school “based on an increase in demand.” The district’s online school, Denver Online, serves grades six through 12.

The report also highlights plans the school district has been working on with the city, including developing a pipeline of culturally responsive providers who can fill vacancies for school psychologists, social workers, and other mental health providers. The district would do that by recruiting current students to become entry-level restorative practices coordinators, recruiting paraprofessionals to become deans of culture, and recruiting deans to become psychologists and social workers.

Participants in the program would get tuition stipends and “access to educational opportunities” that would allow them to earn the proper certifications to move up while working full-time.

The district has done a version of this program that recruits paraprofessionals to become classroom teachers.

The district also is working with the city on “dissolving outdated policies that inadvertently perpetuate youth violence,” the draft plan says. That includes reviewing all of its policies related to youth violence prevention to make sure they’re working as intended — and to discontinue policies that are not.

The plan proposes developing more alternatives to citation and connecting students who commit offenses with supportive services more quickly.

The district also says it hopes to work with the city to develop a “central database powered by the latest technology” that will allow information sharing between schools, city agencies, and nonprofit organizations. The goal, the draft plan says, is “to support youth and ensure follow-up on referrals so no youth is left without the vital services they need.”

Read the full plan and see opportunities to provide feedback.

Jason Gonzales is a reporter covering higher education and the Colorado legislature. Chalkbeat Colorado partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage. Contact Jason at jgonzales@chalkbeat.org.

Release recording of closed-door Denver school board meeting, lawsuit demands

2023-04-28T23:59:10+00:00

Chalkbeat and six other media organizations are suing Denver Public Schools for the recording of a five-hour closed meeting board members held the day after a student shot two administrators at East High School.

When school board members emerged from the meeting, they voted unanimously to return police officers to Denver high schools — a major policy change — with no public discussion.

Colorado’s open meetings law declares that the “formation of public policy is public business and may not be conducted in secret.”

Colorado law requires public bodies to meet in the open, except under particular circumstances, such as discussing a student or employee or to receive legal advice. Before entering a closed meeting, elected officials have to announce the topics they’ll be discussing “in as much detail as possible without compromising the purpose for which the executive session is authorized,” along with the legal basis for entering a private meeting.

The complaint filed Friday alleges that the Denver school board’s March 23 meeting was not properly noticed. That could render the closed meeting unlawful.

The law also requires that policy decisions happen in public. The lawsuit alleges that the Denver school board made a policy decision behind closed doors that was merely rubber-stamped with a public vote.

“No public discussion, whatsoever, preceded the Board’s historic about-face concerning its policy of preventing armed ‘School Resource Officers’ inside the District’s high schools,” the lawsuit reads. “None.”

The March 23 board agenda said the purpose of the closed meeting was to discuss “matters required to be kept confidential by federal or state law or rules and regulations as a result of the incident that occurred on March 22,” security arrangements and investigations, and sensitive matters pertaining to individual students.

When board members emerged from the closed meeting, President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán entered a memorandum into the record that suspended a previous board policy removing police from schools, called for police to be stationed at all district high schools, and directed Superintendent Alex Marrero to come up with a long-term safety plan by June 30.

The executive session notice made no mention that official safety policies would be discussed or that new safety policies would be proposed. Nor did the notice mention discussion of a potential executive order from Mayor Michael Hancock placing police in schools. Board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson said several days after the closed meeting that the possibility of an executive order influenced the board decision.

“You need to inform the public what you are going behind closed doors to discuss,” said attorney Steve Zansberg, who is representing the media organizations with attorney Rachael Johnson of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. “And even if it had been a properly convened executive session, they are not allowed to make a decision behind closed doors.”

Zanzberg said it was a clear-cut violation of the open meetings law.

“They adopted a policy without any public discussion. So clearly they discussed it and reached that decision and drafted that memo behind closed doors,” he said.

In addition to Chalkbeat, the plaintiffs are The Denver Post, Colorado Newsline, KDVR Fox 31, KUSA 9News, Colorado Politics, and The Denver Gazette. Each of the media organizations filed requests for the recording or for minutes of the meeting after the closed-door session. In each case, Denver Public Schools custodian of records Stacy Wheeler responded that the district has responsive records but would not release them because they are not subject to disclosure under the open meetings law.

The lawsuit asks a Denver district court judge to release the entire recording on grounds that the meeting was not properly noticed and was not a lawful closed meeting. If the judge won’t release the entire recording, the lawsuit asks that the judge listen to the recording and release a redacted version if the judge feels that certain portions should remain private.

A bill under consideration in the legislature would make it harder for the public to challenge closed meetings that are not properly announced to the public. The bill would allow elected officials to fix the way they announced the meeting after the fact and avoid a lawsuit.

Under current law, not properly announcing an executive session can render a closed meeting unlawful. Members of the public can seek the release of recordings of those meetings.

Jeff Roberts of Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition said the Denver case gets to the heart of why Colorado voters adopted the open meetings law in the first place. The law states that matters of public interest and public policy should be discussed in public, and there is significant public interest in how the board makes decisions about whether to have armed police in schools, he said.

Members of the public, in particular some parents at East High School, also have criticized the board’s use of executive sessions.

The school board responded to criticism of its closed meeting with an unsigned statement posted to the district website. “Due to the nature of an executive session we cannot disclose what was discussed,” the statement says. “However, the Board of Education is confident that it has conducted all meetings in accordance with applicable laws.”

But at an April 20 board meeting — after the board had learned of the media organizations’ intent to sue — some members balked at going into executive session, citing public criticism of past sessions.

“We’ve received a lot of feedback from the public and community members about meeting in public and staying in public unless there’s an absolute reason,” board member Scott Baldermann said. “And I think I am going to honor that.”

The agenda listed two items for private discussion: security arrangements at McAuliffe International School, where the principal has been critical of district leadership and announced plans to have parents help with security, and the superintendent’s contract.

Anderson said he believes the board has used closed session meetings appropriately, and public perception was stopping the board from discussing important issues.

“I am very concerned that if we have something about safety that we’re not willing to go into executive session for, what other matters will we start saying we cannot go into executive session for,” Anderson said at the meeting.

The board ultimately voted 4-3 not to enter executive session for either item.

“It’s not a bad thing for them to examine their use of closed-door meetings and whether they are doing more of that than they need to,” Roberts said.

Chalkbeat reporter Jason Gonzales contributed reporting.

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Amid mental health concerns, new bill would allow NY students to opt out of lockdown drills

2023-04-26T18:50:46+00:00

New York lawmakers will seek to change the state’s school lockdown drill laws, as some parents argue the drills harm student mental health without clearly proven safety benefits.

Under state law, public schools must conduct lockdown drills at least four times each year. The new bill would drop the requirement to one, among other changes.

Though high-profile school shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Nashville, Tennessee, have raised further alarm among parents, educators, and school communities, some parents worry about the damaging effect that repeatedly forcing students and teachers to simulate an active shooter scenario could have on their child.

Two dads with children at a Manhattan elementary school spent the past year and a half pushing to reduce the number of drills and for more guardrails in how they are conducted and communicated with families.

In late 2021, Marco Pupo, a Manhattan parent, was shocked to hear his then-5-year-old son say his class had to lock their windows and hide because “there was a bad guy trying to get us.”

“Kids at that age, they don’t know how to differentiate between what’s real and what’s not,” he said, adding other parents said their kids came home scared or asking what to do if bullets came through the window. “I don’t think there’s any research that needs to be done to say that this is traumatizing for kids.”

Pupo and Robert Murtfeld, another parent at the school, have since advocated for changing the state law.

A new bill introduced by state Senator Andrew Gounardes and Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon, both of Brooklyn, on Wednesday would do just that.

If passed, their bill would require officials use a “trauma-informed approach” in the creation of lockdown drills — including lowering the required number of annual drills to just one, notifying parents at least a week in advance, and allowing them to opt their children out of the drill. It would also offer accommodations to students with medical conditions, and require schools provide students with “an age-appropriate explanation” of the situation.

For young students, that might mean using codewords during drills — like announcing that a raccoon had entered the building and students needed to remain in their classrooms.

“These drills are incredibly traumatizing for students,” Gounardes said of the current system. “They don’t actually help keep students safe, or make them feel safe, which are both incredibly important.”

The bill would also aim to establish comprehensive training for schools and educators leading the drills, after Chalkbeat last year found teachers across New York City received little to no training before conducting them.

Without a standardized method, lockdown drills can vary in length and content from school to school, or even classroom to classroom. They might, for example, involve teachers locking the door, covering any windows to the hallway, shutting off the lights, and telling students to sit quietly in a corner.

Research inconclusive on lockdown drill benefits

The research on whether the drills help protect students in an active shooter scenario remains inconclusive. But the past five years have seen more than 150 school shootings that resulted in injury or death across the country, spurring cities and states to engage in precautionary measures.

Lockdown drills took place in 95% of American public schools as of 2016, with at least 40 states requiring them, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit that advocates against gun violence. But the organization advises against conducting them, citing the “collateral consequences to school communities’ mental health and wellbeing.”

New York State is among just a few states that mandate four or more lockdown drills per year — meaning students at its public schools may experience twice as many or more drills than students in other states, according to an analysis from the Trace.

“If you enter the school system as a 3-year-old, and you exit as an 18-year-old, you will have done 60 lockdown drills,” Murtfeld said. “This is not about making anyone less safe — this is about being smart about what is the best mediated solution.”

Instead of drills involving students, Everytown suggests schools use threat assessment programs, provide access to mental health professionals and social support, implement non-punitive disciplinary processes, and conduct emergency planning for teachers not involving students. Gounardes said the bill wouldn’t shut the door on the latter of these suggestions.

“Our bill doesn’t mandate or require that it has to be a student drill, or it has to be a live drill, or it has to be a simulated drill,” he said. “It very well could be that the collective wisdom of all of the relevant stakeholders is that the best way to do this is to have teacher-only drills… We’re not here prescribing that solution, we’re just saying that the [current] mandate is ineffective.”

Gounardes said he was optimistic about the bill finding support in Albany, adding it has backing from organizations like Moms Demand Action and New Yorkers Against Gun Violence.

National landscape divided on drills

Some states have also looked to change their approach, with lawmakers in Maine considering an opt-out policy for parents and legislators in Illinois passing a similar law in 2021. Others have taken a different approach. In Texas, lawmakers have proposed investing more heavily in armed campus security, including a $25,000 stipend that would be offered to school employees willing to get trained to carry guns.

Murtfeld and Pupo said they understood the fears over gun violence and why the New York lockdown law was initially put in place, but added it was “not the solution.”

“It’s a math we unfortunately have to do between something happening in schools and the risk of creating a culture of fear that is being infused in our kids and traumatizing them,” Pupo said. “We wish we were not in the position where we had to make those decisions, but right now, with the knowledge that we have, this is what we think is the right thing to do.”

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee legislature dismisses gun bills in rush to adjourn, defying protests after school shooting

2023-04-21T00:12:59+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Sign up for our free Tennessee newsletter to keep up with the Shelby County public school system and state education policy.

Tennessee’s legislature raced Thursday to complete its business early for the year while refusing to take up gun reform legislation from Republican Gov. Bill Lee or Democratic lawmakers, three weeks after a mass shooting at a Nashville school.

The inaction on guns came despite weeks of daily peaceful protests by thousands of students, parents, and gun control advocates calling for new laws to restrict gun access.

From the Senate floor, Majority Leader Jack Johnson announced the legislature was on track to wrap up this year’s session by Friday after his chamber approved the state’s $56.2 billion budget for next year — the only measure it’s constitutionally required to pass. The House approved the spending plan a day earlier.

Several recent surveys of Tennessee parents and voters show strong support for gun safety measures such as background checks and so-called red flag laws to prevent people who may be experiencing a mental health crisis from having access to weapons. Authorities have said the Nashville shooter, who was shot and killed by police, had been under a doctor’s care for an undisclosed “emotional disorder” before killing six people at The Covenant School on March 27.

But with prospects for gun reform dimming this year, Tennesseans who have been raising their voices were aghast Thursday at the Republican supermajority’s unwillingness to look seriously at their concerns about lax gun laws.

“They are shrugging their shoulders at us and ending their session quickly. But we are not going to stop,” said Nashville mom Leeann Hewlett, who was among the first demonstrators to show up outside of a legislative office building on the day after the shooting.

“We are not going to forget the children and adults who died at The Covenant School. We’re not going to forget that guns are the leading cause of death for kids in Tennessee,” said Hewlett, who has an 8-year-old daughter.

Leeann Hewlett, a Nashville mom, speaks at a rally organized by Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America on March 28, 2023, the day after a shooter killed six people at a Nashville school.

Lee, whose wife was a close friend of one adult victim in the Nashville shooting, offered up his own proposal Wednesday after lawmakers ignored his call last week to bring him legislation that would help keep guns out of the hands of people deemed at risk of hurting themselves or others. Nineteen states have such a policy.

Meanwhile, the National Rifle Association mobilized its Tennessee members this week against any legislation that resembles a red flag law. And the House Republican caucus released a statement labeling any such proposal a “non-starter.”

In a last-ditch effort on Thursday, Sen. Jeff Yarbro delivered an impassioned speech on the Senate floor asking his colleagues to take up gun reform legislation stuck in a key committee that voted to defer action on any gun-related bills until next year.

Yarbro said his legislation is based on Florida’s red flag law, which passed with bipartisan support after a shooter killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland in 2018. The Nashville Democrat is also the sponsor of a so-called safe storage bill to require people to secure weapons left in vehicles and boats so they don’t fall into the hands of criminals.

“How do we not feel shame for failing to do anything?” asked Yarbro, noting that Nashville also has suffered mass shootings at a church and a Waffle House restaurant in recent years.

“We have the substance, we have the process, we have the time. The only question is whether we have the will,” said Yarbro, pleading for at least 17 of the Senate’s 33 members to support his request to call up his bill.

The Senate responded by voting 24-7 to table his motion, mostly along partisan lines.

Afterward, Yarbro tweeted that adjourning the session without voting on a single bill to limit gun access means the legislature is betting voters will “move on” to other issues when it reconvenes next January.

“Prove them wrong,” he said.

The developments came as the legislature has been under national scrutiny over the House’s expulsion of two young Black lawmakers, who have since been reinstated, over their demonstration on the House floor to highlight their body’s inaction on gun violence.

Still, lawmakers sent a bill to the governor this week to shield Tennessee gun and ammunition manufacturers and sellers from lawsuits. That measure had been in the works before the shooting.

Thursday also marked the 24th anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colorado, in which two students shot and killed 12 classmates and one teacher before taking their own lives.

From the Columbine shooting in Colorado to the Covenant shooting in Nashville, 175 people have died in 15 mass shootings connected to U.S. schools and colleges, according to a database compiled by The Associated Press, USA Today, and Northeastern University. (The database defines a mass shooting as resulting in the death of four or more people.)

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Many Denver voters have unfavorable view of school board, survey finds

2023-04-20T12:30:00+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Sign up for our free Colorado newsletter to keep up with education news from Denver and around the state.

A new poll commissioned by a group of Denver business leaders finds many voters hold unfavorable views of the Denver school board and nearly 63% believe board members care more about their own political ambitions than about improving educational outcomes for children.

The survey by the Republican firm Cygnal and the Democratic firm Chism Strategies was conducted on April 11 and 12 among 410 likely voters in municipal and off-year elections and has a margin of error of 4.83%.

Mayor and City Council runoff elections are scheduled for June 6, while the school board election isn’t until November.

The group A Denver for Us All commissioned the poll, which also asked respondents about the mayor’s race and issues facing city government. The poll found a close race between Mike Johnston and Kelly Brough, with a slight lead for Johnston and many voters still undecided.

The poll found voters evenly divided between those who feel the city is going in the right direction and those who feel it’s going in the wrong direction.

But when it comes to the Denver school board, nearly 60% of voters had an unfavorable view and just 21% had a favorable view. College-educated respondents, women, and Republicans all were more likely to report unfavorable views of the board. Two-thirds of parents in the poll reported an unfavorable view, compared with 57% of non-parents.

Likely voters in off-year elections are more likely to be white and to have higher earnings than average Denver Public Schools parents. Seventy-three percent of poll respondents were white, while 75% of Denver students are not. This mismatch is common in school board elections.

Across questions, women over 50 years old were among the most concerned with safety and how Denver Public Schools is run, and men under 50 were more likely to report positive views.

The overall findings paint a discouraging picture for school board incumbents seeking re-election in November, but seven months out, it’s not clear what the field will look like or how voter concerns might shift.

Three seats on the seven-member board are open. Of those, only Vice President Auon’tai Anderson has declared his intention to seek re-election to the at-large seat. Asked whether they would re-elect Anderson or whether it’s “time for someone new,” more than half opted for someone new, and just 9% said they planned to vote for Anderson. More than a third of respondents were undecided.

The Denver school board has not yet finalized new district maps that will determine the boundaries of Districts 1 and 5, the other open seats. Kwame Spearman, a former mayoral candidate and recent CEO of the Tattered Cover bookstore, has said he’s considering a run for school board.

The seven-person Denver school board is made up entirely of members who were backed by the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, the teachers union, but the last two years have been marked by infighting and personality conflicts, in particular between Anderson and board President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán.

The school board has grappled with school closure recommendations and budget challenges related to declining enrollment, as well as how to respond to rising community violence.

On March 22, a student whose history required him to undergo daily patdowns shot and wounded two administrators at East High School. The 17-year-old died by suicide later that day. The next day after a lengthy closed session, the Denver school board reversed a 2020 policy and approved stationing armed police officers in Denver high schools.

The Denver district has a low expulsion rate and emphasizes keeping students in school, even when those students have been accused of serious crimes. Principals have said district administrators reject their requests to remove students from the classroom and called for the discipline matrix to be revised, but so far the board and superintendent have defended their policies.

Some parents have called for the entire Denver school board to resign.

The poll tested public opinion on many of these issues, with questions that prompted respondents to see the Denver school board as responsible for recent violence.

“Following the failure of Denver Public Schools (DPS) to prevent the East High tragedy, some have been calling for the entire school board to resign. Would you support the resignations of all the school board members?” the poll asked.

Nearly 39% of respondents said yes, while a third said no, and 28% were undecided or chose neither option. Respondents earning more than $100,000 a year were more likely to support resignation than did those earning less. Men under 50 were the most likely to oppose resignation.

The poll found nearly three-quarters of respondents supported returning police to schools in light of the shooting at East and opposed allowing what the survey described as “students previously known to be troubled and potentially dangerous to others” to return to school.

The poll did not ask respondents about measures like adding more social workers and mental health support or installing metal detectors.

On the open-ended question of what grade respondents would give Denver Public Schools for keeping students safe, 27% of all respondents — and more than a third of parents — gave the district an F, while just 14% gave it an A or a B.

Find complete poll results here.

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Protesters call for Denver board to resign, Marrero promises public input on safety plan

2023-04-18T04:11:31+00:00

Amid calls for more transparency and accountability, Denver Superintendent Alex Marrero promised that educators, students, and community members will have the chance to weigh in on two draft versions of a new safety plan before a final version is released on June 26.

Marrero detailed the timeline for the plan during a Monday board meeting — the same night a few dozen protesters outside called for board members to resign for failing to keep students safe. They cited the recent East High shootings and other incidents of violence.

Many of the parents wore maroon shirts that read “DPS Board Resign!”

“We need a fresh start,” Becky Nemec, a parent of two Denver school children, told the board. “But while we wait to have the opportunity to vote you out of office, I beg you to listen to the concerned students and parents.”

Other parents and students also called for the board and Marrero to work collaboratively, urgently, and transparently to fix safety issues.

Megan Zeiger, a Denver parent, said parents want the school district to work better with families and are ready to help.

She said parents have been concerned for a long time, “but with the recent events of East High School, we no longer feel we can rely on other people to figure out how to solve this problem.”

Each call for the board to resign was met with audience applause.

The board tasked Marrero with coming up with a way to improve safety a day after the March 22 East High shooting that injured two administrators. Since the board lifted its ban on police officers in schools, the district has posted 14 officers at 13 schools, including two at East High.

Parents asked the board why it didn’t act after the killing of student Luis Garcia outside the East High in February. Others said the district’s policies have kept too many students with violent histories in schools that aren’t equipped to help them.

For instance, some parents pointed to a recent incident at McAuliffe Middle School where the district allowed a student who had been charged with attempted murder to stay in school over the objections of the principal.

At a press conference earlier Monday held by Parents-Safety Advisory Group, Nemec told reporters she was startled to learn that her children are attending McAuliffe with a student who had been accused of a serious violent crime.

She said her son describes students cussing out teachers and vaping throughout the school day without consequences because teachers don’t feel they have the tools to discipline them.

“We’ve really handcuffed our teachers and our principals from being able to address those problems in school,” she said. “And it becomes kind of a culture, and then all of a sudden, it kind of breeds itself.”

Marrero said he will draft a safety plan by May 1 with input from safety and security experts, students and community members.

Marrero last week had seemed to downplay the importance of community input, telling board members that “there’s been a request for a community-led process. And I want to say this very carefully and respectfully: “This is where we need the experts, first and foremost.”

On Monday, he said there would be community input throughout the process but wanted experts to weigh in on current and future issues the district could face. He said he would consider including more student representation after board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson questioned whether one student could represent the entire district of 87,000 students.

Board members also wanted to ensure the district hears from Black and Latino communities most affected by gun violence.

The district will hold virtual and phone-in town hall meetings to gather input on Marrero’s draft. He plans to release a second version by May 26 and a final version a month later.

The board and Marrero have come under increased scrutiny for their actions.

Some parents have said the district isn’t acting transparently and communicating well with families. Some people objected to the board retreating to a five-hour closed session when it decided to add school resource officers back to school.

Axios reported that Denver City Council members were frustrated that Marrero skipped a meeting Monday with council members to discuss cooperation between the district and the city. Instead, he sent staff members.

Many parents said Monday they’re fed up.

East parent Dorian Warren said the board has focused more on its own spats than on keeping students safe. She said the board needs “some adults in the room,” who can focus on creating policies that benefit students. She said the board has failed.

Bruce Randolph School student Angela Hurtado, 16, said she’s felt scared too many times at school and her family has worried too much. Parents shouldn’t have to bury their children, she said.

“The only time parents should cry is at their graduation, and not at their funeral,” Hurtado said.

Expulsions are low in Denver, and that’s how it should be, district officials say

2023-04-14T23:24:10+00:00

Over the past decade, Denver Public Schools’ approach to discipline has swung decidedly toward keeping students in school rather than kicking them out.

Safety begins with positive relationships between staff and students and a positive school climate, the district’s discipline policy says. Bringing a gun to school is the only offense that automatically results in an expulsion hearing for a student. Even students facing serious criminal charges can stay in school as long as they are not behind bars.

Last month’s shooting of two East High School deans by a student who was being searched for weapons has placed renewed scrutiny on discipline in Colorado’s largest school district.

But so far, Denver Public Schools has held firm to its approach.

“We are a welcoming environment,” DPS Deputy Chief of Staff Deborah Staten said in an interview this week. “We really want students to be in their school environment.”

The debate now playing out in Denver — with some saying the pendulum has swung too far toward tolerance and others fearful of a return to policies that harm marginalized students — illustrates the difficulty of striking the right balance on discipline amidst rising gun violence.

“There’s just no discipline, there’s no accountability, there’s no structure,” said Heather Weldon, whose daughter is an eighth grader at McAuliffe International School, where the principal spoke out about DPS denying his request to expel a student charged with attempted murder.

“Right now, there’s no consequences, it feels like,” Weldon said.

She and other parents say there has to be a better way — some middle ground between anything-goes and zero-tolerance. The Denver principals union has called for changes too, including revisions to the district’s discipline guide and a new process for deciding on appropriate school placements for students who might harm others.

But advocates who have worked for years to keep young people out of the criminal justice system worry that the shooting at East — a high-profile school where the city’s power brokers send their children — will tip the scales back toward punitive punishment that disproportionately affects Black and Latino students.

A day after the shooting, the school board lifted its policy banning armed police on campus.

“It terrifies me,” said Elie Zwiebel, a Denver attorney who represents kids in school expulsion hearings and juvenile court — kids who he said in past decades might have been unfairly painted as violent and hardened criminals. “The ultimate problem is that everyone is buying into the myth again and forgetting that we’re talking about children.”

Denver approach to discipline keeps kids in school

On March 22, East High student Austin Lyle shot two deans who were searching him as part of a safety plan that was in place due to his past behavior. The deans survived. Lyle, who was 17, later died by suicide. He was on probation for a weapons charge, according to media reports, and had been expelled from the suburban Cherry Creek School District.

But expulsions aren’t forever. By the time Lyle transferred to East mid-year, his Cherry Creek expulsion had expired. He was living in the East boundary and that’s why he enrolled there, Staten said.

That a student with a weapons charge, who was being searched daily by school staff for guns, was able to enroll in and remain at a traditional public high school has put heightened focus on DPS’s discipline matrix. The matrix is a guide for school staff about when they should or should not call the police and when they can suspend or expel a student.

The matrix was last amended in the fall of 2021. At that time, DPS added bright red letters at the top. “You make a difference in breaking historical patterns of inequity,” it says. “Disrupt bias, fight disproportionality, and apply the discipline matrix in an anti-racist and trauma-informed manner.”

Under the matrix, the only offense that automatically results in an expulsion hearing is bringing a gun to school. Everything else, including sexual assault and selling drugs, is up to district administrators.

The number of expulsions in Denver has fallen over the past decade. In the 2011-12 school year, Denver expelled 63 students, according to state data. In 2021-22, it expelled just 21.

Compare that to Cherry Creek, a smaller district that suspended 142 students last school year.

The language and tone in the two districts’ policies could not read more differently.

Denver: “School safety and academic success are formed and strengthened when all school staff and personnel build positive relationships with students and are actively engaged in their lives and learning. … Effective discipline is built on consistent and effective classroom management, and is supported by a positive school climate.”

Cherry Creek: “The administration has the right to expect full cooperation of employees in the planning and execution of discipline and control procedures including support for removing students who persistently or flagrantly misbehave.”

Cherry Creek officials declined an interview request for this story.

Denver and Cherry Creek differ on expulsion

The districts’ differing philosophies were clear at a legislative hearing at the state Capitol on March 2, just three weeks before the East shooting. Both districts testified on a bill that would have given students more rights in expulsion hearings and made it harder to expel students for nonviolent offenses or for behavior that occurred off school property.

Denver was the only district to testify in favor. Denver Public Schools attorney Elise Logemann said during testimony that the district already does much of what the bill would have mandated, including requiring there be a “direct and substantial nexus between the student’s alleged conduct committed off school grounds and the risk of physical harm to other students or school personnel.”

Denver students and current and former staff members testified in favor too.

“Many people thought I was a bad kid and that I was a bully, but my anger was actually sadness,” said Lorenzo Gomez, a 16-year-old student at AUL Denver who told lawmakers he frequently got into fights before going to AUL, a small charter school for students who’ve struggled elsewhere.

“All kids deserve a second chance and a supportive place to go to school,” he said.

Cherry Creek joined the Harrison and Fountain-Fort Carson districts in Colorado Springs, along with the Colorado Association of School Executives, the Colorado Association of School Boards, and the Colorado Rural Schools Alliance, in opposing the bill.

Cherry Creek doesn’t require a connection to school to expel a student for off-campus behavior. Sonja McKenzie, an attorney for the district, said requiring one would prevent Cherry Creek from expelling potentially dangerous students.

She gave an example she said happened this year: A Cherry Creek student shot another teenager in a park. The victim attended a neighboring school district. Under the bill, she said, there would have been no grounds to expel the shooter because the victim didn’t go to Cherry Creek.

“But you tell me, would you want your child attending that school with that child who had a gun — and maybe had that gun on school grounds and we just didn’t know it?” McKenzie said.

More people testified in support of the bill than against it. But after the East shooting, state lawmakers killed the bill and introduced a scaled-back version instead.

Students have repeatedly flooded the Colorado State Capitol this year to call for stricter gun control in response to shootings. Some Denver parents, meanwhile, are calling for changes to district discipline policies.

Educators struggle to balance safety, learning

Attorney Lindsay Brown said she’s seen Denver’s approach to discipline change over time. Ten years ago, she said DPS was more punitive. She remembers representing a student athlete with a supportive family who was expelled for bringing brass knuckles to school.

While Brown said that would still happen in many suburban districts, she has for years now felt like Denver is more likely to give students a fair hearing.

“Denver has historically been a place where you can go in and speak to the hearts and minds of teachers and administrators,” Brown said. “I’ve always felt like they were really trying to do the right thing.”

She worries that the recent violence will change that.

“I am concerned that schools are going to start to wash their hands of quote-unquote problem kids using this umbrella of, ‘Well, these things happen, so we can’t be too safe,’” she said.

Elsa Bañuelos-Lindsay has the same fears. She’s executive director of Movimiento Poder, a Denver community organization formerly known as Padres & Jóvenes Unidos that for years led the fight to reduce suspensions and expulsions in DPS and statewide. She said putting police officers back into Denver schools is a sign that DPS is going in the wrong direction.

“It’s going to harm more of our students, especially students of color,” Bañuelos-Lindsay said.

Rob Gould, president of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, is somewhere in the middle. Asked if the pendulum had swung too far toward keeping students in school, he said yes and no. If given the choice of smaller class sizes or more metal detectors because of limited funding, educators would choose the former, he said.

“We’re still trying to figure this out,” Gould said.

But attorney Igor Raykin, who also represents students in expulsion proceedings, said he thinks that after the racial justice protests of 2020, Denver and other urban districts “overcorrected and began to be tolerant of behaviors they shouldn’t be tolerant of.”

While he believes expulsion is disruptive to a student’s life and should be used sparingly, he said that needs to be balanced with keeping other students and teachers safe. Expelling a student just means they can’t go back to their current school. It doesn’t mean they can’t access an education, Raykin said, even if that’s through remote learning online.

Former DPS principal Kimberly Grayson said she moved students to remote or hybrid learning — over the objections of the district — if she felt their presence put other students at risk.

Last school year, after one of her students at Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Early College was killed by gunfire on a weekend and police arrested another student on suspicion of the crime, Grayson said she and her staff figured out which of their classmates were involved in the rivalry.

Each was handed a computer and a message: “You’re going to finish this year out at home on your Chromebook. It’s dangerous for you to be here. For you and for everybody else here,” Grayson recently told activist and podcast host brother jeff Fard.

“The district told me I couldn’t do it,” Grayson said. “Oh yes, I am. We’re going to support them with their education. We’re going to give them a Chromebook.”

Grayson said she thinks DPS’s approach to discipline shifted too far over the years.

“They went from zero tolerance to complete tolerance,” she said in an interview. “I realize you want numbers [of suspensions and expulsions] to decrease for Black and brown kids. However, there still needs to be some consequences for some actions.”

Staten, the deputy chief of staff for DPS, said the district’s position is that a student can be in their regular public school — even if they’re facing criminal charges — as long as a judge has decided that the student can be out in the community and not behind bars.

“There are times where we may need to talk to probation to see what the terms and conditions are,” Staten said. “But if somebody in the judicial system has deemed that it’s OK for the student to be in the community, it’s OK for the student to be in a school setting.”

Superintendent Alex Marrero and Denver school board members address the media after deciding to return armed police officers to Denver high school campuses.

New plans and policies in the works

Ultimately, the responsibility for district discipline policy lies with the elected school board. But Denver board members are more hands-off now due to a new governance model that emphasizes letting the superintendent run the district’s day-to-day operations.

When school board members asked for a safety update at a recent meeting, Superintendent Alex Marrero gave little information.

“Yes, we will engage the community, and I appreciate the invitations to assist,” Marrero said. “But this is where I have to lean on the experts.”

Back in 2020, when the board voted to remove police from schools, it also directed the then-superintendent to “redefine school safety” in DPS, clarify the role law enforcement should play, and create a monthly school discipline report that would show the number of students ticketed and arrested, and the number of times police were called to schools.

But pandemic recovery and turnover in the superintendent role stymied some of that work. As of two weeks ago, a spokesman for the Denver Police Department said the department did not have an updated intergovernmental agreement with DPS, even as police return to schools. And Staten said the monthly school discipline reports were never created because of COVID.

The East shooting seems to have reignited the work. The board has directed the superintendent to develop a long-term safety plan by June 30. The district is also reviewing the discipline matrix — a review that was planned before the shooting at East, Staten said.

“Regardless of this behavioral incident at East, that was on the calendar to do this,” Staten said. “East has nothing to do with it. East has nothing to do with the overall district discipline.”

Though the board doesn’t vote on revisions to the discipline matrix, they do review it, she said. Several board members did not return messages for this story or declined to comment.

But Vice President Auon’tai Anderson, who worked as a restorative practices coordinator at a DPS high school before getting elected to the board in 2019, said he still believes that the district’s philosophy of erring toward keeping students in school is the right one.

“We’re a restorative practice district,” he said. “We’re not in the business of kicking kids out for a mistake. Because people have bad days. We can’t say you’re not worthy of an education here.”

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

‘I need a plan.’ As NRA convention begins, Indianapolis teens share fears about gun violence.

2023-04-14T16:59:48+00:00

Raina Maiga looked out her school’s windows from the second floor on Thursday, trying to imagine what she would do in a school shooting.

“I’m hopeless. I can’t jump out the window,” said Maiga, a sophomore at Purdue Polytechnic High School’s Englewood campus on Indianapolis’ east side. “There’s nothing to do. Our school is exposed with windows. If someone walked in here with a gun, I mean, it’s over.”

These are the conversations that Raina and her classmates have on an almost weekly basis.

But this week, those conversations are happening with the backdrop of the National Rifle Association’s three-day annual convention, which is expected to bring tens of thousands of attendees to downtown Indianapolis beginning Friday.

The convention for the powerful lobbying organization — and the warm reception from some Indiana lawmakers — feels tone deaf to Indianapolis-area teens who say gun violence in their schools and communities is their reality and fills them with anxiety on a regular basis.

Ryan Evans, a Purdue Polytechnic junior, remembers the day in 2013 that his sister survived the Arapahoe High School shooting in Colorado. His classmate Huma Moghul recalls the night she heard gunfire in her neighborhood and woke up to a bullet hole in her living room wall. And they all remember the lockdowns they have experienced this year — anxious moments that they try to ease with dark humor about whether they’d survive if a shooter was outside their door.

So far this year, eight people age 18 and under in Indianapolis have been killed by a firearm, per the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department. Sixteen people age 18 and under in the city died by firearms in 2022, up from 14 in 2021.

Among those who died was a 17-year-old Purdue Polytechnic High School student James Johnson III, who was killed in February.

“Nobody ever thinks that it’s going to happen to them,” said Evans. “And I definitely think that James Johnson didn’t think that as well. Because it’s not a thought that somebody should have.”

Students prepare for school shootings

The NRA annual meeting comes roughly three weeks after a person shot and killed three children and three adults at a private Christian school in Nashville. Their deaths sparked outrage during Tennessee’s legislative session, and students rallied for tougher gun laws at the Tennessee State Capitol.

Indiana lawmakers are considering a bill to provide state funding for firearms training for teachers. Rep. Jim Lucas, a Republican from Seymour and the bill’s author, said in February his legislation is a response to mass school shootings across the U.S., according to the Indiana Capital Chronicle.

But to students like Evans and Maiga, that legislation is not the solution. Instead, they say, legislators should stop and think about how the situation is affecting students in schools.

And the onus should not be on schools to arm teachers, or transform buildings into iron fortresses, some students argue.

“We shouldn’t have to be wanding children into schools to prevent guns from entering schools or teaching them how to evacuate to mobile bomb shelters that can be built in schools,” said Evans.

(The convention also starts on the same day that dozens of Indiana school districts received a bomb threat, prompting the closure of school buildings.)

Katie Bolduc, a freshman at Westfield High School, said she’s only known a world with gun violence in schools, where active shooter drills are as commonplace as fire and tornado drills.

“There’s a lot of complacency, it’s something that’s normal and accepted that you have to prepare for,” she said.

But it leaves her feeling unsafe.

“There are weapons that can cause mass casualties in a few minutes, and all I have is a pencil pouch or a water bottle to throw at the shooter, best-case scenario,” Bolduc said.

Lucy Rutter, a junior at Burris Laboratory School in Muncie, said she first started to hear about school shootings in middle school. At that time, it seemed like it wouldn’t happen to her. That’s changed.

“The more I see it, the more I feel like it is going to happen to me, and I need a plan,” she said. “It’s so hard to hear about it in the news every day and feel like I can’t do anything about it.”

NRA convention in town prompts disappointment from students

Having the NRA convention in their backyard only exacerbates the disconnect between lawmakers and the students who spoke to us.

“I do wonder what the conversations are like when talking about actually caring about the lives of people, but then choosing to be a public face at this convention,” said Maiga, who lamented the scheduled presence of Gov. Eric Holcomb and former Vice President Mike Pence at the convention.

Students said that having the convention so close to home is a reminder of how tense and politically charged the topic of gun violence prevention is — and of the sway of organizations like the NRA.

Salsabil Qaddoura, a North Central High School sophomore, leads her school’s chapter of Students Demand Action, a national group of high school and college students that aims to end gun violence and is affiliated with Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action.

She said the NRA convention has her thinking about gun industry accountability, and how it can profit off of young people. The access to guns is there, she said.

“It’s disgusting and insensitive,” she said of the NRA coming to Indianapolis.

The NRA did not respond to a request for comment.

Students consider how to change views on guns

Being a high schooler means having pressures to fit a certain standard, Qaddoura said. That means students are influenced by what they surround themselves with, and there’s a thought of “if you have guns you have that tough-person persona,” she said.

Students said they want to shift the narrative around guns with their classmates to make having a gun less of a status symbol, and to know that it’s OK to ask for help and to talk about gun-violence prevention.

In all the years of doing active shooter drills, “I don’t think I’ve ever had a teacher or school officer talk about how we feel, get under the desk and find what you’re going to throw and prepare,” Bolduc said.

She hopes to start a Students Demand Action chapter to change that.

As leaders of their own Students Demand Action chapters, Qaddoura and Rutter have worked to start a discussion about gun violence. They’ve registered voters, signed petitions, and attended protests and other events.

“A lot of people assume that my only goal is to ban guns, but there are so many other solutions besides banning guns outright,” Rutter said, listing gun safety education, safe storage, background checks, and red flag laws.

Students at Purdue Polytechnic, meanwhile, are organizing a walkout for April 20, the 24th anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting.

Students said they know change can be slow.

“I always hear that change is gradual,” Qaddoura said. But she added that when it comes to gun violence prevention, “We can’t wait.”

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Marion County schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

MJ Slaby oversees Chalkbeat Indiana’s coverage as bureau chief and covers higher education. Contact MJ at mslaby@chalkbeat.org.

Expelled Memphis lawmaker credits student activists as he wins reappointment to Tennessee House

2023-04-13T00:48:56+00:00

Memphis high schooler Carolina Calvo skipped school Wednesday, joined hundreds of marchers, and took pictures as local officials made the historic vote to reappoint a state lawmaker to his seat.

Just a week earlier, the GOP-controlled Tennessee House voted to expel Rep. Justin Pearson of Memphis, as well as another Democrat, Justin Jones of Nashville, saying they violated chamber rules by amplifying many protesters’ calls for gun reform in the wake of the deadly mass shooting at Nashville’s Covenant School. A third Democrat, Gloria Johnson of Knoxville, narrowly survived an expulsion resolution.

For Carolina and her older sister Anna Calvo, the expulsion hearings, culminating in the ouster of the House’s two youngest Black members, represented hopelessness and defeat.

Now both lawmakers have regained their positions — Jones reappointed on Monday by Nashville’s Metro Council, and Pearson voted in 7-0 by the Shelby County Commission, as demonstrators in the chamber cheered. Pearson is expected to be back in his legislative seat on Thursday, rejoining Johnson and Jones.

“Today, there’s just a lot more hope in the room,” Carolina said Wednesday after the vote on Pearson.

Reappointed Rep. Justin Pearson entered the Shelby County Commission from a march of hundreds than began at the National Civil Rights Museum.

Pearson, who became a student activist at age 15 in the quest for a proper textbook, said student activism continues to play a role in his career, right up to his reappointment.

“Students and young people lead all movements,” he told Chalkbeat after his reappointment. “This movement is no different, and the movement to end gun violence and the justice that we will have will be because of young people and students and college students who say that the status quo must change.”

Carolina, a 16-year-old sophomore, and Anna, an 18-year-old senior, were among student organizers at Memphis’ Crosstown High School who walked out of class in support of gun reform earlier this month. Anna joined youth protesters at the Tennessee Capitol building, and witnessed part of Jones’ expulsion hearing.

Both want Tennessee to adopt red-flag laws, like 19 other states have, to let law enforcement take guns away from people who threaten harm to themselves or others.

On Tuesday, Gov. Bill Lee called for legislators to develop and pass what he called “order of protection” legislation that would do the same thing, subject to a judge’s order.

The sisters especially want Tennessee lawmakers to halt steps toward arming certain teachers with concealed weapons, as one bill that advanced last week in the House would do.

“School shootings are already scary in itself, but just making (guns) accessible for people to reach them is really awful to think about,” Carolina said.

Both students — daughters of former school board candidate and Latino activist Mauricio Calvo — have been encouraged to be politically active. But as they’ve gotten older, the stakes have increased, they said.

“Now that I can vote, it does feel different,” Anna said.

Even students who can’t vote can still make a difference, Carolina said, by protesting and using social media to amplify their voices.

“I remember being 11 and doing the Women’s March,” Carolina said. “That was really powerful and stuff, but I was 11. And now I’m a lot older … . You just realize how it’s going to impact you more.”

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Governor calls for Tennessee law to keep guns from ‘dangerous people’ after Nashville school shooting

2023-04-11T19:46:00+00:00

Gov. Bill Lee called Tuesday for a new Tennessee law to help keep guns out of the hands of people deemed at risk of hurting themselves or others, his first full embrace of a gun reform measure in one of the nation’s most gun-friendly states.

Lee said that he’s asked legislative leaders to create and pass new “order of protection” legislation that strengthens existing law designed to protect domestic violence victims. He wants the GOP-controlled General Assembly to deliver a broader bill to his desk in the next month, before adjourning for the year.

Later Tuesday, the governor signed an executive order to strengthen background checks for buying firearms in the state.

The announcements came two weeks after a shooter killed six people at a Nashville school and one day after another mass shooting at a bank in neighboring Kentucky.

“We can’t stop evil, but we can do something,” Lee said. “And when there is a clear need for action, I think that we have an obligation … to remind people that we should set aside politics and pride and accomplish something that the people of Tennessee want us to accomplish.”

Lee’s call to action comes after thousands of Tennesseans rallied for stricter gun laws during daily protests at the State Capitol since the March 27 tragedy left three children and three staff members dead at The Covenant School, a private Christian campus serving about 200 children.

The shooter, who authorities later said was seeing a doctor for an “emotional disorder,” was shot and killed by police on site.

Authorities in Louisville are still investigating what led an employee of Old National Bank to pull out a rifle and open fire in his workplace on Monday, killing five people and injuring nine others.

“What happened in Kentucky yesterday might be averted by a piece of legislation that we’re talking about delivering today,” said Lee, who said he spoke with that state’s governor, Democrat Andy Beshear.

The two mass shootings hit close to home for both leaders. Lee’s wife, Maria, who is a former teacher, was a friend and former co-worker of two of the adult victims at Covenant. And Beshear said he lost one of his closest friends.

Extreme risk protection orders allow law enforcement to intervene and temporarily take away a person’s weapons if a judge deems that person is at risk of hurting himself or others. Florida passed a so-called red flag law allowing such protection orders after a shooter killed 17 students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in 2018.

Lee did not use the phrase “red flag law” in describing his desire for new ”order of protection” legislation.

Instead, he called his proposal the next step beyond his comprehensive school safety package, which overwhelmingly passed the House last week and is expected to clear the Senate in the next week.

After the Covenant shooting, Lee’s administration revised the package and his proposed budget to include more than $200 million more next year to place an armed security guard at every Tennessee public school, boost physical security at public and private schools, and provide additional mental health resources for Tennesseans. Currently, about two-thirds of the state’s public schools have a law enforcement officer on site.

Lee held his press conference at a Nashville police precinct after meeting earlier with officers who responded to the active-shooter alert at Covenant.

“Protective orders are led by law enforcement,” Lee said. “They have a high standard burden of proof. There is due process.”

The governor acknowledged that passing an order-of-protection law in the legislature could be difficult — a key Senate committee voted last week to defer action on any gun-related legislation until next year — but said he is hopeful for bipartisan support “to get this done.”

“I’m one that believes that really difficult circumstances can bring about really positive outcomes,” Lee said, adding: “I certainly believe it’s that time.”

Democrats already have proposed several pieces of legislation aimed at gun reforms, including one on expanded protective orders. Lt. Gov. Randy McNally, the Senate’s top Republican leader, said after the Covenant shooting that he’s open to that approach, as long as it includes protections against false or fraudulent reporting.

House Speaker Cameron Sexton raised similar concerns on Tuesday.

“As we look at mental health orders of protection, they must have a level of due process, protections from fraudulent claims, and a quick judicial hearing for individuals who pose imminent threats,” Sexton said in a statement.

But Senate Minority Leader Raumesh Akbari expressed no reservation. The Memphis Democrat praised Lee for prioritizing legislation to restrict gun access and curb gun violence.

“We are ready to work with the governor,” she said, “and we urge our Republican colleagues in the legislature to move quickly to put gun reform legislation on his desk.”

Gun violence is the leading cause of death for children in America.

After a mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, Congress passed a law to provide federal funding for states that enact red flag laws. And in February, President Joe Biden announced that the Justice Department would give $231 million to states to implement crisis intervention programs like red flag laws.

Red flag laws are relatively new, and their impacts are still being studied.

In Colorado, where a law went into effect three years ago, nearly 400 cases have been filed so far seeking protective orders against gun owners, according to a review by Colorado Public Radio. Of those, more than a dozen respondents had allegedly talked about carrying out mass shootings in places like grocery stores, theaters, and neighborhoods, with varying levels of planning. More than a dozen others talked about a “suicide by cop” or otherwise ambushing police officers, and one had threatened to assassinate political leaders.

In most cases, the person was reported to own multiple guns, in one case as many as 31 firearms.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Denver school board rejects effort to censure Auon’tai Anderson

2023-04-11T00:38:15+00:00

A move by the Denver school board president toward censuring the board vice president was squashed by the other board members Monday.

The board quickly voted 6-1 to remove from Monday’s meeting agenda a discussion of accusations made by President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán that Vice President Auon’tai Anderson violated board policies after a March 22 shooting at East High School.

Gaytán was the only board member to vote against removing the discussion from the agenda. She’d previously said she planned to move for a vote to censure Anderson on April 20.

Board member Michelle Quattlebaum said that in the wake of the shooting at East and other youth violence, student safety should be the board’s top priority.

“Anything that’s happening amongst us is not even secondary,” Quattlebaum said. “It shouldn’t even make the top 10. It shouldn’t matter at all. Because our babies don’t feel safe.”

Personality conflicts, power struggles, and attempts at reconciliation have marked interactions between board members, especially Anderson and Gaytán, for the past year.

Among other violations, Gaytán had accused Anderson of disclosing to the press confidential information from a closed-door executive session of the board on March 23, one day after a student shot and injured two deans at East High School. Anderson said the information he disclosed to the press was shared with him outside of the executive session.

Denver school board members met in executive session, then voted unanimously to return police officers to Denver schools. On March 27, Anderson, who helped lead a controversial 2020 effort to remove police officers from schools, held a press conference in which he said Denver Mayor Michael Hancock forced the board’s decision to bring them back.

Anderson said Hancock “had an executive order ready to be drafted and declare a public health emergency … to deploy school resource officers back to schools.”

After the press conference, Gaytán wrote Anderson a memo outlining what she described as violations of board policy. The alleged violations included that Anderson “disclosed information discussed in Executive Session. Specifically, naming the Mayor’s private communication with the Superintendent regarding the creation of an Executive Order to address school safety,” according to a copy of the memo obtained by Chalkbeat.

Anderson has said that Superintendent Alex Marrero told him about the potential mayoral order before the executive session. Hancock’s office has denied he had an order ready to go.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Denver school board President Xóchitl Gaytán to move to censure Vice President Auon’tai Anderson

2023-04-07T23:07:45+00:00

Update: On Monday, the Denver school board removed any discussion of a potential censure from the agenda. Read more.

Denver school board President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán said she will move to censure board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson for alleged violations of board policy in the wake of the March 22 shooting at East High School.

Gaytán has accused Anderson of disclosing to the press confidential information from a closed-door executive session of the board, among other violations. Anderson has said the information he disclosed was shared outside of the executive session.

The board is set to discuss the alleged violations at a meeting Monday before the matter moves to a vote on April 20, Gaytán said.

Anderson declined to comment Friday.

The move comes after a year of personality conflicts, power struggles, and attempts at reconciliation between board members. The board is under more public scrutiny in the wake of the shooting at East, which has raised questions about school safety and discipline policy.

Censuring a board member requires a majority vote of the board.

On March 23, the day after a student shot two staff members at East, Denver board members met in a closed-door session, then voted unanimously to return police officers to Denver schools. On March 27, Anderson, who previously led the effort to remove police from schools, held a press conference in which he said the mayor forced the board’s hand.

Anderson said Denver Mayor Michael Hancock “had an executive order ready to be drafted and declare a public health emergency … to deploy school resource officers back to schools.” Hancock’s office has denied this.

Gaytán described Anderson’s comments as a violation of board policy in a memo last month.

According to a copy obtained by Chalkbeat, the memo alleges that Anderson “disclosed information discussed in Executive Session. Specifically, naming the Mayor’s private communication with the Superintendent regarding the creation of an Executive Order to address school safety.”

Anderson has said that Superintendent Alex Marrero relayed that information to him before the executive session.

Gaytán’s memo also chastises Anderson for holding the press conference at all and for making “inaccurate statements” about the shooter at East, student Austin Lyle, and his history of expulsion from the neighboring Cherry Creek School District.

The memo lays out what Gaytán sees as the potential impacts of Anderson’s actions.

“Statements from the press conference being held by VP Anderson may be used as part of a lawsuit against the District regarding the Board’s culpability for the violence at East HS,” it says.

Anderson was censured by the board in 2021 for violating expectations of board member behavior after an investigation found he’d had flirtatious contact with students on social media. Investigators also found that Anderson made two social media posts during the investigation that could have been seen as coercive or intimidating to witnesses.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee lawmakers advance bill to let teachers carry firearms without notifying parents

2023-04-05T23:06:20+00:00

Legislation to let some teachers carry firearms in Tennessee public schools advanced Wednesday in the House as state lawmakers and citizens clashed over the best way to protect students after last week’s deadly school shooting in Nashville.

The proposal would let a teacher or staff member carry a concealed handgun at school after completing 40 hours of certified training in school policing at their own expense, as well as passing a mental health evaluation and FBI background check.

The 12-6 vote in the Education Administration Committee came with one member present but not voting: Republican Rep. Kirk Haston, who works for Perry County Schools.

It would be up to the local district whether to let teachers go armed under the legislation sponsored by Rep. Ryan Williams of Cookeville and Sen. Paul Bailey of Sparta, both Republicans.

Williams said the principal and district director would be notified who in their schools are authorized to carry, as would their local law enforcement agencies. But the school’s parents and students would not be notified under his legislation, which runs counter to the GOP’s emphasis on parental rights and notification in other areas of education such as curriculum and library materials.

The development in Tennessee comes more than a week after an armed intruder shot and killed three 9-year-old children and three adult staff members at The Covenant School, a private Christian school with about 200 students in Nashville’s Green Hills community. As gun violence at schools has spiked over the last few years, educators nationwide have grappled with how to address acute safety concerns without militarizing their campuses or ignoring the rights of students, their parents, and educators.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, at least 29 states allow individuals other than police or security officers to carry guns on school grounds.

Most Tennessee parents say school-based gun violence is one of their top concerns, but significantly fewer agree that schools are safer when teachers are armed, according to the latest poll conducted by the Vanderbilt Center for Child Health Policy.

Williams told the committee that his bill is permissive.

“If your district and your local law enforcement agency does not want to participate, they simply do not have to do that,” he said. “But if you’re from a small rural district where resources are limited and you don’t have the ability to provide [school resource officers] for your community or an SRO at all, this would give you an opportunity to find a different pathway.”

Even if the Tennessee bill clears the full House, it’s not likely to pass in the Senate this year.

Bucking gun control advocates who have called for an urgent response to the tragedy, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted Tuesday to defer all gun-related legislation — including the companion bill to let teachers go armed — until 2024, the second year of the legislature’s two-year session. Chairman Todd Gardenhire, a Republican from Chattanooga, said he didn’t want to rush legislation as the city mourned the victims and police continued their investigation.

Emotions have been running high about the issue, including at the state Capitol.

Williams’ House bill would apply to public schools but not schools such as Covenant, which is a ministry of the Presbyterian church that sits on the same campus. Staff at Tennessee private schools already have the option to let some staff go armed if their administrators approve.

During Wednesday’s debate, people spoke passionately for and against the policy proposal. Here’s a sampling of what we heard:

“If more guns in more places made us safer, we’d be the safest state on the planet, and we’re not.” — Jason Sparks, Nashville parent, representing Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, which opposes the bill

“The greatest benefit, I believe, in this bill is it allows our local [districts] to put a sign outside the front of their schools that says there may be someone in this facility that carries a concealed weapon. … Deterrents are the greatest asset we have.” — Rep. Ryan Williams, R-Cookeville, the House bill’s sponsor

“It’s terrifying to know that I could go to school and not know who has a firearm.” — Keernan Reed, student, Hillwood High School in Nashville

“If you think that we’re going to have an SRO in every one of our schools tomorrow, you’re fooling yourself. … Folks, that’s four to five years away that your children will be at risk.” — Rep. Scott Cepicky, R-Culleoka, who voted for the bill

“This approach may harm the very ones that we say that we are trying to protect — harm that comes when someone overpowers a teacher, takes their gun, or a young teacher is mistaken for an active shooter by a law enforcement officer, a teacher losing their cool with a student and aiming a gun as a threat or worse.” — Krista Westerfelt, mother of three children, who opposes the bill

“I’ve checked with one of my school superintendents in my district, and he’s for this bill.” — Rep. Todd Warner, R-Chapel Hill, who voted for the legislation

“As I looked at the [police] body camera footage [from the Covenant School shooting], these men were extremely nimble, tactical, and they took that building systematically and left no stone unturned. This is not easy work in terms of the training and preparation.” — Rep. Sam McKenzie, D-Knoxville, who voted against the bill

“According to Giffords Law Center, armed adults frequently mishandle guns in schools. Their study shows that there have been nearly 100 publicly reported incidents of mishandled guns in schools over the last five years, including a case where a teacher unintentionally fired a gun in class during a safety demonstration, and a loaded gun falling out of a teacher’s waistband while on the playground.” — The Education Trust in Tennessee, in an April 5 letter to House Education Committee members asking them to oppose the bill

You can track the bill on the General Assembly’s website.

Marta W. Aldrich is a senior correspondent who covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

With more shootings and guns on campus, schools walk a fine line in response

2023-04-05T14:52:58+00:00

When Superintendent Kenny Rodrequez first heard about last week’s fatal attack on a Nashville elementary school, he immediately ached for the three children and three adults who were gunned down.

But as a school district leader, he soon began an all-too-familiar routine. He studies news reports about each new school shooting, looking for ways to strengthen his own district’s security, aware that any school could be next.

“It’s not like it’s in some faraway land,” said Rodrequez, who heads a small district outside of Kansas City, Missouri. “It’s happening everywhere.”

The data confirms that school gun violence is pervasive — and spreading. The number of guns seized in schools and fired on school property has skyrocketed since before the pandemic, according to gun violence databases.

In response, schools have taken steps to mitigate safety risks and soothe anxious students, teachers, and parents. A Pennsylvania district is preparing to install metal detectors in its elementary schools, while students in a Maine district have learned how to barricade classroom doors and confront would-be attackers. Other districts that had cut ties with school police are bringing them back, while still others are teaching families how to safely store their firearms.

Many schools are trying to walk a fine line, seeking to enhance security without turning their campuses into forbidding fortresses or funnels into the criminal justice system. Meanwhile, a national debate over gun control is raging around schools, with Tennessee students walking out of schools Monday to demand tighter gun restrictions — even as some lawmakers propose loosening the state’s gun laws.

The debate can be exasperating for school officials, who cannot control students’ access to guns yet are expected to protect them from gun violence.

“Many times when there’s a shooting or a gun found in a school, people are like, ‘You’ve got to keep guns out of the schools,’” Rodrequez said. But he believes the conversation about guns must be broader: “We have to keep them out of our communities.”

Schools confront rising gun violence

Gun violence in children’s homes and neighborhoods is far more common than school shootings, which account for less than 1% of all gun deaths among American children.

Yet school gun violence has become more prevalent. Guns have been brandished or fired on school grounds more than 230 times this academic year, according to the K-12 Shooting Database, which tracks all gun-related incidents on school property, including those without injuries. The number of such incidents is down slightly from the same period last school year but up nearly 170% compared with that period pre-pandemic.

More students are also bringing guns to school. The Gun Violence Archive, which tracks news and police reports, has compiled roughly 850 instances of guns found in schools since last August. By contrast, just over 600 guns were found during that period last year, and fewer than 500 were found during that period pre-pandemic.

In Erie, Pennsylvania, Superintendent Brian Polito attributes some students’ growing entanglement with guns to the loss of stability and structure during remote learning. In addition, a citywide anti-violence campaign went on hiatus during the pandemic lockdowns.

“When the pandemic hit, everything kind of fell apart,” he said.

Exactly one year ago, a freshman at Erie High School allegedly shot another student inside the school — the first shooting in the district since the 1990s, Polito said. After the incident, the district installed metal detectors in all middle and high schools. Polito estimates the district has spent about $2 million in federal pandemic recovery funds over the past two years on security upgrades, including new alarm systems, door locks, and security cameras.

The high school shooting is part of a growing wave of youth violence in the community, and even very young students are getting pulled in. Polito said that when a local university recently identified students at high risk of violence based on crime and discipline data, the list included some elementary school students. That data, along with news in January that a 6-year-old Virginia boy had shot his teacher during class, convinced Polito to expand metal detectors to elementary schools.

“Unfortunately, it’s our reality now,” Polito said about gun violence, adding that the district has also ramped up mental health support for students. “It’s something we all have to deal with.”

Schools aim for safety without over-policing

Even in communities where gun violence is rare, schools face pressure to prepare. In Gorham, Maine, a small town just west of Portland, schools Superintendent Heather Perry said she hears from worried parents whenever a school shooting makes the national news.

“People are much more hypervigilant,” she said, adding that online videos can make a distant shooting feel “like it’s next door.”

After high-profile shootings, Perry sends messages to families reassuring them that the district has detailed safety plans. The district has also invested in security technology, including surveillance cameras that the police can access and electronic door locks. And the local police department guides schools in active shooter drills, which includes having middle and high school students practice distracting a gunman by throwing objects or shouting, Perry said.

But even as schools plan for the possibility of violence, Perry said she doesn’t want students to feel constantly scared or surveilled.

“We don’t want our schools to become prisons,” she said.

Some school districts have added guards, and a few have reinstated school police officers after removing them or reducing their numbers following the protests in 2020 over police brutality against Black people. Last month, after a Denver high school student shot and injured two staff members, the school board swiftly voted to lift its ban on armed school officers.

Critics of school police cite research showing that their presence leads to more student suspensions and arrests. They also worry about the potential for bias when school security is beefed up, with Black students, students with disabilities, and others facing closer scrutiny and even criminalization.

But proponents say school police, often called school resource officers, help reduce violence by defusing conflicts and developing relationships with students.

Mo Canady, executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers, said he is not surprised to see schools bringing in more officers as gun violence surges.

“Schools are most definitely under pressure to try to figure out how to keep their students safe,” he said.

Still, he cautioned against hastily adding security agents, arguing that effective school police officers are highly trained in law enforcement and working with young people.

“In the rush to shore up” school safety, he said, “we can easily create a whole new problem if we don’t do this the right way.”

Patrick Wall is a senior reporter covering national education issues. Contact him at pwall@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee lawmaker facing expulsion defends actions on behalf of student protesters

2023-04-07T02:03:34+00:00

Update: The Tennessee House voted Thursday to expel Democratic Reps. Justin Pearson of Memphis and Justin Jones of Nashville, the chamber’s two youngest Black members. A resolution to expel Democrat Gloria Johnson of Knoxville, a retired teacher who is white, narrowly failed.

Before Justin Pearson was elected to the Tennessee House, before he gained acclaim for stopping an oil pipeline project planned for his neighborhood, he was a student in Memphis schools who wanted a textbook.

Pearson, then 15, brought the issue to the Memphis City Schools board. The next day, the books were found sitting in storage. His principal was reprimanded, and district officials demanded that school leaders across the city prove that they had handed out textbooks.

“Justin Pearson may have been without a government textbook for the first 11 weeks of school,” The Commercial Appeal wrote about the Mitchell High sophomore in 2010, “but he has learned one thing about democracies: Embarrassing elected officials in public meetings gets action.”

Now, as Pearson channels the frustrations of a new generation of student activists, he’s elicited action from lawmakers that could cost him the elected seat he only recently won.

The House leadership on Monday began rare proceedings to expel Pearson and two other Democratic lawmakers from the House over their role in a disruption at the Capitol last week, during which they interrupted a legislative session to help amplify student protesters calling for stricter gun laws in response to the deadly March 27 school shooting in Nashville.

In expulsion resolutions introduced late Monday, the House leadership said Reps. Pearson, Justin Jones of Nashville, and Gloria Johnson of Knoxville brought “disorder and dishonor” to the chamber by speaking from the podium without being recognized and disrupting legislative business. The lawmakers, House Speaker Cameron Sexton said, distracted from the shooting victims and the protesters’ calls by calling attention to themselves.

“They had no authority to do that,” Sexton told reporters Monday.

The resolution came amid a House floor session Monday evening, following another day of student protests at the Capitol.

Pearson defended his actions on behalf of the high school and college-age students who filled the Capitol with chants of “Save our kids!” and “Not one more!” In a letter to the House, Pearson wrote it was “untenable” to hear the chants from mostly young people and “do nothing — say nothing.”

In a letter to House leadership explaining his actions, Tennessee Rep. Justin Pearson, D-Memphis, told lawmakers gun violence hit close to home.

“To serve people and to represent them well is to elevate the issues when they are being ignored, and to do all that you can within your power to make sure their voices are heard,” Pearson told Chalkbeat in an interview on Tuesday.

Pearson already had a fraught relationship with Republican leadership, who suggested the 28-year-old legislator “explore a different career opportunity” after he broke Capitol clothing norms and wore a West African dashiki to his first swearing-in.

“We aren’t being expelled because we broke House decorum rules. That’s what’s been written on paper,” Pearson told Chalkbeat. “We’re being expelled because we spoke up about the need for gun reform and legislation that actually protects kids and communities.”

The issues hit home for Pearson: His classmate Larry Thorn and his mentor Yvonne Nelson were both fatally shot in Memphis in the last year, he told lawmakers in the letter.

GOP leaders haven’t taken up the call for stricter gun laws. The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday voted to defer action on gun legislation to next year. The latest proposals from Gov. Bill Lee would invest in hiring armed guards for schools, fortifying school buildings, and providing extra mental health resources.

Pearson echoed common criticisms of those measures, saying they lead to overpoliced students and don’t address root problems. He’s talked about this with his mother, a public school teacher.

“My mom doesn’t want to become a sheriff,” Pearson said.

Final votes on the expulsions are expected Thursday. It takes a two-thirds vote of the House to expel a member.

House lawmakers have been expelled only three times before, The Tennessean reported.

One lawmaker who wasn’t expelled, Johnson noted, was former Rep. David Byrd, a Waynesboro Republican accused of sexually assaulting teenagers before he was elected to office. In that case, Sexton called for an attorney general’s opinion on the matter, calling it “complex and unprecedented.”

On Monday, Sexton did not indicate whether he would seek a similar opinion in the case of Pearson, Jones, and Johnson.

House Minority Leader Karen Camper, D-Memphis, told Chalkbeat that she wants to keep communication open among Republican leaders and House Democrats. “Temperatures flared” on the floor that day, Camper recalled, as she tried to quiet the three lawmakers and move forward.

Camper denounced the expulsion measures and described the three lawmakers’ actions as “good trouble,” alluding to the guiding principle of the civil rights leader John Lewis, who died in 2020. As a veteran congressman, Lewis staged a sit-in on the House floor in 2016. He, too, was calling for gun control in the wake of a mass shooting, Camper pointed out.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

With Nashville school shooting fresh, Tennessee Senate panel defers gun bills until 2024

2023-04-04T23:10:21+00:00

A day after thousands of Nashville students marched on the Tennessee State Capitol demanding urgent action to restrict guns, a key legislative committee voted instead to defer action on any gun-related legislation until next year.

The move in the Senate Judiciary Committee came eight days after a 28-year-old shooter killed six people, including three children, at a small private Christian school in Nashville.

The 7-2 vote, spearheaded by Chairman Todd Gardenhire of Chattanooga, came along party lines in the Republican-controlled panel.

The delay was anticipated after Gardenhire told Tennessee Lookout recently that he planned to move for an extended delay and would not allow the committee to be “turned into a circus by people with other agendas.”

“The agenda on the table now is respecting the privacy of the victims’ families that were gunned down and (to) let that healing process start,” Gardenhire told the news organization.

Gun control advocates, however, suggested that any delay would be an affront to the memories of the six victims of the March 27 shooting: 9-year-old students Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney, and Hallie Scruggs; and school staff members Mike Hill, Katherine Koonce, and Cynthia Peak.

“We don’t need a day to mourn. We need a day of action,” said retired teacher Linda McFadyen-Ketchum, who leads the local chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, at one of several demonstrations near the Capitol since the shooting.

Nashville students and others favoring stricter gun laws protest outside the Tennessee State Capitol on April 3, 2023, during a demonstration against gun violence, mobilized by the youth group March for Our Lives.

The Judiciary Committee already had passed a bill that would drop Tennessee’s legal age to carry a gun from 21 to 18. The Senate panel removed a provision, which is still in the House’s version, to apply the legislation to rifles as well as handguns.

Among the deferred bills are several opposed by gun control advocates, as well as some legislation they support.

One bill would arm public school teachers and staff with a concealed handgun if they are willing, have a state-issued permit, and complete firearms training. Staff at Tennessee’s private schools already have that option if their administrators approve.

Gun control advocates support a so-called safe storage bill requiring people to secure any weapons they leave in vehicles and boats as a way to keep them from falling into the hands of criminals. That measure was deferred, too.

Sen. Jeff Yarbro, the bill’s sponsor, had planned Tuesday to introduce new legislation to the Senate panel to create a so-called red flag law, similar to the one that passed in Florida after a 2018 shooting killed 17 students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Such laws create a process to petition the courts so police can step in and temporarily take away firearms from a person who threatens to commit suicide or kill others.

“Pathetic,” Yarbro tweeted after the committee’s vote to defer all the bills.

The Nashville Democrat added: “We’re not going to give up. We’ll do what we can to bring SB1029 or some other bill to the floor to move this legislation forward.”

Lt. Gov. Randy McNally, who leads the Senate and said last week that he would support a red flag law, left an open door.

“Chairman Gardenhire and the Judiciary Committee elected to roll a handful of bills to the beginning of next year, as is their prerogative,” McNally said in a statement. “While the committee will likely close today, this does not mean the committee cannot reopen at the call of the chair.”

The committee’s vote came after little discussion. Two Memphis Democrats, Sens. Sara Kyle and London Lamar, were the sole votes against a delay in hearing Yarbro’s bill.

“Every member has a right to be heard,” Lamar said. “This was a bad move, and I’m disappointed.”

Vanderbilt University student Helena Spigner was also mostly disappointed in Tuesday’s developments. A local leader of Students Demand Action, which helped organize Monday’s student walkout in Nashville, the 19–year-old does not favor arming teachers. But she had hoped lawmakers would show a sense of urgency to reevaluate Tennessee’s lax gun laws because of last week’s mass shooting.

“These deaths could have been prevented by better laws,” said Spigner, who is studying to be an elementary school teacher. “By taking a year off, we’re waiting for the next tragedy, when we should be preventing the next tragedy.”

Interest in a red flag law rose in Tennessee after police reported that the Covenant shooter, who was fatally shot by police 14 minutes after entering the school, had been under a doctor’s care for an undisclosed “emotional disorder.”

While the Senate’s speaker was supportive of the policy, House Speaker Cameron Sexton has been less interested. He initially said “everything” was on the table in the wake of the tragedy but told reporters Monday that red flag laws are just a way “to take away guns” and have “nothing to do with (mental health) treatment.”

As he brought forth his new proposals Monday that include further fortifying school campuses, Gov. Bill Lee also stopped short of supporting a red flag law. He invited lawmakers to bring him legislation that would prevent people who are in the midst of a mental health crisis from having access to weapons, as long as the measure would not impede Second Amendment rights.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

After a traumatic event, how can teachers best help students?

2023-04-04T11:00:00+00:00

Community violence, racial injustice, school shootings. Students across America are faced with these realities every day, leaving educators to respond by adapting lesson plans or offer emergency support.

Some schools have added social workers, counselors, and other mental health resources to grapple with the toll community trauma is taking on students’ mental health. And in some districts, teachers and school leaders have created new student-focused programs in the wake of increases in gun violence and other traumatic incidents.

But educators say they remain overwhelmed and need more resources to support their students, especially following disrupted learning at the height of the COVID pandemic. Students have shared their own hopes for how adults might approach these conversations. If you are an educator or parent looking for resources on how to talk to students, we hope you find the below articles as a good starting place.

Expert advice for talking to children after a traumatic event

How to speak with kids after a violent event

Chalkbeat spoke with social worker Katie Peinovich about how to talk to children about traumatic events, what signs of distress to look for in children, and how to help those who might be fearful of future violence.

Peinovich tells parents, caregivers, and teachers:

Pay attention to kids’ actions following traumatic events: Kids may startle more easily, seem more irritable, and be reluctant to be apart from parents or caregivers.
Reassure children that they are now safe: Acknowledge and validate their feelings that what happened was very, very scary. Ongoing news coverage can give preschoolers and early elementary kids the impression that this is an ongoing situation. Parents and schools should limit media coverage and to reassure children that the event is over and they are safe.
Maintain routines: Both caregivers and educators should strive to keep schedules similar, whether it’s what children eat for breakfast or when they go to recess. Changing up schedules suddenly can heighten anxiety.
Understand recovery timelines: In about four weeks, most kids will return to their previous level of functioning. If kids are still struggling after a month, they may need extra support.

A student’s personal essay sits on a table in a classroom at the Philadelphia.

Trauma can make it hard for kids to learn. Here’s how teachers can help.

A child psychologist at Lurie Children’s Hospital and an assistant professor at Northwestern University’s medical school, Colleen Cicchetti helps lead the hospital’s efforts to improve how local schools handle trauma. Chalkbeat interviewed Cicchetti about the cost of childhood trauma in communities and what teachers can do to promote healing.

Her tips for teachers include:

Establish a predictable and “safe” classroom: This helps students understand the expectations and what they need to do to be successful. Taking breaks helps them focus.
Ask for help, even if you have to look outside your school: A teacher may not feel like they can tell someone they’re struggling with a student or feel isolated. That can lead to burnout.

This principal had a student killed just days before the year began. Here’s how he and his school found a way forward.

After one of his 6-year-old students was killed two weeks before the school year began, a California principal wrote that the experience taught him a lot about what it means to authentically communicate with young children about death.

“I desperately hope that no one else will ever need to use the lessons I learned,” wrote Danny Etcheverry, principal of Rocketship Spark Academy. “But I know they will, so here are a few ideas that helped guide us — and that might ease the burden a little bit for educators who find themselves with such a task.”

Among his advice:

Communicate honestly: “My staff members, alongside our school’s mental health professionals, determined that our students would need explanations of the event from those they trust and the space to process those explanations.”
Provide different kinds of support: “I spent a lot of time in classrooms those first few days, and I was struck by how these moments are initially much more emotional for adults to process than they are for young children … With our youngest students, we spent a lot of time talking about the concept of death and tragedy.”
Treat compounded trauma: “Over the weeks following the shooting, it became clear that this tragedy layered on top of prior wounds for some students … Healing is a long journey, and we’re just getting started.”

Educators shouldn’t always feel the need to talk to students after witnessing or watching a violent event, but should provide space to listen, said one expert from the nonprofit group Facing History & Ourselves. File photo from 2022.

How anti-bigotry lessons help students comprehend violence, push for change

The nonprofit group Facing History & Ourselves provides educators with resources to help students understand the lessons of history to combat bigotry and hate. Following the death of Tyre Nichols — the 29-year-old skateboarder and photographer who died days after being brutalized by Memphis police officers during a traffic stop — a local leader spoke with Chalkbeat about helping Memphis students grapple with Nichols’ death.

Among her advice for educators:

Don’t always feel the need to talk to students after witnessing or watching a violent event: “We listen to them. We really let them sit with that, because the last thing we want to do is minimize their pain. Our teachers are really skilled at listening, and letting the students talk. We don’t want to say that it’ll be all right, because it may not be all right.”
Focus on lessons that humanize the students, so they can reflect and have conversations: “In August, when we had the situation with the shooter [19-year-old Ezekiel Kelly was charged with killing three people in a citywide shooting spree], I went to Central High School and listened to Mary McIntosh’s Facing History & Ourselves class, and sat there and listened to her unpack the fear those kids had around that shooting that happened in August. She slowed it down, and got them to free-write it in a journal, just dump it all out, and gave them agency to be able to talk to each other.”

Schools nationwide are struggling to address the mental health needs of students. Some Detroit high school students, part of a city youth organization called Local Circles, wanted to know two things about their peers: How they practice self-love, and how they find peace in a world in which they constantly feel judged. File photo from 2019 at Southeastern High School in Detroit.

Students share what they need after crisis and reflect on what must change

Teens say it takes self-love to navigate times of crisis

A group of about 20 Detroit teens set out to learn two things about their peers: How they practice self-love, and how they find peace in a world in which they constantly feel judged.

These are relevant questions as schools struggle to address student mental health needs. Those troubles existed before the pandemic, but the isolation, lingering effects of remote learning, and challenges coping in the midst of a global health crisis have deepened them. The Detroit teens detailed their findings and, in some cases, expressed their worries in pieces that seek solutions.

Not every upsetting event needs to become a lesson

Black trauma doesn’t have to be channeled into some inspiring lesson, wrote one high schooler in New York, who was haunted by the experience of a teacher making her watch the video of Tamir Rice’s killing.

He helped his school develop a class about mental health

One Newark high schooler went to 19 funerals during the first year of COVID. When he wasn’t saying goodbye to people he cared about, he wrote, he was in front of a screen that was his connection to school and friends for a year and a half.

“I was already in the process of starting a wellness council, a club where students could share their struggles and hear about what others are going through. If we could start this club, why not a class about mental health built into the school day? ... The result of all this planning is a real-life class called Health and Wellness.”

‘Peace warriors’ at Chicago schools spread messages of nonviolence

The Peace Warriors program, a central part of some schools’ efforts to confront gun violence by centering students’ needs, trains students to mediate conflicts, support grieving classmates, and bring peace and happiness to school by greeting peers at the front door and leaving celebratory birthday notes on lockers.

“Our biggest goal is to end violence — any and everywhere and to do that — we have to end violence inside of ourselves first because violence starts internally with the thought,” said DeMarcus Thompson, a then 17-year-old Peace Warrior at North Lawndale College Prep. “In order to get to our goal, we have to work together.”

Upset after latest shooting, East High parents demand transparency from Denver Public Schools

2023-04-03T23:08:17+00:00

As parents waited to be reunited with their children outside Denver’s East High School after a shooting on March 22, a few of them made an agreement: They’d meet back in the same spot two days later to talk about how to make schools safer.

That meeting was the start of a new group called Parents - Safety Advocacy Group, or P-SAG. The group, whose Facebook page now has more than 600 members, held its first press conference Monday to make two demands of Denver Public Schools.

Both boil down to transparency. East parents have gotten “next to nothing” in terms of communication from Denver Public Schools leaders about what will be different when students return to school this week after two weeks at home, said East parent Steve Katsaros.

“They had an ongoing process of under-informing us and shoving things under the rug,” Katsaros said. “There’s no more room under the rug.”

The P-SAG parents want the district to release an “improved safety plan” by 8:05 a.m. Wednesday, which is when the first bell will ring for students at East.

East students have been out of school since March 22, when 17-year-old Austin Lyle shot and injured two deans before taking his own life. The school has been closed since then due to a combination of mental health days, teacher training days, and spring break.

The parents also want the Denver school board to stop meeting in closed-door executive sessions. The day after the shooting, the board met for five hours in executive session. When board members emerged, they announced they were pausing a 2020 policy banning police from schools. They called for the city to put as many as two officers at each high school.

Instead, the city agreed to assign 14 officers to work as school resource officers, or SROs, at 13 of Denver’s more than 50 high schools. East will have two officers, while the other 12 campuses will have one officer each for the remainder of the school year.

In a statement Monday, school board President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán said the board will not stop meeting in executive session to discuss “sensitive and confidential matters.”

“Without executive sessions, public boards would be unable to discuss privileged information, which would hinder their ability to effectively govern their organization,” Gaytán said. “While we understand the desire for further transparency, eliminating the use of executive sessions is not currently under consideration.”

In a separate statement, a DPS spokesperson said East will have an additional district safety officer on campus in addition to the SROs.

The district is also working to expand staff and student access to mental health providers at school and via telehealth, spokesperson Rae Childress said.

Superintendent Alex Marrero and other administrators “have been working intimately with East High School faculty to address personal safety concerns and the internal safety climate of the school,” Childress said. The school was set to hold a meeting to gather feedback from parents, students, and staff Monday night.

P-SAG is still working to develop a list of specific school safety ideas, Katsaros said. But he said he’d personally like to see a secure perimeter around the school, spot checks of student lockers, and K-9 dogs that could check for drugs and gun powder.

Katsaros would also like to see metal detectors, at least for students who are on safety plans due to their past behavior. The two East deans were shot while searching Lyle for weapons at the beginning of the school day, as required by Lyle’s safety plan.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Nashville students rally for tougher gun laws, as governor seeks armed guards for every school

2023-04-03T23:12:22+00:00

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Thousands of Nashville-area students walked out of their schools Monday and converged outside the Tennessee State Capitol to demand stronger gun laws after last week’s mass shooting at a small private school in the city.

The walkout began at 10:13 a.m., marking one week since Nashville police received the first call about an active shooter at The Covenant School, who killed three children and three adult staff members on March 27.

“We all want to live through high school,” said 17-year-old Amy Goetzinger, one of the earliest students to arrive at Monday’s rally, “and that’s why we’re here today.”

Meanwhile, Gov. Bill Lee proposed another $155 million to place an armed security guard at every Tennessee public school, boost physical school security at both public and private schools, and provide additional mental health resources for Tennesseans. Currently, about two-thirds of the state’s nearly 2,000 public schools have a law enforcement officer on site.

The governor said those steps, if approved by the legislature, would immediately increase safety for students and teachers. He promised more actions will follow.

“There is a serious conversation needed about school safety,” Lee said. “It must begin with the recognition that we cannot control evil, but we can do something.”

The student protest was mobilized through March for Our Lives, a youth-led movement for stricter gun laws that was formed after the 2018 shooting that killed 17 students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

In a tweet calling for Monday’s walkout, the group noted Tennessee’s legislature has passed laws in recent years banning or restricting many things — but not assault weapons.

“It’s not drag queens, it’s not books, it’s not Black history, it’s not trans rights — GUNS are KILLING KIDS,” the tweet said.

Later Monday, parents and elementary-age kids participated in an ABC Not NRA rally, just as lawmakers convened for this week’s legislative business.

Students chant: ‘Ban assault weapons!’

The protests were the latest in a string of peaceful but loud demonstrations against Tennessee’s lax gun laws after the 28-year-old intruder used military-style guns to shoot through a locked glass door and enter the private Christian school, indiscriminately shooting victims before being shot and killed by police.

In a police update Monday, authorities said they have not identified a motive behind the shooting but have determined that the attacker, identified as Audrey Hale, acted alone and had been planning the massacre for months. Police said Hale fired 152 rounds of ammunition at the school before being fatally shot about 14 minutes after entering.

Easy access to military-style guns was the No. 1 concern identified by students as they assembled on Nashville Legislative Plaza and at one point climbed the steps to surround the stone Capitol building. Under a misty rain, they chanted “Ban assault weapons!” “Do your job!” and “This is what democracy looks like!”

More than a thousand people filled Nashville’s Legislative Plaza to demand gun reforms as lawmakers prepared to convene at the Tennessee State Capitol on March 3, 2023.

An hour into the rally, hundreds more students and faculty from Vanderbilt University marched in on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard yelling “Fee-fi-fo-fum, watch out, Bill Lee, here we come.”

“Guns are the No. 1 killer of children, of teenagers, and of college-age students, both in the United States of America and right here in Tennessee. That’s not normal,” Jayce Pollard, a 20-year-old Vanderbilt student, told the crowd.

Fifteen-year-old Clara Thorsen said she walked out of Hillsboro High School, a public school just down the road from where the shooting happened, to show solidarity with other youth who fear for their lives under the state’s current gun laws.

“I want to be part of this and make change in our society, because we sure need it,” said Thorsen, who came with several classmates driven to the Capitol by her mom.

Margo Jenkins, another 15-year-old from Hillsboro High, said she came as a student journalist for her school’s newspaper. She planned to write a piece about “the power of protest.”

Citing safety concerns, Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools had urged students to assert their voices by participating in “walk-in rallies” inside the district’s 23 high schools, instead of attending the protest at the Capitol.

But district Director Adrienne Battle said later that most students who walked out worked with their parents and school leaders to follow appropriate procedures.

“While most students aren’t of age to vote, their voices in this conversation matter greatly,” Battle said, “and I hope lawmakers and officials will listen.”

Lee stands by his policies on gun access

The governor was flanked by top Republican lawmakers as he spoke with reporters for the first time in the week since the shooting.

Gov. Bill Lee speaks with reporters about Tennessee’s response to Nashville’s mass school shooting.

Pressed about state laws governing gun access, Lee said he prefers to keep a 2021 statute that he led the charge for allowing residents 21 and older to carry handguns in public without a permit.

A bill in the legislature would lower the age to 18.

“I think the bill that I proposed and brought forward is a bill that is designed for law-abiding citizens,” Lee said.

In reference to police reports that the shooter had been under a doctor’s care for an undisclosed “emotional disorder,” the governor encouraged the General Assembly to bring him legislation that would prevent people who are in the midst of a mental health crisis from having access to weapons — as long as the measure would not impede Second Amendment rights.

“That is the way forward,” he said.

But one Democratic leader was unimpressed by the governor’s immediate proposals to further fortify school campuses, without calling for significant gun reforms.

“It’s been a whole week since The Covenant School shooting, and Bill Lee has yet to utter the word gun,” said House Democratic Caucus Chairman John Ray Clemmons, of Nashville.

“I am appalled that Governor Lee would rather militarize our schools and make our children feel imprisoned in their own learning environment than reach across the aisle to pass common sense gun safety legislation,” Clemmons said.

The governor said he welcomed Monday’s protests. His message to the students? “You’re heard!” Lee said. And “please don’t let this be the last time you come to the Capitol.”

Students wave signs on the steps of the Capitol during the March for Our Lives rally.

But 19-year-old Vanderbilt student Iman Omer said elected officials aren’t hearing the voices of Tennessee’s children and youth who fear for their safety in school.

“We all are living in constant fear of gun violence,” she said, “and that’s because gun violence is all around us.

“And we won’t accept it anymore.”

This story has been updated.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Thirteen Denver campuses will have police officers after spring break

2023-03-31T23:45:56+00:00

Thirteen Denver high school campuses will have at least one police officer stationed on campus next week when students return from spring break, a police department spokesperson confirmed Friday.

That’s well short of the number spelled out in the Denver school board’s recent direction to put as many as two police officers at all high schools for the remainder of the school year. That directive was issued after a March 22 shooting at East High School in which a student shot and injured two deans.

The following day, the school board suspended its 2020 policy banning police known as school resource officers, or SROs, from Denver schools.

When classes resume Tuesday, two SROs will be at East High, the district’s largest school with 2,500 students. Another 12 high school campuses will have one officer each, adding up to a total of 14 SROs, according to the police department.

The campuses, in order of student enrollment, are:

Evie Dennis Campus, which has five schools, including DSST: Green Valley Ranch high school, and which serves a total of nearly 2,000 students in the five schools
Northfield High, 1,870 students
South High, 1,840 students
North High, 1,600 students
Thomas Jefferson High, 1,320 students
George Washington High, 1,265 students
Montbello High, 1,100 students
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Early College, 1,050 students
Abraham Lincoln High, 980 students
John F. Kennedy High, 790 students
West High, 640 students
Manual High, 320 students

Eight of the 14 officers previously worked as SROs in Denver, though not all of them had that assignment in 2020 when the school board voted to remove police from schools, said Denver Police Department spokesman Doug Schepman. The SROs were phased out of Denver schools over a year, with the last officers leaving their posts in June 2021.

But youth violence has been on the rise this year. A 16-year-old East High student, Luis Garcia, died of his injuries after being shot in February while sitting in his car outside the school.

Police plan and board memo differ

The plan for 14 SROs falls short of what the school board directed on March 23, one day after the East High shooting.

In a memorandum, the board directed Superintendent Alex Marrero to work with Denver Mayor Michael Hancock to “offer and externally fund as many as two armed police officers and as many as two additional mental health professionals” at all Denver high schools for the remainder of the school year, which is set to end in early June.

Denver Public Schools has more than 50 high schools. Twenty are independent charter schools governed by their own boards of directors. Several are small schools for students who’ve struggled at other schools or are at risk of dropping out.

School board President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán said she couldn’t comment on the discrepancy between the board’s order and what will happen next week. This week is spring break for DPS, and Gaytán said via text message that “there’s no board work happening right now.”

It’s also not clear if high schools will have two additional mental health professionals next week, as ordered by the board in its memorandum. School district spokesman Scott Pribble said he couldn’t answer that question because district staff are out of the office for spring break.

SROs will have same duties as before

Pribble did, however, send a statement attributed to Marrero about police in schools.

“I am not worried about the city of Denver and the Denver Police Department’s willingness and ability to provide SROs in our comprehensive high schools once students return from spring break,” it says. “I have been given assurances by Mayor Hancock and [Police] Chief [Ron] Thomas that they will be able to support the safety of our scholars for the remainder of this year and I look forward to continued discussions to allow our students to be safe in our schools.”

The police department is paying the full cost of stationing officers inside schools, said spokesman Schepman. That’s different from the previous arrangement in which DPS and the police department split the cost of SROs. In the 2019-20 school year, DPS paid $720,000 for half the cost of 18 SROs stationed at certain middle and high schools.

The 14 SROs who will be stationed at schools next week will follow the same guidelines and perform the same duties as SROs did in 2020, Schepman said. In the past, DPS and the police department had an intergovernmental agreement detailing those duties.

The agreement for the 2018-19 school year says SROs should differentiate between disciplinary and criminal issues and respond appropriately, and de-escalate incidents whenever possible.

Schepman said that while reassigning 14 officers to be SROs “does pull officers away from typical patrol duties, the department is constantly adjusting the deployment of resources based on data, trends and needs, and adjusting to having SROs in schools is no different.”

Focus on deliberations, not plan

Much of the chatter this week has been about the behind-the-scenes deliberations of the school board in deciding whether to return police to schools, not on the details of the plan to do so.

On Monday, school board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson held a press conference in which he implied the board’s hand was forced by the mayor.

Anderson said Marrero told him and Gaytán before a closed-door executive session on March 23 that Hancock “had an executive order ready to be drafted and declare a public health emergency … to deploy school resource officers back to schools.”

“The decision that you saw was one, responding to the moment, but also preserving the institution of the school board,” Anderson said. “We cannot be a school district where the mayor of Denver is signing executive orders to overhaul our duly elected school board.”

Hancock’s office has denied that the mayor had an executive order ready to go. But The Denver Post reported Thursday that Marrero confirmed that he and Hancock discussed an executive order to put police back in schools following the East shooting.

Two days after Anderson’s press conference, board President Gaytán wrote Anderson a memo alleging he’d violated board policy by divulging information told to the board in its March 23 executive session, among other allegations, according to a copy of the memo obtained by Chalkbeat. Discussions during executive sessions are meant to be confidential.

“Specifically, naming the Mayor’s private communication with the Superintendent regarding the creation of an Executive Order to address school safety,” the memo alleges.

The memo says the school district’s attorney will review the allegations and advise on which ones to move forward for a public discussion among board members. Anderson was previously censured by the board in 2021 for violating expectations of board member behavior after an investigation found he’d had flirtatious contact with students on social media.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Nashville school shooting prompts Capitol protest, and a fresh look at Tennessee gun policies

2023-03-31T02:15:46+00:00

Hundreds of angry protesters, most of them high school students, flooded inside Tennessee’s Capitol Thursday calling for stricter gun laws after an armed intruder killed three children and three adults days earlier at a small private school in Nashville.

Chanting “Save our kids!” and “Not one more!” protesters gathered outside of legislative chambers where lawmakers were in session and could hear the students’ shouts reverberating from the Capitol rotunda.

“I’m terrified,” said 17-year-old Keanna Hoskins, who went to the protest instead of attending school that day. Her message to lawmakers: Legally purchased military-style guns, like the ones used in the Nashville shooting, are “completely outrageous.”

“I want them to do something so schoolchildren aren’t slaughtered,” said the Nashville student, “and I really hope I’m not just yelling for no reason.”

Meanwhile, Lt. Gov. Randy McNally and House Speaker Cameron Sexton expressed openness to a so-called red flag law, which would permit a court to order the temporary removal of firearms from a person believed to present a danger to themselves or others. And Republican Gov. Bill Lee, who has huddled daily with GOP legislative leaders following Monday’s slayings at The Covenant School, is revisiting his administration’s sweeping school safety proposal that focuses on fortifying public schools, according to the bill’s sponsors.

“We absolutely have to focus on all schools now, public or private, wherever a child in Tennessee is attending school,” said House Majority Leader William Lamberth, who is carrying the governor’s proposal in his chamber.

Jade Byers, the governor’s press secretary, said Lee will share more “in the coming days” about new proposed safety measures and funding to pay for them.

Shooting exposed holes in state’s safety policies

It was a dramatic day on Capitol Hill as elected officials acknowledged this week’s mass shooting confounded many elements of Tennessee’s school safety policies and proposals, including the governor’s bill to require all K-12 public schools to keep their exterior doors locked, or risk losing escalating amounts of state funding with each violation. The measure also requires that private security guards receive active shooter training before they’re posted at schools.

At The Covenant School, a private Christian school in Nashville’s affluent Green Hills community, there was no armed security officer on site. The intruder entered by shooting out the glass in a locked side door.

The tragedy occurred just two months after the governor’s annual address identifying school safety as one of his top priorities. And last summer, following a mass shooting at a Texas elementary school, Lee signed an executive order directing school officials and local law enforcement to work together to double down on safety protocols.

But the Covenant shooting, according to 17-year-old Allison McMahan, showed the state’s focus on hardening campuses isn’t enough. Stricter gun laws are needed, too, she said.

“There’s actually a gun shop down the street from my school,” said McMahan, who attends Nashville School for the Arts, a local public magnet school. “I feel so uncomfortable seeing that gun shop as I’m going to school every day. I don’t want guns to be so accessible.”

The protest was organized via social media posts inviting students and parents to rally at the Capitol. More than a thousand people showed up outside for a peaceful demonstration before hundreds moved indoors for several hours. Law enforcement removed some noisy protesters from the Senate chamber’s gallery, where several children held signs that said “I’m nine,” in reference to the age of the three children who were killed.

In the rotunda, where most protesters were milling and chanting, they jeered at adults who, with a police escort, emerged occasionally from legislative chambers to go to a nearby restroom.

A crowd of mostly students chant and hold up signs calling for stricter gun laws in the rotunda of the Tennessee Capitol.

“You can tell we’re being heard, because they’re not looking us in the eyes when they come out,” said a 16-year-old student named Sophia who declined to give her last name.

She said she hoped to “shame” lawmakers into action and added: “They’re supposed to represent us. Even though we can’t vote, we still live in their state. This is our home, too.”

The Covenant School serves about 200 students in preschool to sixth grade. Killed were students Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney; and three school staff members: custodian Mike Hill and substitute teacher Cynthia Peak, both 61, and Katherine Koonce, 60, the head of the school.

Both Peak and Koonce were friends and former co-workers of Gov. Lee’s wife, Maria, a former teacher, when they worked together at another private school, the governor said in a video message to Tennesseans released on Tuesday.

On Wednesday night, Nashville held a citywide vigil, attended by first lady Jill Biden, to remember the victims. And on Thursday, families began to announce funeral plans as the police investigation continued to reveal more about the shooter.

Lawmakers signal openness to red-flag law

Authorities have not identified a clear motive for why Covenant was targeted by a person they identified as Audrey Hale, a former student at the school. Police reported that Hale, who purchased the guns legally, had been under a doctor’s care for an undisclosed “emotional disorder.”

McNally, who leads the Senate, said he would support a red flag law, provided it has safeguards against false reporting.

Sexton said it’s uncertain whether a red flag law could have prevented this week’s attack, but added, “We should be open to any conversation.”

“We need to talk to law enforcement about what tools do they need in those situations where someone is so dire, they’re planning to commit suicide or harm others,” said Sexton, who also wants to look closely at the role of mental institutions in Tennessee.

Democrats, who are significantly outnumbered by Republicans in the legislature, welcomed discussion about ways to lessen the likelihood that a person having a mental health crisis can legally purchase or possess a firearm.

“It’s just common sense,” said Sen. Jeff Yarbro of Nashville, “and doesn’t strike me as infringing on anyone’s rights.”

In an interview with Chalkbeat last summer, the governor said he has “a lot of concerns about red flag laws — not only on issues of mental health but their effectiveness in general.”

Marta W. Aldrich is a senior correspondent who covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

As Nashville reels from school shooting, Tenn. lawmakers consider loosening gun restrictions

2023-03-29T02:42:19+00:00

Nashville teacher Charlene Culbertson arrived at work early Tuesday morning. But she hesitated to walk into the building, a public elementary school not far from the church school where a shooter had killed three children and three adults a day earlier.

“I sat in my car until I felt like I had a good enough mask on to be who my kids expect to see,” said Culbertson, who teaches 20 preschoolers at Shwab Elementary School.

“My little students seem fine today, but I am not,” she said. “This has been a hard day.”

Teachers and students returned to class at Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools after police released chilling video footage overnight showing how a 28-year-old intruder, armed with two rifles and a pistol, shot through a glass door to The Covenant School in Nashville’s affluent Green Hills community.

The shooter, who had legally purchased multiple firearms from five Nashville-area gun stores, entered the school and began firing at students and staff before being killed by a police SWAT team.

Monday’s attack brings the U.S. count to 15 mass school shootings — resulting in the deaths of four or more people — since 1999’s Columbine High School massacre in Colorado, according to The Associated Press.

“Hearing all of this is heartbreaking. We’re scared,” said 16-year-old Jennie Li, who decided to come to a rally at the Capitol with her younger sister, Mary, instead of going to class at the magnet school they attend in downtown Nashville. They wanted their student voices heard.

Tennessee has one of the nation’s highest rates of gun deaths, including murders, suicides and accidental shootings. It also has some of the most permissive gun laws.

In 2021, it enacted a law that lets most Tennesseans 21 and older carry handguns without first clearing a background check, obtaining a permit, or getting trained on firearms safety. “Guns are essentially ubiquitous” in the state, a part of the culture, said Nashville Mayor John Cooper.

And state lawmakers in the Republican-controlled legislature are considering numerous pieces of gun legislation to make firearms even more prevalent.

One bill, sponsored by Sen. John Stevens of Huntingdon and Rep. Rusty Grills of Newbern, would drop that age from 21 to 18. The House version would let people carry rifles and shotguns in public without a permit.

Another bill, sponsored by Sen. Paul Bailey of Sparta and Rep. Ryan Williams of Cookeville, would allow faculty or school staff members to carry a concealed handgun on school grounds with a permit.

Both measures were scheduled for votes Tuesday in various committees but, after Monday’s deadly shooting, legislative leaders delayed taking up any contentious gun-related legislation until next week.

“Yesterday was a tragic event in this country and this state and in Nashville, and we need to be respectful of those victims and the families of those victims,” said Sen. Todd Gardenhire, a Chattanooga Republican who chairs his chamber’s judiciary committee.

Gov. Bill Lee agreed. He signed the controversial law to loosen restrictions for gun ownership and has questioned the effectiveness of red flag laws that would restrict gun access for people who are most likely to misuse them.

“There will come a time to discuss and debate policy,” but not immediately, Lee said in a video message released late Tuesday. He called on Tennesseans first to pray for the families of the victims and the shooter, the school, police, and others “who are hurting and angry and confused.”

Among the hurting is Becca Dryden, a Nashville parent who spoke at a rally outside of legislative offices in downtown Nashville. About a hundred people showed up to the Tuesday event, sponsored by Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, which has a chapter in Tennessee.

“This is a really scary time to be a parent,” Dryden said through tears, “and I just want my kids to live a full life. I want them to live. I want to pick them up from school every day — alive.”

Becca Dryden, a Nashville mother of two children, speaks Tuesday at a rally against gun violence, held outside of the Nashville offices of state legislators who are considering gun legislation. The rally was sponsored by Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.

Amanda Rosenberger, a college professor in Cookeville, said she survived a 1992 school shooting while attending Bard College at Simon’s Rock in Massachusetts — and still carries the trauma with her every day.

“I’m tired of seeing people crying on the television. I’m tired of it,” Rosenberger said. “I don’t want to be one of those people any more. We need to stand up for our kids.”

Linda McFadyen-Ketchum, a retired teacher who leads the advocacy group’s Tennessee chapter, criticized GOP leaders for delaying business on gun legislation. The time to act, she said, is now, while the slayings of 9-year-olds Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney and school staff members Katherine Koonce, Mike Hill, and Cynthia Peak were fresh on everyone’s minds.

“I don’t have any more tears, y’all,” McFadyen-Ketchum told the crowd. “We’ve been crying since Sandy Hook. We’re cried out. We don’t need a day to mourn. We need a day of action.”

On the other side of Nashville, eighth-grade teacher Kelly Ann Graff had lots of tears. She cried on the way to work on Tuesday. To get through the school day, she put her emotions on the back burner and tried to support her students by answering their questions honestly in an age-appropriate way.

But she’s also worried about the well-being of her co-workers at Thurgood Marshall Middle School, as well as educators across the nation who are overworked, underpaid, undersupported, and grappling with the growing threat of gun violence.

The teachers are not OK, she said.

“I’m very afraid of us moving on too quickly from this event,” Graff said. “I’m afraid that prioritizing normalcy will enable this new normal of mass school shootings. This shooting hit close to home, and that’s a fact that we need to sit with.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

As Colorado reels from another school shooting, study finds 1 in 4 teens have quick access to guns

2023-03-27T23:24:23+00:00

This story originally appeared in Kaiser Health News and is republished with permission.

One in four Colorado teens reported they could get access to a loaded gun within 24 hours, according to survey results published Monday. Nearly half of those teens said it would take them less than 10 minutes.

“That’s a lot of access and those are short periods of time,” said Virginia McCarthy, a doctoral candidate at the Colorado School of Public Health and the lead author of the research letter describing the findings in the medical journal JAMA Pediatrics.

The results come as Coloradans are reeling from yet another school shooting. On March 22, a 17-year-old student shot and wounded two school administrators at East High School in Denver. Police later found his body in the mountains west of Denver in Park County and confirmed he had died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Another East High student was fatally shot in February while sitting in his car outside the school.

The time it takes to access a gun matters, McCarthy said, particularly for suicide attempts, which are often impulsive decisions for teens. In research studying people who have attempted suicide, nearly half said the time between ideation and action was less than 10 minutes. Creating barriers to easy access, such as locking up guns and storing them unloaded, extends the time before someone can act on an impulse, and increases the likelihood that they will change their mind or that someone will intervene.

“The hope is to understand access in such a way that we can increase that time and keep kids as safe as possible,” McCarthy said.

The data McCarthy used comes from the Healthy Kids Colorado Study, a survey conducted every two years with a random sampling of 41,000 students in middle and high school. The 2021 survey asked, “How long would it take you to get and be ready to fire a loaded gun without a parent’s permission?”

American Indian students in Colorado reported the greatest access to a loaded gun, at 39%, including 18% saying they could get one within 10 minutes, compared with 12% of everybody surveyed. American Indian and Native Alaskan youths also have the highest rates of suicide.

Nearly 40% of students in rural areas reported having access to firearms, compared with 29% of city residents.

The findings were released at a particularly tense moment in youth gun violence in Colorado. Earlier this month, hundreds of students left their classrooms and walked nearly 2 miles to the state Capitol to advocate for gun legislation and safer schools. The students returned to confront lawmakers again last week in the aftermath of the March 22 high school shooting.

The state legislature is considering a handful of bills to prevent gun violence, including raising the minimum age to purchase or possess a gun to 21; establishing a three-day waiting period for gun purchases; limiting legal protections for gun manufacturers and sellers; and expanding the pool of who can file for extreme risk protection orders to have guns removed from people deemed a threat to themselves or others.

According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, firearms became the leading cause of death among those ages 19 or younger in 2020, supplanting motor vehicle deaths. And firearm deaths among children increased during the pandemic, with an average of seven children a day dying because of a firearm incident in 2021.

Colorado has endured a string of school shootings over the past 25 years, including at Columbine High School in 1999, Platte Canyon High School in 2006, Arapahoe High School in 2013, and the STEM School Highlands Ranch in 2019.

Although school shootings receive more attention, the majority of teen gun deaths are suicides.

“Youth suicide is starting to become a bigger problem than it ever has been,” said Dr. Paul Nestadt, a researcher at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions.

“Part of that has to do with the fact that there’s more and more guns that are accessible to youth.”

While gun ownership poses a higher risk of suicide among all age groups, teens are particularly vulnerable, because their brains typically are still developing impulse control.

“A teen may be bright and know how to properly handle a firearm, but that same teen in a moment of desperation may act impulsively without thinking through the consequences,” said Dr. Shayla Sullivant, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Children’s Mercy Kansas City. “The decision-making centers of the brain are not fully online until adulthood.”

Previous research has shown a disconnect between parents and their children about access to guns in their homes. A 2021 study found that 70% of parents who own firearms said their children could not get their hands on the guns kept at home. But 41% of kids from those same families said they could get to those guns within two hours.

“Making the guns inaccessible doesn’t just mean locking them. It means making sure the kid doesn’t know where the keys are or can’t guess the combination,” said Catherine Barber, a senior researcher at the Harvard University T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Injury Control Research Center, who was not involved in the study. “Parents can forget how easily their kids can guess the combination or watch them input the numbers or notice where the keys are kept.”

If teens have their own guns for hunting or sport, those, too, should be kept under parental control when the guns are not actively being used, she said.

The Colorado researchers now plan to dig further to find out where teens are accessing guns in hopes of tailoring prevention strategies to different groups of students.

“Contextualizing these data a little bit further will help us better understand types of education and prevention that can be done,” McCarthy said.

Shooter kills 3 children, 3 adults at Nashville private church school

2023-03-28T19:48:51+00:00

A person armed with multiple guns killed three children and three adults at a private Christian school in Nashville Monday morning before being fatally shot by police.

As details of the police investigation and images emerged Tuesday, school families and local leaders were still trying to piece together what happened, a task familiar to a growing number of U.S. communities that have faced the tragedy of a school shooting.

The three student victims at The Covenant School were young, all 9 years old, authorities said. One of three adult victims was Katherine Koonce, the head of school. The others were a custodian and a substitute teacher.

While school shootings in the United States have increased in the last two decades, they are rare at private schools. Sarah Wilson, executive director of the Tennessee Association of Independent Schools, which represents private schools, said she believed this was the first shooting at a private school in Tennessee.

Tennessee’s efforts to improve school security have largely focused on public schools rather than private ones and generally emphasize fortifying school campuses rather than reducing the number of firearms.

Brad Goia, director of independent schools for the Nashville Area, called the shooting a “horrible tragedy.”

“It has devastated all of us because, first and foremost, we are heartbroken for Covenant,” said Goia, who is also headmaster of Montgomery Bell Academy, an elite all-boys college prep school in Nashville. “The suffering that the Covenant community is feeling also heightens the ways that all of us are vulnerable, that the unthinkable can happen anywhere.”

Nashville is perceived as a relatively safe place, Goia said, “but these events reshape our view of the world.”

The Covenant School was founded in 2001 as a ministry of Covenant Presbyterian Church. The campus sits atop a hill in an affluent part of Nashville known as Green Hills and is the educational home to some 200 students in preschool to sixth grade. Students have Bible classes and attend daily chapel services.

The school’s motto: “shepherding hearts, empowering minds, celebrating childhood.”

Police responded to a call at 10:13 a.m. about an active shooter at the school. Identified by police as 28-year-old Nashville resident Audrey Elizabeth Hale, the shooter came to the campus armed with two rifles, a 9-millimeter pistol, and “significant” ammunition for the firearms, police said.

Police said the shooter entered the school through a side door after shooting out the glass, then proceeded to the first and second floors, firing multiple shots before being fatally shot by the police on the second floor.

Drake said police believe the shooter fired at students at random. The student victims who were fatally shot were in several locations.

Police identified the student victims as Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney. The adults killed were Cynthia Peak and Mike Hill, both 61, and Koonce, 60, the school’s leader.

Nashville Mayor John Cooper praised the police response.

“Guns are quick, they don’t give you much time,” Cooper said. “So even in a remarkably fast response, there was not enough time. And those guns stole precious lives from us today in Nashville.”

Drake, the police chief, said, “I was hoping this day would never ever come here in this city, but we will never wait to make entry to go in and stop a threat, especially when it deals with our children.”

Children from The Covenant School arrive in school buses at Woodmont Baptist Church to be reunited with their families after Monday’s shooting.

Shooter was a former student at the school

Police initially described the shooter as a woman. But the shooter’s gender identity was unclear, given some conflicting statements from authorities. According to The Tennessean, police released the shooter’s birth name, and said that the person used he/him pronouns.

The shooter previously attended the school, police said, but it is unclear when or for how long. Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake said Monday afternoon that the shooter did not have a criminal history and that it was too early to describe a motive for the shooting.

Police searched the shooter’s home and found writings and documents planning the attack, including a map and plans for entering and shooting. The notes included additional locations, but police couldn’t confirm whether any of the locations were planned targets.

The three weapons that were brought into the school were among seven that the shooter had purchased legally from five different Nashville-area gun stores, Drake said in a briefing Tuesday.

Gov. Lee’s safety bill focuses on public schools

Gov. Bill Lee, who tweeted that he was “closely monitoring” the situation and praying for the community, identified school safety as one of his top priorities during his 2023 address to Tennesseans. His proposals so far have mostly focused on beefing up security protocols at public schools.

Recently, Lee proposed a sweeping school safety bill, requiring all K-12 public schools to keep their exterior doors locked, or risk losing escalating amounts of state funding with each violation.

Despite having one of the nation’s highest rates of gun deaths, Tennessee has enacted numerous laws under Lee’s leadership to loosen requirements for gun ownership. In 2021, he signed a law allowing most Tennesseans 21 and older to carry handguns without first clearing a background check, obtaining a permit, or getting trained on firearms safety.

This year, however, the governor’s administration has opposed several new bills from Republican lawmakers who want to loosen those regulations even further.

At the White House on Monday, President Joe Biden called the shooting “a family’s worst nightmare” and called again for a federal ban on “assault” weapons, a term that’s used to describe certain military-style semi-automatic firearms.

“We have to do more to stop gun violence; it’s ripping our communities apart — ripping the soul of this nation,” Biden said. “And we have to do more to protect our schools, so they aren’t turned into prisons.”

Shooting rattles a tight community

State Rep. Bob Freeman, a Nashville Democrat whose district includes the Covenant School, said that in a small city like Nashville, it is inevitable for many residents to have connections to Covenant’s children and families.

Freeman said he heard Monday from one school family who found out their child was safe but knew two of the children who died.

“And tonight, families across Nashville and our state are going to have to have some tough conversations with their children trying to explain why this has happened and to assure them that they are safe at school,” he said.

Claire Walker, a second-grade teacher at another private Christian school nearby, felt anguish as she pushed her newborn son in a stroller past the entrance to The Covenant School, where some Nashvillians had already begun to place bouquets of flowers in memory of the victims.

“We have many good friends whose kids go here, and my heart has been with them all day,” said Walker, who had just seen the list of victims and found no names of children she recognized.

“But they’re other people’s kids,” she added quickly, “and they were just 9 years old.”

Before landing her current job, Walker had interviewed for a teaching position at The Covenant School and had even toured the school with Koonce, the headmaster who was among the adult victims. “She was sweet,” said Walker, shaking her head in disbelief.

“I’ve got a 7-week-old and a 20-month-old, and it’s terrifying to think that they’re going to be in school in a couple of years,” Walker said.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Laura Testino covers the Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Bureau Chief Tonyaa Weathersbee oversees Chalkbeat Tennessee’s education coverage. Contact her at tweathersbee@chalkbeat.org.

Policía regresa a escuelas de Denver

2023-03-24T22:34:56+00:00

Read in English.

La junta escolar de Denver suspendió su política que prohíbe la presencia de agentes armados en los campus.

La decisión se produjo un día después del tiroteo contra dos administradores en la Denver East High School. Después de una sesión a puertas cerradas, la junta ordenó al superintendente Alex Marrero que trabajara con el alcalde de Denver, Michael Hancock, y otros funcionarios para buscar financiamiento externo para hasta dos policías y hasta dos profesionales de la salud mental en cada escuela secundaria durante el resto del año escolar.

Los miembros de la junta escolar enfatizaron que el cambio es temporal. Sin embargo, lo decidido va más allá de lo que solicitó Marrero el día de la tragedia. El superintendente dijo que colocaría un oficial en cada escuela secundaria, incluso si violaba la política de la junta.

La decisión se tomó el mismo día en que estudiantes y maestros marcharon hacia el Capitolio y presionaron a los legisladores para que aprueben leyes más estrictas sobre el control de armas. Los maestros también saldrán a la calle para manifestar sobre este tema.

Marrero dijo que devolver a los policías a las escuelas es la decisión correcta. “Nosotros, los educadores, llegamos a esta profesión para apoyar y ayudar a los estudiantes a prosperar y, lo que es más importante, brindarles la oportunidad de tener éxito”, dijo Marrero luego de conocer la decisión de la junta escolar. “Reconozco que hemos fallado como distrito”.

Hancock dijo que apoyaba la decisión de la junta y estaba listo para ayudar a colocar oficiales en los edificios escolares.

¿Qué pasará después de junio 2023?

La decisión unánime de la junta suspende la prohibición de oficiales hasta junio. En su lugar, la junta ordenó a Marrero que elabore un plan a largo plazo para proteger a los estudiantes y al personal de las escuelas de Denver antes del 30 de junio.

La presidenta de la junta, Xóchitl Gaytán, dijo que la junta no ha cambiado de posición, sino que ha hecho una pausa para que Marrero elabore un plan de seguridad a largo plazo. La junta ordenó a Marrero que incluyera en su plan los aportes de los estudiantes, los padres, el líder escolar, los maestros y la comunidad.

La junta solicita que todos los oficiales de policía colocados en la escuela reciban capacitación sobre cómo reducir las situaciones y en la vigilancia escolar. La junta también quiere que esos oficiales comprendan la comunidad escolar donde serán colocados.

Marrero también deberá brindar actualizaciones mensuales sobre cómo se utilizan los agentes de policía dentro de las escuelas, incluida la cantidad de multas emitidas y arrestos realizados. La junta quiere estar segura de que los agentes de policía no se involucren en la disciplina de los estudiantes.

Personal de la escuela manejará búsqueda de armas

No está claro cómo el hecho de tener oficiales en el edificio habría cambiado el resultado de la tragedia ocurrida en la Denver East High School. O si los oficiales hubiesen podido prevenir los disparos a los estudiantes en las afueras de esta escuela secundaria en septiembre 2022 y febrero 2023.

Los dos administradores recibieron disparos mientras registraban a un estudiante en busca de armas como parte de un plan de seguridad individual que requería cacheos diarios.

El jefe de policía de Denver, Ron Thomas, dijo que no querría que sus oficiales hicieran tales búsquedas porque los oficiales de recursos escolares quieren tener interacciones positivas con los estudiantes. Marrero confirmó que el personal de la escuela seguirá realizando estas búsquedas.

Eso sorprende a Mo Canady, director ejecutivo de la Asociación Nacional de Oficiales de Recursos Escolares. Los oficiales no necesitan órdenes de cateo o causa probable para registrar a los estudiantes, solo una sospecha razonable.

Jason Gonzales es reportero que cubre temas de educación superior y la legislatura de Colorado. Chalkbeat Colorado trabaja con Open Campus en la cobertura de temas de educación superior. Para comunicarte con Jason, envíale un mensaje a jgonzales@chalkbeat.org.

Erica Meltzer cubre temas de política educativa, y supervisa la cobertura de educación de Chalkbeat Colorado. Comunícate con Erica enviándole un mensaje a emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Denver schools are bringing back police. Other places in the U.S. already have.

2023-03-23T23:29:35+00:00

When a Denver teen shot and injured two school administrators on Wednesday, it marked the third time this year that gun violence had rocked East High, the city’s largest high school.

For the schools superintendent, it signaled the need for a dramatic shift in district policy: the return of police at comprehensive high schools for the remainder of the school year.

“I can no longer stand on the sidelines,” Alex Marrero wrote in a letter to the school board, which voted in 2020 to remove police from schools. The city’s mayor quickly backed the decision, and even a local group long opposed to police in schools acknowledged that acts of violence “force hard conversations.” On Thursday, the school board agreed to temporarily lift its ban on school police.

The turnabout in Denver echoes recent decisions to bring back school police by a few other districts across the U.S. In some cases, as in Denver, these debates are coming to a head after a shooting or other act of violence on campus erodes support.

Many other districts have stayed the course. But with more communities nationwide facing upticks in gun violence, and in a moment with far less political attention being paid to racism and policing, it remains unclear if changes elsewhere will be walked back.

“It makes sense that communities are really struggling following incidents like this — they are traumatic and scary,” said Katherine Dunn of The Advancement Project, a nonprofit that has advocated for the removal of police from schools. Bringing back police can be a quick, visible way for school leaders to demonstrate they are being reactive in a moment of crisis. “Every time this happens,” she said, policing is “the one thing that we know to go back to and try again.”

School leaders, families, students, and community groups have long wrestled with what role police should play in schools.

School shootings have prompted schools to add guards and police in an effort to stop future violence, though their track record is mixed. By 2019, just over half of U.S. schools had at least one armed officer present, according to a federal survey. But having police in school has also been shown to increase arrests and suspensions, with Black students most likely to be arrested at school and less likely to feel safer when police were around.

According to a tracker compiled by Education Week, at least 50 school districts eliminated school police or significantly reduced their school policing budgets from May 2020 through June 2022, following the murder of George Floyd and the ensuing racial justice protests of 2020.

Denver was one of several school districts that removed or scaled back the presence of school police during that period. The district canceled its contract with the city’s police department and officers were removed from schools by June 2021.

Eight districts ended up bringing back school police, EdWeek found, at least three of which reversed course in response to shootings or the presence of weapons at or near schools.

These debates are often complicated and play out differently depending on the community.

Some in Denver were questioning whether the school district should revisit its relationship with the police even before this week’s tragedy.

In Portland, Oregon, where the school district removed police from schools in 2020, the mayor said in December that talks were in the works to possibly bring officers back after students were shot outside two different high schools.

Montgomery County schools in Maryland brought back police following a shooting at a high school in January 2022 that injured a student.

And Alexandria City schools in Virginia temporarily reinstated police following several student fights and an incident in which a student had a handgun outside the city’s high school. The debate continued after a student was stabbed to death outside the same school. In January, an advisory group ultimately recommended that the district keep police in schools, in part to show families the district was taking those violent incidents seriously.

In those cases, police returned with some new requirements in place. Montgomery County, for example, limited which incidents police could get involved in, while Alexandria is poised to require that school police receive de-escalation training.

Elsewhere, changes have stuck. In Los Angeles, the district cut its policing budget by more than a third and reinvested that money into an initiative to boost Black student achievement. That includes hiring hundreds of new social workers, counselors, and other staff for schools that enroll large percentages of Black students. Some students have reported feeling more relaxed seeing those mental health staffers on campus instead of police.

“I feel like a big part of their purpose is to help you feel comfortable in your skin,” one 16-year-old student told Capital B.

Still, conversations about the future of school police are ongoing in lots of places. In Washington D.C., where the city has been shrinking its school police force, the mayor tried and failed to reverse the measure last year and is set to try again. In Chicago, decisions are being made at the school level, and 40 schools will decide whether to continue having police on campus in the next few months.

In Denver, the board suspended its policy prohibiting police in schools through the end of June. It also directed the superintendent to engage with students, families, and teachers, and to seek funding for additional mental health staff.

Dunn says while many schools have experimented with removing police, they have a longer way to go to figure out how to staff and fund alternatives to police.

“The systems transformation that is required to actually have schools be safe places — I don’t really see that happening,” she said.

Sarah Darville contributed reporting.

Kalyn Belsha is a national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Denver board lifts ban on police on campus

2023-03-24T01:33:55+00:00

Leer en español.

The Denver school board on Thursday suspended its policy banning armed officers on campuses, a day after the shooting of two administrators at East High School.

After a closed session, the board directed Superintendent Alex Marrero to work with Denver Mayor Michael Hancock and other officials to seek outside funding for up to two police officers and up to two mental health professionals at each high school for the rest of the school year.

Even as board members emphasized the change is temporary, it goes further than Marrero requested on Wednesday, when he said he would place one officer at every comprehensive high school even if it violated board policy.

The decision came on the same day students and teachers marched to the Capitol and lobbied lawmakers for stricter gun control laws. Another teacher rally is planned for Friday.

Marrero said placing police officers back into schools is the right decision.

“We educators came into this profession to support and help students thrive, and most importantly, provide them an opportunity to succeed,” Marrero said during a Thursday news conference. “I acknowledge that we have failed as a district.”

In a written statement, Hancock said he supported the board decision and stood ready to help place officers in school buildings.

The board’s unanimous decision puts its officer ban on hold until June. In its place, the board directed Marrero to come up with a long-term plan to protect students and staff in Denver schools by June 30.

Board President Xóchitl Gaytán said the board hasn’t flip-flopped in its position, but instead has hit pause for Marrero to come up with a long-term safety plan.

The board directed Marrero to include student, parent, school leader, teacher, and community input in his plan.

The board requests that every police officer placed in school be trained in how to de-escalate situations and in school policing. The board also wants those officers to have an understanding of the school community where they will be placed.

Marrero also will be required to give monthly updates on how police officers are used within schools, including the number of tickets issued and arrests made, and to ensure that police officers do not get involved in student discipline.

Police officers primarily will be on school campuses to assist in safety issues, including to reduce the amount of time it takes to respond to an emergency, Marrero said. He said he also wanted to be responsive to community concerns.

School staff will continue to handle weapons searches

It’s not clear how having officers in the building would have changed the outcome Wednesday or when East students were shot just outside the school in September and again in February.

The two administrators were shot as they searched a student for weapons as part of an individual safety plan that required daily pat-downs. On Wednesday, Denver Police Chief Ron Thomas said he wouldn’t want his officers to do such searches because school resource officers want to have positive interactions with students.

And on Thursday, Marrero said it will continue to be district policy to have staff do these searches.

That surprises Mo Canady, executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers. Officers don’t need search warrants or probable cause to search students at school, just a reasonable suspicion, he said, and they have the training to remove weapons safely.

“I am continually stunned when a civilian is charged with having to search someone for a weapon,” he said. “That’s not fair to do. That’s a law enforcement role, that’s what we’re trained to do, and we know how to handle the gun if one is found.”

But Denver Classroom Teacher Association President Rob Gould, a former special education teacher who was involved in many student safety plans, said he considers this a job for educators, not law enforcement.

“A lot of parents are shocked that we have to do this, but this is a daily thing for many students,” Gould said.

Denver not the only district bringing police back

Denver was one of at least 50 school districts nationwide to get rid of or significantly reduce police presence in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, according to an Education Week tracker. Eight others have since brought police back — sometimes, like Denver, in response to specific acts of violence.

Gould said he supports bringing officers back to schools for now, and many educators agree.

“Right now people need to feel safe,” he said. “Everybody is traumatized and retraumatized from the events of yesterday.”

That sentiment was echoed by many Denver students who left their classrooms to walk to the Capitol and call for stricter gun control laws.

“For the rest of the year, I don’t think I can imagine school a place where I can feel safe to learn again,” said Lila Port, 17, an East High School junior.

Others were more skeptical. East High School junior Linus Cole, 16, said unarmed, specially trained staff members would be more appropriate.

“We don’t need law enforcement sending students to jail for small crimes because that’s also not going to help,” he said.

Canady said that when schools bring police into schools, it’s critical to have a memorandum of understanding that lays out roles, responsibilities, and expectations, that the police department pick officers who want the assignment and have a good temperament for working with kids, and that they be well trained.

The research on the impacts of school resource officers is limited, said Franci Crepau-Hobson, a University of Colorado Denver professor who studies violence prevention, in part because there is such range in the roles and training of officers stationed in schools that it’s hard to draw comparisons or conclusions.

Research has found correlations between having officers in school buildings and more Black and brown students getting suspended, Crepau-Hobson said. In Denver, student referrals to law enforcement have declined since school resource officers were removed at the end of the 2020-21 school year — one goal of the previous policy change.

The idea that officers might deter violence just by their presence — something many parents and teachers have hoped — is hard to measure, Crepau-Hobson said.

“In some contexts, SROs can increase a sense of safety and security with kids, and in some cases it’s the opposite,” she said. “And when kids don’t feel safe, sometimes they do stupid things. It’s not a one-size-fits-all.”

Students rally for gun control

On Thursday morning, hundreds of students from the Denver area crowded into the State Capitol building to demand lawmakers take action after the shooting, including passing a package of gun control measures that are under consideration.

They joined teachers from the Colorado Education Association, the state teachers union, who have thrown their support behind the gun control measures and who also want more funding for mental health resources in schools.

East High School senior Abigail Niebauer said she wanted to look lawmakers in the eye and share how much fear students feel when a school goes into lockdown.

Niebauer was inside the building on Wednesday’s lockdown following the shooting. She was also nearby when Luis Garcia was shot outside the building in February. Garcia died almost two weeks later.

“We don’t want to sit back and feel powerless in this situation,” Niebauer said. “We want to continue to do as much as we can to make change. Even if we’re young kids, we think our voices speak loud.”

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Denver cancels classes Friday for mental health day after East High shooting

2023-03-23T20:19:09+00:00

Denver Public Schools has called a mental health day Friday, with no classes for students and no work for teachers, in the wake of the shooting of two administrators at East High School.

“As we learn more about the developments coming out of the shooting that took place at East High School yesterday, I want to extend my heartfelt apologies to the East High School community, and the larger DPS community,” Marrero wrote in an email to parents. “No student or employee should have to carry the fear of potential violence when they walk into our buildings each day.”

Marrero said canceling classes would allow the community to “take a moment to pause and process the challenging events this year.” Among those, he cited a recent data breach that exposed personal information of school employees and students.

Friday would have been the last day of classes before Denver spring break next week. Teachers were planning a “Sick for Safety” march to the Capitol Friday. Classes had already been canceled at East for the rest of the week after Wednesday’s shooting and lockdown.

Police say two administrators were shot as they searched 17-year-old Austin Lyle for weapons Wednesday morning. Lyle fled and was found dead in Park County southwest of Denver that evening. Lyle had previously been expelled from the Cherry Creek School District.

On Thursday, students from many Denver schools left class and marched to the Capitol to call for better gun control. A number of bills, including one raising the age to purchase firearms and another expanding who can request that guns be removed from people who are a danger to themselves and others, are moving through the Colorado legislature.

Also on Thursday, the Denver school board voted unanimously to return police to high school campuses, suspending a policy they adopted in 2020 in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

After East High shooting, Denver superintendent commits to return police to comprehensive high schools

2023-03-23T01:09:10+00:00

Denver Superintendent Alex Marrero said he will have an armed officer at each of the district’s comprehensive high schools for the rest of the school year.

In a letter to school board members sent Wednesday, hours after a student shot two deans at East High School, Marrero wrote that he is “committing to having an armed officer at each comprehensive high school,” and two at East.

Marrero acknowledged that the move likely violates school board policy and said he was willing to accept the consequences. In an unsigned joint statement issued a few hours later, Denver school board members said they support Marrero working more closely with law enforcement. The statement did not directly address his announced policy change.

The Denver school board voted in 2020 to remove police officers known as school resource officers, or SROs, from schools.

That directive was enshrined in a policy that mandates the superintendent “not staff district schools with school resource officers or the consistent presence of security armed with guns or any other law enforcement personnel.”

“However, I can no longer stand on the sidelines,” Marrero wrote in a letter obtained by Chalkbeat and confirmed as accurate by a district spokesperson. “I am willing to accept the consequences of my actions.”

In their statement, school board members said they support Marrero and asked the community to rally around the employees, students, and families affected by the shooting.

“The Board of Education supports the decision of Superintendent Marrero to work in partnership with local law enforcement to create safer learning spaces across Denver Public Schools for the remainder of this school year,” the board wrote. “In addition we will continue to work collaboratively with our community partners including law enforcement and our local and state legislature to make our community safer.”

The school board is responsible for hiring and firing the superintendent. Marrero was hired to lead Denver Public Schools in June 2021, after the school board voted to oust SROs.

Denver Mayor Michael Hancock said in a statement Wednesday evening that he supports the decision to return police to schools and has directed the chief to “deploy our officers accordingly in coordination with the school district.”

A Denver community group long critical of police in schools acknowledged in its own statement that “these instances force hard conversations.”

Movimiento Poder, formerly known as Padres y Jóvenes Unidos, said “we will continue fostering real, long-term solutions that solve our gun crisis and make our classrooms a safe place for students of all backgrounds.”

Marrero noted in his letter that Wednesday was the fourth time he’d visited Denver Health hospital’s intensive care unit “due to victims of gun violence.”

“These events should not have happened on my watch or on this board’s watch,” he wrote.

Marrero pledged to have “ongoing discussions” with principals at each high school “to understand their continuing need and desire for this resource,” referring to SROs.

He also requested that he and the board have a conversation Thursday in a closed-door session with select staff.

“It is important we find common ground and ensure our students and staff are safe and find alignment of our existing values,” Marrero wrote.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

East High shooting prompts fear, frustration, and calls for action in Denver

2023-03-23T12:45:26+00:00

Two administrators at Denver’s East High School were shot Wednesday morning as they searched a student for weapons, shaking a school community already reeling from gun violence and prompting a sweeping policy change from the district superintendent.

It was the third shooting this school year to touch Denver’s largest high school but the first to happen inside the building. The shooting sent the school’s dean of culture and its restorative practices coordinator to the hospital, where one was in serious condition Wednesday evening.

Late Wednesday, authorities in Park County reported that a body had been found in the woods near a vehicle that police had connected to the student suspected in the shooting. Overnight, the Park County Coroner’s Office confirmed it was 17-year-old Austin Lyle.

In the aftermath of the shooting, students and teachers endured another lockdown, parents another stressful rush to City Park, where they gathered across the street from East High School and searched for their children’s faces among the students released in twos and threes and hugged them fiercely.

The shooting may also have shifted the conversation about police in Denver schools.

In a letter to the school board Wednesday, Superintendent Alex Marrero said he plans to return armed police officers to all of Denver’s comprehensive high schools for the rest of the school year, stationing two at East. The board voted in 2020 to remove all police from Denver schools.

“I can no longer stand on the sidelines,” Marrero wrote in the letter.

In a separate statement hours later, the school board said it supports the superintendent.

Students leave Denver’s East High School after a shooting there on Wednesday, March 22, 2023.

The shooting happened at about 9:50 a.m. Wednesday while two East staff members — identified by the district as Eric Sinclair and Jerald Mason — were alone in a front office with a male student whom the police later identified as Lyle.

The staff members were searching Lyle as part of a safety plan put in place by the school, Marrero and Denver Police Chief Ron Thomas said at a press conference outside East with Denver Mayor Michael Hancock.

Lyle fled the scene and was believed to be armed, according to police, who were looking for him on suspicion of attempted homicide. Authorities in Park County, southwest of Denver, reported discovering a vehicle connected to Lyle near the town of Bailey, then a few hours later announced the body had been found.

Lyle previously attended Overland High School in the suburban Cherry Creek school district. District spokeswoman Abbe Smith said he was disciplined and removed from that school last year. Smith said she could not release more information. Citing unnamed law enforcement sources, CBS 4 reported that Lyle was on probation for a previous weapons offense.

Students have safety plans for a variety of reasons, including because they’re at risk of injuring themselves or because they’ve made threats, a district spokesperson said. Marrero said federal student privacy laws prevent him from disclosing why this student had a safety plan.

Thomas said the student’s plan involved being searched at the beginning of every day. Previous searches of this student at school had not turned up any weapons, he said.

Sinclair, the school’s dean of culture, was in serious condition Wednesday evening following surgery, according to a Denver Health hospital spokesperson. Mason, the school’s restorative practices coordinator, had been released from the hospital, the spokesperson said.

Paramedics were inside East when the shooting happened, treating a student who’d had an allergic reaction, and they began treating the shooting victims immediately, police said.

School will be canceled the rest of the week at East, Marrero said. Next week is spring break.

Denver police and paramedics converged on Denver’s East High Wednesday after two deans were shot while searching a student for weapons. The shooting may have shifted the conversation about police in Denver schools.

East students and parents are fearful, frustrated

Freshman students Lydia Nelson-Gardner and Laurel McMahon said they were in the auditorium for an assembly put on by the Latin Student Alliance when a dean came in and whispered to a teacher that the school was in lockdown.

The student who was performing finished their song, and then the students sat in the auditorium being quiet for about 10 minutes before being sent to their third-period classrooms. Students who would have been on the first floor went instead to the school library, they said, where they stayed about an hour and a half before being released.

They turned to Twitter and group texts to try to figure out what had happened.

What has it been like to experience so many shootings and lockdowns in a single school year? “It sucks,” McMahon said.

The girls said that they don’t feel afraid for their own safety but that the events add a layer of stress to every school day. They aren’t sure what would help, though. Metal detectors, maybe, but not police, they said.

“That’s not going to help,” Nelson-Gardner said. McMahon said it’s been “freaky” to have armed officers around the school since the February shooting that killed 16-year-old East High student Luis Garcia, and it doesn’t make her feel safer.

Sophomore Davianna Carter was outside the school when the shooting happened. The 16-year-old said it’s not just that her school feels unsafe, “it is unsafe. School is supposed to be the safest place to be.” But Carter said it’s not anymore.

Hundreds of parents gathered in City Park on the north side of East High. They talked in small groups about how done they were, how tired they were, of the threats and shootings and lockdowns.

“Get the police back in school,” said one woman who did not want to give her name as she loaded her children into a minivan. “That’s all I can say.”

Another woman said she didn’t want to do an interview because nobody listens to parents anyway. She asked why the mayor talked to the media but not to parents.

Samantha Lindstrom said her 18-year-old son, a senior, tries to hide how he feels but she can tell this school year has taken a toll.

“Therapy is needing to happen for so many of these kids,” she said. And as a parent, “It’s stressful, it’s frustrating, it’s ridiculous, it’s sad. It’s all of that.”

Lindstrom said she’d like to see metal detectors at the school and added that “we need to refresh the school board.” She hasn’t seen them take any action to make schools safer, and she reluctantly has reached the conclusion that police should return to Denver schools.

“We shouldn’t have to worry about our kids,” she said. “We should be worried about their grades, not them being killed.”

East High students comfort each other after laying flowers in memory of student Luis Garcia.

Deans are ‘heroes’ but shouldn’t have to be, teacher says

Even if police officers hadn’t been removed from Denver schools, Thomas said an officer wouldn’t necessarily have been the one to search the student per his safety plan because “we don’t want to have negative interactions with the students.”

School board President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán said the board will hold a press conference Thursday in place of its regularly scheduled meeting. Marrero has also asked for a closed session to talk about safety policy. Gaytán said board members are talking about gathering feedback from students, parents, and other community members about school safety.

“There’s a lot of conversation we want to have with community to hear what their needs and wants are,” Gaytán said.

East High students have been decrying gun violence since the fall, when a student was shot in the face near a recreation center next to the school in September. Five months later, Garcia was shot outside the school. Two days after he died from his injuries, hundreds of East students rallied at the state Capitol chanting “No more silence! End gun violence!”

A week later, a group of East students held a summit with local officials. Many officials said part of the problem is that young people are able to access unsecured guns too easily.

When the students asked Marrero and Thomas if police should have a larger presence at schools, both said that answer should come from the students themselves.

“If the youth and the parents of these youth that are going to these schools feel like the solution to having safer schools is to have officers in those schools, then certainly that’s something I will comply with, certainly with the school board’s direction,” Thomas said at the forum. “But I don’t think that the police are the only solution.”

Earlier this school year, Marrero called gun violence his top concern. District data shows the number of guns found at schools or confiscated from students is rising, from two guns in the 2018-19 school year, before the pandemic, to 13 guns last year.

As of Feb. 15, six months into this school year, the district’s department of safety had already recovered 10 guns inside schools, a district spokesperson said.

Andy Bucher, an English teacher at East High, said the school’s deans have been “heroes,” in one case even talking a student into handing over a gun, but they should not have to do the job alone. He hopes school resource officers, as the police officers stationed in schools are called, would serve as a deterrent and allow school staff to focus on their jobs.

Deans were among the first people on scene both times students were shot near East, he said.

“They saw things they shouldn’t see, that belong on a warfront in Ukraine, and they are seeing them on 17th and Esplanade and they are seeing them in the dean’s office,” he said.

Bucher was in a social room overlooking the giant red “E” on the Esplanade outside East working with a student on an essay when the first emergency vehicle arrived. They said little to each other as more and more police and ambulances arrived and the school went on lockdown. It didn’t feel like there was much to say.

Bucher recalled how on Monday, the school had celebrated the state basketball championship with a pep rally and dunk contest.

“We’re a school that’s relevant and that’s having success, and we’re pining for those high school experiences of going to prom and all that,” he said. “Instead we’re putting flowers on the E and having moments of silence and navigating the legalese of what can be said and not be said.

“We love our school, and it’s been hard and heavy.”

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Ski day helps Aspen Community School students cope with recent false shooting threats

2023-03-17T16:30:00+00:00

This story originally aired on Aspen Public Radio and is republished with permission.

After a string of school threats over the last month and a half, many students, teachers and families in the valley have been on edge.

The three false threats each happened on a Wednesday morning and schools were bracing themselves for the possibility of another one last week.

A threat didn’t materialize last week, but instead of waiting to find out whether they’d have to secure their buildings yet again, teachers and administrators at the Aspen Community School decided to do something different.

So on the morning of Wednesday, March 8, over a hundred K-8 students gathered for a day of cross-country skiing at the Snowmass Nordic Center.

After students and teachers took a few laps on the trails, ACS principal Casey White called a brief all-school meeting.

“So last Wednesday, you guys probably remember we had an all-school meeting and then shortly after you got the message that we were going to secure the building again,” she said to students and staff. “And you know what I noticed? The kindergarteners were already out cross-country skiing. And all of a sudden an idea hit, ‘Maybe we should all do that.’”

White ran the idea by her staff first, and then alerted families and local law enforcement that they would be doing a school ski day.

“So one week later here we are, we are all out cross-country skiing because you have been so powerful in being able to stay calm and to help us through times that we don’t really know what’s coming next,” she said. “So thank you for coming out here.”

Out on the trails, fourth-grade student Kai Waanders was skiing with a few of his classmates.

“It’s amazing that we get to be out here instead of being inside a school all locked up like the last few Wednesdays,” he said. “It was kind of surprising and a little scary to have such a surprise — it hasn’t happened once last year or the year before.”

While some schools in the area received direct threats and had to go into full lockdowns, the Aspen Community School went into “secure” mode as a safety precaution.

Under a “secure protocol,” all doors are locked and no one is allowed in or out of the main school building while classes continue.

Waanders said that even though he was worried thinking about all the “what ifs,” he also felt safe.

“I knew that we had a community and people that could help us if something were to ever happen, and I knew that we’ve been preparing for it since kindergarten,” he said.

School lockdown drills aren’t the only way that Waanders and his classmates have been preparing for situations like this.

For years, Aspen Community School has been offering what it calls “social emotional” learning.

“It was a group of us on a very grassroots level, sitting around in our old building,” said White. “The question was, ‘What do we want for our ACS graduates? What character traits do we want our students to embody?’”

They eventually landed on five traits that are now the core of the school’s social emotional program: kindness, compassion, empathy, tolerance, and patience.

White said teachers and staff shape their curriculum to help kids learn those skills.

“We feel like when you can embed the tools to be able to self-calm and to navigate social problems and to apologize when needed — when you can do that in a setting that’s not super stressful, like cross-country skiing or a normal day in the classroom, then when something tough comes up, you’ve got the muscle,” she said.

At an all-school meeting at the Snowmass Nordic Center, Aspen Community School Principal Casey White thanks her K-8 students for how well they handled having to remain inside the locked school building during the recent false threats.

ACS also works with Lily Larkin, a licensed clinical social worker and wellness teacher from the Aspen Hope Center.

Larkin is one of the center’s twelve school-based clinicians in the valley and she spends four days a week at ACS.

“One of the things we work on is knowing that when our brains go into a fight, flight or freeze response, we’re not necessarily going to learn effectively in that state of mind,” she said.

When the school went into “secure,” Larkin says teachers created a sense of safety by tailoring classroom activities to how the students were feeling and coming up with projects that weren’t necessarily part of the regular school day.

“So they were doing art projects in the classroom, they were knitting, they were doing a lot of really wonderful hands-on activities to support them in that moment,” she said.

Larkin is also a parent at ACS and she appreciated that teachers went around to each class and told students in an age-appropriate way what was happening, while it was happening.

“So when my first-grader came home after having the experience, she just looked at me and she said, ‘Mom, somebody was trying to scare our school today,’” Larkin said. “And that’s how she described it.”

Some of the social emotional skills the school teaches, such as the “breathing tool” and the “listening tool,” are also helpful for parents.

“When my daughter comes home and she is visibly upset about something, but she tells me that she’s fine, I can look at her and I can say, ‘Sweetheart, if I’m listening with my eyes, ears, and heart, I can tell that there is something wrong — and you don’t have to tell me right now, but I’m here for you and I wanna hear about it,’” she said. “And that’s the ‘listening tool.’”

As a parent, Larkin is especially grateful to teachers who’ve supported families and kids through everything from the pandemic to school threats.

“Teachers are absolutely heroes and they have become, in the last decade or so, first responders,” she said. “It really feels like that has amped up a lot.”

Back at the nordic center, a group of middle-school students who regularly meet with Larkin were taking a ski break.

“Once a week we go down to her classroom and we sit in a circle and she asks us questions and we answer them altogether,” said sixth-grade student Annalise Ingram. “Also if you need some more time, you can just go down and see her anytime.”

Fellow sixth-grader, Anderson Tippet, said he appreciated the questions that Larkin asked them after the recent threats.

“One of them was like, ‘How are you dealing with this?’ ‘What makes you feel better or helps you not be as nervous about it?’” he recalled.

Tippet said he’s realized that having friends close by helps.

“Most of us have been together since kindergarten, so we’re all really good friends,” he said.

For her part, Larkin said she’s impressed by her students.

“They have moved through all of the feelings related to the last few Wednesdays and it’s so fun to see everybody together smiling, falling over, laughing, picking each other up,” she said.

The group of students agreed that they’re also proud of each other and grateful for their teachers and the whole community.

“Even when we were stuck inside, we still got through it really nicely by working together,” said fourth-grade student Cora Chimerakis. “The teachers just made it all happen and I’m really thankful for them — and thank you for the community always being there for us.”

Eleanor Bennett is an award-winning journalist and Morning Edition anchor. Eleanor has reported on a wide range of topics in her community, including the impacts of federal immigration policies on local DACA recipients, the Valley’s COVID-19 eviction and housing crisis, and hungry goats fighting climate change across the West through targeted grazing.

Philadelphia students press governor on his school safety proposal to hire more police

2023-03-15T22:04:00+00:00

Josh Shapiro, in his first visit to a Philadelphia public school since becoming governor in January, touted his plan to address Pennsylvania’s teacher shortage and said his proposed budget would make a historic investment in education.

In a two-hour visit Wednesday morning to Carver High School of Engineering and Science in North Philadelphia, Shapiro highlighted his plan to use tax credits to encourage more teachers to enter and remain in the profession. He also spent a good deal of his time engaging with students, who weren’t afraid to challenge him on his safety plan to hire more police officers.

Wednesday’s visit is part of Shapiro’s statewide tour to sell his big-picture policy and budget priorities, but the students wanted to talk about safety. In Philadelphia, 78 school district students have been shot this academic year, 17 of them fatally. Carver is in North Philadelphia, one of the neighborhoods most impacted by gun violence.

Shapiro, a Democrat, visited teacher Ian Doreian’s classroom, where 12th graders were mentoring ninth graders through the Peer Group Connection program. He told the students he thinks one solution for gun violence is to increase law enforcement’s presence in their neighborhoods and schools — a strategy used recently by Superintendent Tony Watlington.

But Black students in the room were skeptical about that idea.

“I feel like the issue isn’t to hire more police officers,” said Maniyah Jackson, a ninth grader. “A lot of these police officers, they go through training, but when they step on the street, they forget all their training and base their authority on their emotions instead of sticking to what they’re supposed to do for our community.”

“I feel more safe with a firefighter than I do with police officers,” 12th grader Taniya Son also told Shapiro. “There’s been incidents where it’s like, they’ve been so aggressive towards us for no reason.”

Shapiro said, “I’m sensitive to that … I look the way I do and I don’t necessarily feel that way.”

He thanked the students for their forthrightness and honesty. “That’s a hard thing to speak up and say to the governor,” he said.

He even suggested legislation mandating more comprehensive training of police officers and beefing up after-school programs in community spaces, including firehouses. “I’ll call it Taniya’s Law,” he said.

Shortly after his meeting with the students, a press release from Shapiro’s office noted the governor is heading to Lackawanna College Police Academy in Scranton on Thursday to discuss his proposal to recruit more police officers in the state.

Shapiro was joined at the school by Board of Education President Reginald Streater, Vice President Mallory Fix-Lopez, Watlington, and other district officials. City Council President Darrell Clarke, state Rep. Donna Bullock, and state Sens. Sharif Street and Vincent Hughes also attended. Mayor Jim Kenney made an appearance but didn’t make public remarks.

Shapiro’s proposed budget includes a refundable tax credit of up to $2,500 annually for up to three years for newly certified Pennsylvania teachers, including those just graduating with their certifications and those who relocate from other states.

In total, Shapiro said his budget includes $24.7 million in “job retention and recruitment efforts” for teachers, nurses, and law enforcement personnel.

Pennsylvania is suffering from a major teacher shortage. A decade ago, 20,000 people annually earned their teaching certifications. That number dropped to 6,000 in 2022. Philadelphia opened the school year with more than 200 teacher vacancies, and last month the school board approved more than 100 teacher resignations and retirements, most of them since September.

Shapiro’s proposed budget adds more than $1 billion to education programs. It increases the state’s basic education subsidy by $567 million, but also sets aside additional money for specific needs, including mental health counselors and infrastructure improvement.

Shapiro said his proposal would be a “down payment on the future of education.”

“When I spoke in my budget address, I made clear that this will not happen overnight,” Shapiro said, adding later that “we would have to work on this over two budget cycles.”

When he unveiled his budget earlier this month, Shapiro tied it directly to a historic ruling last month in a landmark school funding case from Commonwealth Court Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer. In that ruling, Jubelirer said the Commonwealth’s system for funding education is unconstitutional because it is neither adequate in total or equitably distributed. Jubelirer ordered state officials to revamp the system.

Shapiro said that “by all indications there are no plans” from Republican legislative leaders to appeal Jubelirer’s ruling. A spokesman for House Republican leadership said Wednesday that while GOP lawmakers are not focused on appealing the ruling at the moment, “post-trial motions have been briefed and filed. No final decision can be made on an appeal until we see the results of those motions.”

Other officials, including Hughes, have called for an even larger investment in education than Shapiro. With the governor standing next to him, Hughes called Shapiro’s proposal “a great start.”

When speaking to students in Doreian’s classroom, Shapiro recounted his own journey to them. Originally, he wanted to be a doctor, like his father, but he flunked a test in his pre-med program — on the same day he was cut from the basketball team. He became a lawyer and politician instead because that was also an avenue to “help people,” he told them.

“Don’t be afraid to strike out, like I did,” he said.

Jacky Wang, a 12th grader, asked Shapiro a question on many people’s minds: whether he has aspirations for higher office.

Shapiro smiled and said, “This is all I’m focused on.”

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

School safety agent numbers dropped during the pandemic. NYC doesn’t plan to staff back up.

2023-03-14T22:25:41+00:00

The number of school safety agents stationed in New York City public schools plummeted more than 20% during the pandemic, a decline that Mayor Eric Adams is not planning to reverse, according to a report released Tuesday.

Before the pandemic hit, there were roughly 5,000 safety agents assigned to schools. As of late last month, that number had plunged to 3,900, which the report from the Independent Budget Office, or IBO, attributed to attrition and pandemic hiring restrictions. The agents are employed by the police department, unarmed, and primarily responsible for keeping an eye on building entrances, responding to student behavioral issues, and operating metal detectors at dozens of campuses.

Adams’ preliminary budget proposal for the next fiscal year calls for eliminating 282 vacant safety agent positions on top of 550 that were nixed last year. The move is part of a broader effort to wring savings out of the city’s budget: In 2019, the city spent $395 million on safety agents, and the mayor’s proposal for next year allocates $359 million.

Nick Martin, an education budget expert at the IBO, said there was no indication the city plans to significantly expand the safety division to pre-pandemic levels over the next four years. “Just based on the budget for the remaining years of the financial plan, there’s no scaling back up,” he said. “It seems to indicate that the headcount is going to continue closer to this current level.”

The city’s school safety division has long been the subject of intense debate. Critics worry stationing police department employees in school buildings can criminalize student misbehavior. They believe resources should instead be redirected toward mental health services. Supporters counter that the safety agents are essential for maintaining order. Students, parents, and educators generally report on annual school surveys that the agents help keep schools safe and respectful, though children at predominantly Black schools are somewhat less likely to agree.

Eliminating hundreds of school safety agent vacancies came as a surprise to some observers. Adams, a former police officer, and schools Chancellor David Banks, who once served as a school safety agent, have raised grave concerns about student well-being and support measures to beef up school security.

At a press conference in September, Banks specifically touted efforts to hire more safety agents. In January, he declared a “state of emergency” over neighborhood youth violence, pointing to shootings — sometimes occurring just after school and near campuses — that have led to serious injuries and deaths. Schools have also dealt with an uptick in students bringing weapons to school, often for self-defense during their commutes.

Spokespeople for Adams and Banks did not respond to questions about whether the decision against filling 832 safety agent vacancies represents a change in safety strategy or if the city is unable to find enough new recruits to take the jobs, which offer a starting salary just shy of $35,000. Officials previously announced a suite of other school-safety strategies, including plans to coordinate weekly meetings between school leaders and police department precincts, pairing 138 schools with violence interrupters and mentors, and locking building entrances during the day.

Amaris Cockfield, a City Hall spokesperson, said there are currently over 4,100 school safety agents. She noted that a new crop of 250 agents will begin in April, though she did not suggest the city is planning to return to pre-pandemic staffing levels.

“We will continue to build on the productive steps we have taken thus far and invest in a holistic vision of public safety that keeps our youngest safe,” she wrote in an email.

Mixed reactions over reducing ranks of school safety agents

Some educators and union officials, including those representing school administrators and safety agents, said they were frustrated by the reduction in school safety staff.

One school administrator in the Bronx, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said her school building consistently has two or three agents, down from four or five before the pandemic.

That has led to situations where staff, including a paraprofessional, have been pulled away from working with children to monitor the front desk while the safety agents attend to situations elsewhere in the building. Recently, a fight broke out in the school’s gym that proved so overwhelming to the limited school safety staff that school administrators called outside police officers to break it up.

“There’s a lot more stuff happening in school still,” said the administrator, noting that students are using drugs and vaping more, and many are struggling with social emotional issues that can spiral into outbursts. “It’s crazy that they would eliminate those positions especially when safety is an issue.”

The police department did not share information about safety agent staffing levels in specific regions, according to the IBO report, making it difficult to know how the reduction in headcount is affecting individual campuses.

Hank Sheinkopf, a spokesperson for Teamsters Local 237 which represents school safety staff, criticized the mayor’s budget proposal. He said retaining agents is a major challenge given the low pay.

“This has got to be a priority,” he said. “What is more important than protecting school children?”

Still, advocates who have long supported reducing the police department’s footprint in schools said the mayor’s budget represented a step in the right direction.

Jasmine Gripper, executive director of the Alliance for Quality Education, noted the previous size of the school safety division by itself represented one of the largest police forces in the country.

“I would hope that they have come to realize that this is an area where they’re overspending,” she said, “and instead could redirect these resources to mental health programs and restorative justice.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Pandemic stress, gangs, and utter fear fueled a rise in teen shootings

2023-03-14T20:41:11+00:00

Diego never imagined he’d carry a gun.

Not as a child, when shots were fired outside his Chicago-area home. Not at age 12, when one of his friends was gunned down.

Diego’s mind changed at 14, when he and his friends were getting ready to walk to midnight Mass for the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. But instead of hymns, Diego heard gunfire, and then screaming. A gang member shot two people, including one of Diego’s friends, who was hit nine times.

“My friend was bleeding out,” said Diego, who asked KHN not to use his last name to protect his safety and privacy. As his friend lay on the ground, “he was choking on his own blood.”

The attack left Diego’s friend paralyzed from the waist down. And it left Diego, one of a growing number of teens who witness gun violence, traumatized and afraid to go outside without a gun.

Research shows that adolescents exposed to gun violence are twice as likely as others to perpetrate a serious violent crime within two years, perpetuating a cycle that can be hard to interrupt.

Diego asked his friends for help finding a handgun, and — in a country supersaturated with firearms — they had no trouble procuring one, which they gave him free.

“I felt safer with the gun,” said Diego, now 21. “I hoped I wouldn’t use it.”

For two years, Diego kept the gun only as a deterrent. When he finally pulled the trigger, it changed his life forever.

Disturbing trends

The news media focuses heavily on mass shootings and the mental state of the people who commit them. But there is a far larger epidemic of gun violence — particularly among Black, Hispanic, and Native American youth — ensnaring some kids not even old enough to get a driver’s license.

Research shows that chronic exposure to trauma can change the way a child’s brain develops. Trauma also can play a central role in explaining why some young people look to guns for protection and wind up using them against their peers.

The number of children under 18 who killed someone with a firearm jumped from 836 in 2019 to 1,150 in 2020.

In New York City, the number of young people who killed someone with a gun more than doubled, rising from 48 juvenile offenders in 2019 to 124 in 2022, according to data from the city’s police department.

Youth gun violence increased more modestly in other cities; in many places, the number of teen gun homicides rose in 2020 but has since fallen closer to pre-pandemic levels.

Researchers who analyze crime statistics stress that teens are not driving the overall rise in gun violence, which has increased across all ages. In 2020, 7.5% of homicide arrests involved children under 18, a slightly smaller share than in previous years.

Local leaders have struggled with the best way to respond to teen shootings.

A handful of communities — including Pittsburgh; Fulton County, Georgia; and Prince George’s County, Maryland — have debated or implemented youth curfews to curb teen violence. What’s not in dispute: More people ages 1 to 19 die by gun violence than by any other cause.

A lifetime of limits

The devastating toll of gun violence shows up in emergency rooms every day.

At the UChicago Medicine trauma center, the number of gunshot wounds in children under 16 has doubled in the past six years, said Dr. Selwyn Rogers, the center’s founding director. The youngest victim was 2. “You hear the mother wail, or the brother say, ‘It’s not true,’” said Rogers, who works with local youth as the hospital’s executive vice president for community health engagement. “You have to be present in that moment, but then walk out the door and deal with it all over again.”

In recent years, the justice system has struggled to balance the need for public safety with compassion for kids, based on research that shows a young person’s brain doesn’t fully mature until age 25. Most young offenders “age out” of criminal or violent behavior around the same time, as they develop more self-control and long-range thinking skills.

Yet teens accused of shootings are often charged as adults, which means they face harsher punishments than kids charged as juveniles, said Josh Rovner, director of youth justice at the Sentencing Project, which advocates for justice system reform.

About 53,000 juveniles in 2019 were charged as adults, which can have serious health repercussions. These teens are more likely to be victimized while incarcerated, Rovner said, and to be arrested again after release.

Young people can spend much of their lives in a poverty-imposed lockdown, never venturing far beyond their neighborhoods, learning little about opportunities that exist in the wider world, Rogers said. Millions of American children — particularly Black, Hispanic, and Native American kids — live in environments plagued by poverty, violence, and drug use.

The COVID-19 pandemic amplified all those problems, from unemployment to food and housing insecurity.

Although no one can say with certainty what spurred the surge in shootings in 2020, research has long linked hopelessness and lack of trust in police — which increased after the murder of George Floyd that year — to an increased risk of community violence. Gun sales soared 64% from 2019 to 2020, while many violence prevention programs shut down.

One of the most serious losses children faced during the pandemic was the closure of schools — institutions that might provide the only stabilizing force in their young lives — for a year or more in many places.

“The pandemic just turned up the fire under the pot,” said Elise White, deputy director of research at the nonprofit Center for Justice Innovation, which works with communities and justice systems. “Looking back, it’s easy to underplay now just how uncertain that time [during the pandemic] felt. The more that people feel uncertain, the more they feel there’s no safety around them, the more likely they are to carry weapons.”

Of course, most children who experience hardship never break the law. Multiple studies have found that most gun violence is perpetrated by a relatively small number of people.

The presence of even one supportive adult can protect children from becoming involved with crime, said Dr. Abdullah Pratt, a UChicago Medicine emergency physician who lost his brother to gun violence.

Pratt also lost four friends to gun violence during the pandemic. All four died in his emergency room; one was the son of a hospital nurse.

Although Pratt grew up in a part of Chicago where street gangs were common, he benefited from the support of loving parents and strong role models, such as teachers and football coaches. Pratt was also protected by his older brother, who looked out for him and made sure gangs left the future doctor alone.

“Everything I’ve been able to accomplish,” Pratt said, “is because someone helped me.”

Growing up in a ‘war zone’

Diego had no adults at home to help him feel safe.

His parents were often violent. Once, in a drunken rage, Diego’s father grabbed him by the leg and swung him around the room, Diego said, and his mother once threw a toaster at his father.

At age 12, Diego’s efforts to help the family pay overdue bills — by selling marijuana and stealing from unlocked cars and apartments — led his father to throw him out of the house.

At 13, Diego joined a gang made up of neighborhood kids. Gang members — who recounted similar stories about leaving the house to escape abuse — gave him food and a place to stay. “We were like a family,” Diego said. When the kids were hungry, and there was no food at home, “we’d go to a gas station together to steal some breakfast.”

But Diego, who was smaller than most of the others, lived in fear. At 16, Diego weighed only 100 pounds. Bigger boys bullied and beat him up. And his successful hustle — selling stolen merchandise on the street for cash — got the attention of rival gang members, who threatened to rob him.

Children who experience chronic violence can develop a “war zone mentality,” becoming hypervigilant to threats, sometimes sensing danger where it doesn’t exist, said James Garbarino, an emeritus professor of psychology at Cornell University and Loyola University-Chicago. Kids who live with constant fear are more likely to look to firearms or gangs for protection. They can be triggered to take preemptive action — such as firing a gun without thinking — against a perceived threat.

“Their bodies are constantly ready for a fight,” said Gianna Tran, deputy executive director of the East Bay Asian Youth Center in Oakland, California, which works with young people living in poverty, trauma, and neglect.

Unlike mass shooters, who buy guns and ammunition because they’re intent on murder, most teen violence is not premeditated, Garbarino said.

In surveys, most young people who carry guns — including gang members — say they do so out of fear or to deter attacks, rather than perpetrate them. But fear of community violence, both from rivals and the police, can stoke an urban arms race, in which kids feel that only the foolish walk around without a weapon.

“Fundamentally, violence is a contagious disease,” said Dr. Gary Slutkin, founder of Cure Violence Global, which works to prevent community violence.

Although a small number of teens become hardened and remorseless, Pratt said, he sees far more shootings caused by “poor conflict resolution” and teenage impulsivity rather than a desire to kill.

Indeed, firearms and an immature teenage brain are a dangerous mix, Garbarino said. Alcohol and drugs can magnify the risk. When confronted with a potentially life-or-death situation, kids may act without thinking.

When Diego was 16, he was walking a girl to school and they were approached by three boys, including a gang member who, using obscene and threatening language, asked if Diego was also in a gang. Diego said he tried to walk past the boys, one of whom appeared to have a gun.

“I didn’t know how to fire a gun,” Diego said. “I just wanted them to get away.”

In news accounts of the shooting, witnesses said they heard five gunshots. “The only thing I remember is the sound of the shots,” Diego said. “Everything else was going in slow motion.”

Diego had shot two of the boys in the legs. The girl ran one way, and he ran another. Police arrested Diego at home a few hours later. He was tried as an adult, convicted of two counts of attempted homicide, and sentenced to 12 years.

A second chance

In the past two decades, the justice system has made major changes in the way it treats children.

Youth arrests for violent crime plummeted 67% from 2006 to 2020, and 40 states have made it harder to charge minors as adults. States also are adopting alternatives to incarceration, such as group homes that allow teens to remain in their communities, while providing treatment to help them change their behavior.

Because Diego was 17 when he was sentenced, he was sent to a juvenile facility, where he received therapy for the first time.

Diego finished high school while behind bars and went on to earn an associate’s degree from a community college. He and other young inmates went on field trips to theaters and the aquarium — places he had never been. The detention center director asked Diego to accompany her to events about juvenile justice reform, where he was invited to tell his story.

Those were eye-opening experiences for Diego, who realized he had seen very little of Chicago, even though he had spent his life there.

“Growing up, the only thing you see is your community,” said Diego, who was released after four years in detention, when the governor commuted his sentence. “You assume that is what the whole world is like.”

KHN data editor Holly K. Hacker and researcher Megan Kalata contributed to this report.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

Estudiantes de East High marchan contra la violencia armada tras la muerte de Luis García

2023-03-14T01:16:22+00:00

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Chalkbeat Colorado es un noticiero local sin fines de lucro que informa sobre las escuelas públicas en Denver y otros distritos. Suscríbete a nuestro boletín gratis por email en español para recibir lo último en noticias sobre educación.

Varios cientos de estudiantes de East High School corearon “¡No más silencio! ¡Fin de la violencia armada!” mientras marchaban hacia el Capitolio del Estado de Colorado el 3 de marzo para pedir a los legisladores que hagan más para restringir el acceso a las armas.

Habían pasado dieciocho días desde que Luis García fuera tiroteado a las puertas del instituto, y dos desde que el joven de 16 años sucumbiera a sus heridas.

Los alumnos portaban pancartas con su nombre y el número 11, el dorsal que llevaba en el campo de fútbol. Guardaron 11 segundos de silencio en su memoria.

Clayton Thomas, que jugó al fútbol con Luis, recordó lo trabajador que era Luis, una cualidad que también describieron sus familiares. Al final de cada entrenamiento, los jugadores podían quedarse 15 minutos más para practicar de forma independiente. Luis se quedaba 30 minutos, dijo Clayton.

“Lo que daría por 15 minutos más con Luis en este momento”, dijo Clayton.

East High Estudiantes Exigen Acción, un grupo que aboga por el control de armas, organizó la manifestación para que coincida con un día de promoción en el Capitolio en apoyo de un paquete de proyectos de ley de control de armas. Los demócratas quieren añadir un período de espera de tres días para todas las compras de armas, evitar que los menores de 21 años compren armas, y ampliar quién puede tratar de quitar las armas de un individuo bajo la ley de “bandera roja” de Colorado.

El impulso de nuevas leyes estatales sobre armas se produce tras el tiroteo masivo de noviembre en el Club Q de Colorado Springs, así como por el aumento de la violencia armada en Denver y en toda la región.

La tarde del 13 de febrero, Luis García fue tiroteado en el East High. La policía de Denver detuvo a otros dos estudiantes de las escuelas públicas de Denver esa misma tarde por otros cargos. Hasta el momento, no han sido acusados del tiroteo.

Luis era el segundo estudiante que sufrió disparos cerca de la escuela de 2.600 alumnos este año académico. En septiembre, East High también fue objeto de una broma de ‘swatting’ que provocó el cierre y la evacuación del centro y dejó a los estudiantes y al profesorado conmocionados.

En la última semana, más de una docena de escuelas de Colorado han sido objeto de bromas sobre tiroteos.

El pasado miércoles, los organizadores cancelaron un foro sobre la violencia armada en el que participan cargos electos locales, después de que se difundiera la noticia de la muerte de Luis.

Fabian Morris, estudiante de segundo año en East, dijo que no conocía bien a Luis, pero que ha conocido a otras personas que recibieron disparos y quería apoyar la causa.

“Solía pensar que la escuela era uno de los lugares más seguros, pero ahora me siento intranquilo”, dijo.

Celes Bufford, alumna de último curso y miembro del consejo estudiantil de East, se hizo eco del sentimiento.

“Estamos aquí porque estamos cansados”, dijo. “No debería haber ninguna razón por la que las armas sean más importantes que los estudiantes, o la gente en general. Nadie se siente seguro”.

Ryan Lo, estudiante de tercer año en East, dijo que se sintió insensible ante el tiroteo hasta que los estudiantes se reunieron fuera de East para depositar flores en memoria de Luis. Fue entonces cuando sintió la pérdida. Ryan señaló que el mismo día en que le dispararon a Luis, un hombre armado mató a tres personas en la Universidad Estatal de Michigan.

Zach Fields, también estudiante de tercer año en East, dijo que la frecuencia de la violencia armada hace que sea difícil de comprender.

“Ni siquiera parece real”, dijo. “Parece una película”.

Erica Meltzer es jefa de la oficina de Chalkbeat Colorado. Cubre temas de política educativa, y supervisa la cobertura de educación de Chalkbeat Colorado. Comunícate con Erica enviándole un mensaje a emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Traducido por Juan Carlos Uribe, The Weekly Issue/El Semanario.

Los estudiantes de East High marcharon al Capitolio del Estado de Colorado el 3 de marzo de 2023 para unirse a un día de defensa de la legislación de control de armas.

At gun violence summit, East High students ask for solutions

2023-03-10T05:35:42+00:00

A week after hundreds of Denver’s East High School students marched to the state Capitol protesting the shooting death of their classmate, a smaller crowd at a student-organized summit asked local officials for solutions to gun violence.

“We shouldn’t have to be here,” sophomore Gracie Taub, a member of the club East Students Demand Action, told the crowd. “Luis should be here.”

Sixteen-year-old East High student and soccer player Luis Garcia was shot just outside the school on Feb. 13 and died from his injuries 2½ weeks later. Denver Public Schools Superintendent Alex Marrero said at the summit that the incident was not the first instance of gun violence in and around Denver’s schools this school year, nor the last.

“It’s not because our hallways are threatening,” Marrero said. “It’s not because our educators are monsters. It’s not what’s happening in our schools. It’s what’s happening in our community.”

The 14 panelists, who also included two Denver city council members, two state lawmakers, three medical doctors, three violence prevention experts, East High Principal Terita Walker, and Denver Police Chief Ron Thomas, agreed that limiting young people’s access to guns should be part of the solution. Parents and family members need to lock up guns at home, they said.

State Sen. Chris Hansen and state Rep. Alex Valdez, both Denver Democrats, referenced other bills that Colorado lawmakers are considering this year, including one to require a three-day waiting period for gun purchases, one raising the age to buy a gun from 18 to 21, and one to add teachers to the list of people who can request someone be banned from owning a gun.

But panelists also agreed that it will take more than laws to curb youth gun violence.

“Violence is always going to exist,” said Felicia Rodriguez, youth violence prevention program manager for the city’s Office of Children’s Affairs. “I think the most important thing that everyone has been expressing here this evening is the importance of building healthy, positive relationships with youth. That’s the impact, from an adult lens, that we need to really focus on.”

Johnathan McMillan, the director of the Colorado Office of Gun Violence Prevention, said young people who have a trusted adult in their life are less likely to be impacted by violence, “whether that’s a law enforcement officer, a teacher, a counselor, a principal, a community member.”

The Denver school board voted in 2020 to remove police officers from Denver schools. East High was one of 18 schools that had an armed officer at the time. Asked whether police should have a larger presence in Denver schools again, both the superintendent and police chief said the answer should come from the students.

“But I don’t think that the police are the only solution.”

Dr. Joseph Simonetti, a physician and researcher at the University of Colorado who focuses on firearm injury prevention, said having police on campus can lead to an increase in student arrests and tickets. Prior to the removal of school resource officers, data showed that Black students in Denver were disproportionately ticketed and arrested. Since SROs were removed, data shows fewer Denver students have been referred to law enforcement.

The panelists also called for more investment in youth mental health services. Dr. Steven Federico, a pediatrician who serves as the chief government and community affairs officer for Denver Health, said that although the number of Denver Health clinics inside schools has grown over the years, the need for mental health services is “insatiable.”

“It is the number one requested service of our clinical teams,” he said. “It needs to be better funded. It needs to be better staffed.”

Whatever the solutions, Walker, the principal, said they need to come quickly.

“The dream for me is, for the kids I’m looking out at right now and the kids that are doing this work, the immediacy around the response so that they can benefit from and feel the effects of the work that they’re doing,” she said. “We don’t want another kid to be affected.”

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Contracts for Memphis Shelby County Schools security upgrades await board approval

2023-03-10T04:10:04+00:00

Memphis-Shelby County Schools would spend up to $6.3 million to bolster security in the district’s schools under a pair of contracts awaiting board approval.

The contracts with Memphis-based Oteka Technologies LLC call for spending about $807,000 on security technology — including cameras, intercoms, servers, software licenses, and intrusion alarm systems — and $5.5 million for upgraded wiring to support it all, according to board documents.

The board’s Audit, Budget, and Finance Committee approved the contracts Thursday.

“Utilizing this technology in the classroom supports an additional layer of safety” and will help protect students and staff, the district said in the documents, citing a rise in mass shootings and active-shooter incidents.

“Replacing discontinued intrusion alarm systems throughout the district and upgrading cameras will improve the building access systems to ensure doors are locked and secured at all times,” the document said.

The proposed security upgrades come as Gov. Bill Lee pushes a school safety bill that would threaten school districts with penalties if their schools are found to have entrances that are left unlocked.

Separately, the finance committee approved a $349,165 contract to another Memphis-based company, Barnes & Brower Inc., to repair the ceiling for the library at Cummings K-8 Optional School.

The library’s 40-year-old drop ceiling collapsed in August 2022, injuring three staffers. The school’s 300 students were relocated to nearby LaRose Elementary School.

The incident drew attention to MSCS’s aging school buildings. Over 33 of them are at least 70 years old.

Bureau Chief Tonyaa Weathersbee oversees Chalkbeat Tennessee’s education coverage. Contact her at tweathersbee@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee governor’s safety bill threatens penalties for schools if they don’t lock entrances

2023-03-08T22:42:41+00:00

Gov. Bill Lee is proposing sweeping changes to enhance school safety across Tennessee, requiring all K-12 public schools to keep their exterior doors locked, or risk losing escalating amounts of state funding with each violation.

Legislation from the Republican governor, introduced this week in several legislative committees, also mandates several new safety-related drills when students aren’t present; tweaks training requirements for armed and unarmed campus officers; and requires new security features for school buildings constructed or remodeled after this July 1.

In addition, Lee wants more top law enforcement officials on the state’s school safety team and proposes to transfer its oversight from the Department of Education to the Department of Safety, the agency responsible for homeland security and state troopers.

The governor’s proposal comes after the state fire marshal’s office identified 527 unlocked exterior doors during inspections of about 1,500 Tennessee public schools this school year, according to state officials.

Last June, Lee signed an executive order directing Tennessee school leaders and law enforcement to work together to double down on existing school safety protocols after a deadly shooting in Texas, where a gunman entered an elementary school through an unlocked door and killed 19 children and two teachers.

Lee also promised Tennesseans that state troopers and local police would conduct more unannounced security inspections of schools to make sure entrances are locked to prevent unauthorized access. More than 20,000 doors have been checked so far, state officials said.

Lee plans no new limits on firearms

Lee’s plan would continue Tennessee’s emphasis on fortifying its school campuses rather than reducing its number of firearms.

Despite having one of the nation’s highest rates of gun deaths, the state has enacted numerous laws under Lee’s leadership to loosen requirements for gun ownership. In 2021, he signed a law allowing most Tennesseans 21 and older to carry handguns without first clearing a background check, obtaining a permit, or getting trained on firearms safety.

This year, however, the governor’s administration is opposing several new bills from Republican lawmakers who want to loosen those regulations even further.

The new safety legislation fulfills a promise Lee made at his state address last month. “We’ve done a lot to make schools safer,” he said, “but I don’t want to look up months from now and think we should’ve done more.”

His proposal, outlined in a 14-page amendment, would require schools to keep all external doors locked when students are present and to limit access through one secure, primary entrance.

The legislation authorizes state and local law enforcement officers to inspect doors — and requires immediate actions to address any infractions. Written notifications describing violations must be sent within 24 hours to the school’s administrators, district leaders, the parent-teacher organization, and state officials in the departments of education and safety.

Tennessee schools are required to limit access to one secure, primary entrance.

If a campus does not have a law enforcement officer on site and violates the locked door requirements two or more times in a school year, local school officials would have to post a full-time officer there within 30 days of receiving notice and undertake a corrective action plan. If they do not comply, the legislation directs Tennessee’s education commissioner to withhold 2% of its annual state funds, escalating by 2% for each subsequent violation, up to 10%.

A campus that has a full-time officer faces similar financial penalties for its district or charter organization if it violates the locked door requirements.

“To be clear, the purpose of this proposal is to help schools resolve any security flaws and ensure students and teachers are safe,” said Jade Byers, the governor’s press secretary, in a statement to Chalkbeat on Wednesday. “School funding will only be temporarily withheld while the (district) takes corrective action to resolve the issue.”

School officials want a less punitive approach

Tennessee school leaders have lauded the governor’s prioritization of school safety and, in recent years, taken advantage of millions of dollars in state grants to upgrade building security and hire law enforcement for their campuses. For instance, a grant program championed by the governor in 2019 placed more than 200 SROs in schools.

But they say that more money is needed to hire more officers — and that the governor’s proposal doesn’t address their staffing challenges.

According to the state’s most recent school safety report, for the 2021-22 school year, fewer than 1,300 of the state’s 1,800-plus schools had a trained school resource officer, or SRO, on site.

“The attention and focus on keeping our schools safe is appreciated, but financial penalties will not help add the security measures needed,” said Dale Lynch, executive director of the state superintendents organization, which has lobbied for enough funding so every Tennessee school has an SRO.

Money isn’t the only challenge that districts face, according to Mike Winstead, director of Maryville City Schools, near Knoxville.

“One of the punishments under this bill is that you might have to hire an SRO within 30 days, but that’s easier said than done,” he said. “Many districts across our state have tried to secure SROs from their local police departments, but there’s a shortage of personnel. Police are losing a lot of officers to the federal government, where they can triple their salary.”

Lee also proposes to add annual drills — without students present — for emergency bus safety, and also to prepare school staff and law enforcement agencies on what to expect in an emergency situation at a school.

State law already requires schools to conduct periodic fire drills and annual armed-intruder drills, plus three additional annual drills to prepare for potential emergencies such as an earthquake or tornado.

Altogether, the legislation serves as “an additional meaningful step to secure schools and further enhance school safety,” said Byers, the governor’s spokeswoman.

But striking the right balance between school safety and educational climate is also a concern, says Winstead, a 2018 finalist for national superintendent of the year.

“We want our schools to be friendly and welcoming to students and their families,” said Winstead, “and we don’t want to make our kids feel like they’re going to school in a prison.”

He says collaborative working relationships between school officials and law enforcement are more productive than punitive ones. He’d also like to see more state investments to support student mental health beyond the governor’s $250 million student mental health trust fund, established in 2021 as an endowment to pay for future services.

“Drills are important, SROs are important,” said Winstead, “but the most important thing we can do is foster strong relationships between students and adults.”

You can track the bill’s progress on the legislature’s website.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

East High students march against gun violence in wake of Luis Garcia’s death

2023-03-03T21:48:11+00:00

Leer en español.

Several hundred students from East High School chanted “No more silence! End gun violence!” as they marched to the Colorado State Capitol Friday to tell lawmakers to do more to restrict access to guns.

Eighteen days had passed since Luis Garcia was shot just outside the school, and two since the 16-year-old succumbed to his injuries. Students held signs bearing his name and No. 11, the number he wore on the soccer field. They observed 11 seconds of silence in his memory.

Clayton Thomas, who played soccer with Luis, recalled how hard-working Luis was, a quality family members described as well. At the end of each practice, players could stay an extra 15 minutes to practice independently. Luis would stay 30 minutes, Clayton said.

“What I wouldn’t give for an extra 15 minutes with Luis right now,” Clayton said.

East High Students Demand Action, a group that advocates for gun control, organized the rally to coincide with an advocacy day at the Capitol in support of a package of gun control bills. Democrats want to add a three-day waiting period for all gun purchases, prevent people younger than 21 from purchasing guns, and expand who can seek to remove guns from an individual under Colorado’s “red flag” law.

The push for new state gun laws comes in the wake of November’s mass shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs, as well as rising gun violence in Denver and around the region.

Luis Garcia was shot outside East High on the afternoon of Feb. 13. Denver police took two other Denver Public Schools students into custody later that afternoon on other charges. So far, they have not been charged in the shooting.

Luis was the second student shot near the 2,600-student school this academic year. East High also was the target of a swatting hoax in September that led to a lockdown and evacuation that left students and faculty rattled.

In the last week, more than a dozen Colorado schools have been the target of swatting hoaxes.

Organizers canceled a forum on gun violence with local elected officials Wednesday after news spread of Luis’ death.

Fabian Morris, a sophomore at East, said he didn’t know Luis well, but he’s known other people who were shot and wanted to support the cause.

“I used to think school was one of the safest places, but now I feel uneasy,” he said.

Celes Bufford, a senior and member of the East student council, echoed the sentiment.

“We’re down here because we’re tired,” she said. “There should be no reason that guns are more important than students, or people in general. No one feels safe.”

Ryan Lo, a junior at East, said he felt numb about the shooting until students gathered outside East to lay flowers in Luis’ memory. That’s when the loss hit home. Ryan noted that the same day Luis was shot, a gunman killed three people at Michigan State University.

Zach Fields, also a junior at East, said the frequency of gun violence makes it hard to comprehend.

“It doesn’t even feel real,” he said. “It feels like a movie.”

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

East High students marched to the Colorado State Capitol Friday to join a day of advocacy for gun control legislation.

Denver East High student shot outside school has died, police said

2023-03-01T23:18:42+00:00

A 16-year-old East High School student who was shot outside the Denver school 2½ weeks ago has died, the Denver Police Department confirmed Wednesday.

Luis Garcia was inside a car at East 17th Avenue and Esplanade, just north of the school, when he was shot on Feb. 13 just after 2:30 p.m., police said at the time. Two teenagers were arrested shortly thereafter but neither was charged with the shooting. The case is still under investigation and there were no updates as of Wednesday afternoon, a police spokesperson said.

The East High soccer team, of which Garcia was a member, organized a Go Fund Me campaign to raise money for his medical bills and family.

A summit on gun safety organized by East High students that was scheduled to take place Wednesday was postponed. It was to feature state lawmakers, school district and law enforcement officials, and other gun safety advocates, according to a press release.

A Friday morning walkout organized by the same students, who are part of the group East Students Demand Action, will still happen, a spokesperson said. The students plan to leave the school at 8 a.m. and walk to the First Baptist Church of Denver to join a Moms Demand Action annual advocacy day, according to a press release.

Garcia was the second East High student shot outside the school this year. In September, another boy was shot in the face outside a recreation center next to the school. East High was also the target of a hoax call about an active shooter that month.

Denver Public Schools Superintendent Alex Marrero has called gun violence his top concern.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Safe Place: How Philly schools are responding to the city’s gun violence crisis

2023-02-17T21:11:32+00:00

Gun violence in Philadelphia takes a toll on students and their ability to learn and succeed. WHYY News’ education, gun violence, and health reporters look at the intersection of schools and violence in their new six-part series, “Safe Place.”

Synceir Thorton wears a red and black sweatshirt that’s too big for his small frame. The 16-year-old keeps the hood up, brown eyes peering out from underneath the fabric.

“I usually stay cautious nearly 24/7. I don’t really feel safe anywhere,” he said. “People come to school having a bad day and they want to hurt someone. I don’t want to be that someone.”

Like all students at Dobbins Technical High School in North Philadelphia, Thornton’s day starts with a walk through a metal detector. Fights are common outside of the school, so he stays inside for as long as he can.

“I’m in a club nearly every day or I’m just really strictly on my way home by bus and train,” he said.

Dozens of students walked out of Dobbins in December to protest what they describe as unsafe conditions: senseless acts of violence from students and a lack of teachers and security guards.

Thornton said he intentionally stays out of the loop on conflicts between students because they too often lead to gun violence outside school.

“It’s better if I don’t find out.”

More than 60% of young Philadelphians worry about their friends or family becoming victims of shootings, according to a survey conducted by local teens.

Educators say they have no choice but to respond to Philly’s ongoing gun violence crisis.

“We can’t solve the problem because our core business is teaching and learning, but we can be a partner in solving the problem,” said School District of Philadelphia Superintendent Tony Watlington in an interview.

Gun violence, like poverty, is another challenge predominantly large urban school districts have to deal with. If students aren’t safe, how can they be expected to learn? And when students are injured or killed by gunfire, the trauma ripples across classrooms and instills a fear in young people that they could be next.

Against the backdrop of Philly’s gun violence epidemic, school district officials, teachers, coaches, and principals are making changes — in and outside of classrooms — they hope will better protect children from threats both within schools and in surrounding neighborhoods.

More Philly shootings involve kids

Synceir Thorton, a student at Dobbins Technical High School, loves to play the electric guitar.

Philadelphia had more shootings involving children last year than New York, a city with more than five times as many people.

Fewer than 100 shooting victims were under the age of 18 in 2017, compared to 217 in 2022, according to city data.

One possible explanation is the age of the shooters themselves. The number of young people arrested in shootings more than quadrupled during the same time period, from 21 to 117, according to data from the Philadelphia Police Department.

Julio Nuñez, the assistant principal at Gloria Casarez Elementary in Kensington, said schools bear some responsibility since they have the opportunity to help students stay on the right path.

“To think or assume that kids want to [become shooters] when they’re five years old is just naive,” he said.

Instead, he believes the more negative experiences a student has at school, the more likely they are to think the classroom isn’t a place for them. That underscores the importance of making sure schools are inclusive, well-resourced spaces where students can have positive experiences, Nuñez said.

Officials argue that people who drop out of high school are more likely to be involved in gun violence, putting pressure on schools to take a closer look at the experiences students are having in the classroom.

The district’s on-time graduation rate is roughly 70%, and the dropout rate for the 2020-21 school year was 14%, a district spokesperson said.

Watlington requested that the school board receive monthly attendance and dropout reports as part of his response to gun violence, an initiative that kicked off in December. Once the district has a better sense of which students have dropped out or are at risk, it can do more to ensure they remain engaged, he said.

“When young people … think they have a future ahead of them, I think they make good choices and less bad choices,” Watlington said.

Pride, bullying, and social media can lead to fights

The COVID-19 pandemic put unprecedented stress on families, including an increase in domestic violence, according to the American Journal of Emergency Medicine.

Dr. Caroline Watts, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, said kids who are facing challenges at home are more likely to struggle at school and fight with other students. Cutting these students off from their support systems during the pandemic only made the situation worse, she said.

Poverty is also a factor, said Malik Smith, who works at the nonprofit Institute for the Development of African American Youth and helps monitor school campuses through the district’s new Safe Path program.

Smith said students feel insecure when they come to school hungry or without clean clothes.

“If they have any aggression in them, it’s going to come out when they feel embarrassed and humiliated like that,” he said.

Taahzje Ellis, a 17-year-old Dobbins student, said some students would rather skip lunch than get their meals from the cafeteria due to fear of judgment from other students.

“It’s embarrassing if you get the free lunch,” he said, adding that some students post photos of people eating the free food on social media. “It’s a whole Instagram page.”

Taahzje said most of the conflicts between students that he knows about started online.

“Then they get to school and they fight,” he said. “It’s just people fight over anything nowadays … You fight the wrong person and now they want to kill you because they lost or just because they fought.”

He said some teens don’t understand the potential consequences of their actions.

“If you’re killing someone, you’re taking their life away, something that you can never give back to someone,” he said. “I think people just need to understand that, because a lot of people are just wrapped up in a kind of fantasy that this is the ideal life.”

More violence near Philly schools

Overbrook High School students leave school on Jan. 31, 2023. A 15-year-old freshman was shot and wounded on his way to school that morning.

While shootings on district property are uncommon, recent violence near school buildings has shaken Philadelphia residents.

In September, 14-year-old Nicolas Elizalde was killed and four other students were injured following a scrimmage near Roxborough High School, after multiple gunmen ambushed members of the school’s football team.

And the day before Thanksgiving, four Overbrook High School students were injured in a drive-by shooting outside a beauty salon a block away from the school.

Another Overbrook student was shot on his way to school in late January. That’s despite the fact that Overbrook has a designated safety zone around it. These areas are determined by the Philadelphia Police Department to be at high risk for crime and have additional officer presence during dismissal.

Watlington, who took over the school district from William Hite in June, said that along with academics, his top priority is the safety and well-being of students and staff.

Watlington took eight “action steps” during his first 100 days, including hiring Edwin Santana, a community and political organizer and former teacher, to serve as a community liaison with a focus on gun violence.

While district officials have expressed a willingness to respond to the impact of community gun violence on students, they face several obstacles.

The district, like many in Pennsylvania, is understaffed. That means fewer teachers to supervise students and provide them with the experiences, like electives and after-school activities, many see as a solution to student disengagement.

Another challenge is funding. Pennsylvania contributes a smaller share of funding to public education than most other states, leaving districts to rely more heavily on local property taxes.

That’s a problem in Philadelphia, the poorest large city in the country. Historically, the city’s schools have been underfunded due to systemic issues like residential segregation, district boundaries, and white flight to the suburbs.

Even though residents are relatively highly taxed, because overall wealth in the city is low, officials say there’s a gap between the revenue they can raise and the money they need. The district has many students who require special education services, or other supports that make education costs more expensive.

Additionally, the School District of Philadelphia is not a taxing authority and cannot raise tax revenue on its own, unlike other districts in the commonwealth.

Watlington said there are things the district would like to do to help students deal with gun violence — like hire more counselors — but financially, it can’t afford to.

Roxborough shooting shatters sense of after-school safety

The shooting outside Roxborough High School destroyed the idea that after-school activities, like sports, are guaranteed safe spaces.

“What happened at Roxborough should never have happened,” said Jimmy Lynch, the district’s executive director of athletics. “I think it’s important for us as a society, as a school district, to not normalize that.”

The district’s athletics team has increased its level of communication with police since the shooting, Lynch said, and now shares its master schedule with the department so they can assign officers to cover events, including scrimmages, as necessary.

In a written statement, district officials said they have “significantly increased the safety officers covering after school sporting events” since the shooting.

“What’s the alternative?” Lynch said. “That we’re not going to have sports? That’s a non-starter.”

Athletics have been shown to improve student attendance, behavior, and academics. Rather than scaling back, Lynch said he remains focussed on expanding programs so more students can participate and benefit.

After the shooting, Pennsylvania’s Department of Community Economic Development gave Roxborough $500,000 to increase its security, including new cameras and updated door locks.

The Pennsylvania Department of Education awarded Overbrook the same amount of money in December to improve “safety and communications technology,” according to a press release.

The district recently received a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Justice for a violence reduction program at another school, John Bartram High School in Southwest Philadelphia. Christopher Braxton, a 17-year-old student, was shot and killed in January of 2022 shortly after he left the school.

In June, the city of Philadelphia said it would spend $1.8 million to install new security cameras near the 19 district schools most impacted by gun violence, including Bartram and Roxborough.

Philadelphia public schools have some cameras, but they’re outdated and don’t provide real-time information. The money is supposed to pay for 100 state-of-the-art security cameras spread amongst the schools.

Mayor Jim Kenney and City Council members also promised an additional $1 million in the city’s operating budget to hire analysts to review real-time footage.

The city completed school site surveys in November, but hasn’t purchased the cameras yet, according to a spokesperson from the Managing Director’s Office. The spokesperson also said Philadelphia is experiencing supply chain issues that have made the technology harder to acquire.

The district’s new plan

In December, the School District of Philadelphia announced its new plan to address gun violence in the form of an op-ed from Watlington.

The op-ed followed a column from The Philadelphia Inquirer’s editorial board that described “violence and disruption” as the norm at many schools and called on the district to take action.

Watlington’s plan includes five points:

Expanding the district’s Safe Path program, which pays adults to monitor dismissal, mediate conflicts, and ensure students get home safely. The program, which launched at six sites at the beginning of the academic year, will be expanded to 12 more schools over the next two years. The district will invest $250,000 on top of its roughly $500,000 initial investment.

Watlington said the district hasn’t evaluated the impact of its program so far, but that data from a similar program in Chicago, which served as the district’s model, has been encouraging.

One study found a double-digit drop in violent crime on streets where monitors were present even after they had gone home for the day.

But implementing Safe Path in Philadelphia hasn’t been easy. The district’s chief safety officer Kevin Bethel said at December’s school board meeting that recruiting enough adults to staff the program has been challenging.

And the program itself isn’t a cure-all. Roxborough is one of the eight schools where Safe Path is already in place. At the time of the deadly September 2022 shooting, monitors had already gone home for the day.

Increasing safety zones around school communities by hiring police officers. The district will hire Philadelphia Police Department officers to “address safety issues outside of the school building that warrant an increased police presence,” using a $600,000 grant.

When asked why the district needs to hire city police officers itself, rather than just coordinate with the department, Watlington framed the decision as necessary given the recent level of violence.

“I think these extreme and unacceptable incidents that we are experiencing require us to do something better and different and we need more police officers,” he said. “We’re gonna bite the bullet and pay for them.”

Philadelphia police officers are already present during school dismissal in 27 safety zones that cover 40 district and charter schools through a joint district and PPD program known as Safe Zones.

Watlington said officers were able to respond “more quickly” to the drive-by shooting near Overbrook High School last month because they were in the area as part of the program.

New online mental health services will be available for teachers and students in grades 6-12. Students will have access to licensed counselors, peer support, and “therapeutic” activities through a one-year pilot program paid for by the state. Kooth, a digital mental health platform that’s popular in the United Kingdom, will provide the services.

Watlington said he’s heard from many students that the ratio of counselors to students, which is 269-to-1, is insufficient. The American School Counselor Association’s recommended ratio is 250-to-1.

“The ratio is just too high for them to be able to talk with their counselors. Some of them don’t get a chance to see their counselor at all,” he said.

The district has a contract with Lyra Health to provide mental health benefits to employees, including therapy and coaching.

Evaluating attendance and dropout data to make sure students are going to school and not getting involved in gun violence. Watlington said once he knows which schools and learning zones are struggling the most, he can figure out what to do next. He’s promised to share this data publicly during monthly board of education meetings.

Attendance rates plummeted during the height of the pandemic and have been slow to rebound in school districts across the country. Enrollment is also down, leaving districts to wonder whether students have enrolled elsewhere or disappeared.

“We need to redouble our efforts to try and account for each and every student,” Watlington said.

Addressing specific school needs, including at Dobbins, where The Philadelphia Inquirer first reported on safety concerns.

Watlington said the district hired a retired administrator to address safety and culture concerns at Dobbins. The school has since stationed staff throughout the building to make sure all areas of the building are monitored during arrival and dismissal, and when students are changing classes, a spokesperson said.

Dobbins student Taahzje said while he feels safe inside his school, fights happen frequently on the sidewalks right in front of or across from the building.

“If I was an adult, I would not drive through Dobbins after school because there’s a high chance there’s a fight or something and now you’re stuck in traffic,” he said. “You never know what’s going to be happening at the school.”

Dobbins is set to receive after-school monitors as part of the district’s expanded Safe Path program, but with hiring challenges in play, it’s unclear when more support will come.

Thornton said he’s tired of all of the fighting. “I don’t understand how actual fighters that fight in a ring can get along better than we can,” he said.