Prevention plans, metal detectors, training: What should school safety really look like?
Turlock families say they fear for their children’s safety after a Turlock High School student was stabbed by another student and hospitalized last week.
The Modesto Bee reached out to Stanislaus County’s largest school districts to ask about their safety measures. District officials encouraged families to communicate concerns with school staff.
Online and in interviews with The Bee, many of these families have begun calling for solutions to prevent more violence, from better threat assessment by districts to metal detectors. But the variety in demands show how parents, educators and researchers sometimes have different understandings of what makes schools safest.
Amy Klinger, director of programs for the national not-for-profit Educator’s School Safety Network, said prevention is the best school safety strategy, and that schools should focus on training and planning over physical measures.
“We are strong believers — and research indicates — that investing in people keeps kids safer than investing in stuff,” Klinger said.
Safety from the start
Schools often renew their focus on safety after a serious incident, such as last week’s stabbing at Turlock High School, but stopping incidents before they happen is the more effective route.
“I think that, unfortunately, educators tend to look at school safety in a really reactionary sense,” Klinger said.
Districts should be looking at their daily operations to make sure safety is always a focus, Klinger said. An outside vulnerability assessment can be one way to find flaws.
Turlock Unified is currently working with an outside firm to review and update district-wide emergency operations to ensure consistency, spokeswoman Marie Russell said via email.
“We take school safety very seriously and are constantly reviewing and updating our security posture,” Russell said.
The California Department of Education requires all schools to create a safety plan and update it annually. People can check their school’s website or ask their school’s administration to see it.
Educator training is also an important prevention measure, said Klinger, whose agency is “dedicated to empowering educators with education-based school safety training and resources..”
This training should be thorough and varied so faculty and staff are prepared for a variety of situations.
Klinger said her network’s research shows most training is focused on school shootings, which in reality only account for a small number of unsafe incidents, so educators are often not adequately trained for the majority of situations they might face.
The Educator’s School Safety Network has a free, publicly accessible safety course on its website. Klinger said the course, while designed for educators, can also be taken by parents looking to learn more.
Another key component is to take a look at student needs and behaviors. This can range from addressing mental health needs to spotting threats of violence.
Physical security
Some parents asked online why schools don’t have metal detectors. Districts contacted by The Modesto Bee do not have metal detectors in place.
“It has a negative impact on climate and culture, which actually makes the school less safe,” Klinger said. “So it’s really important for parents and for schools to advocate for things that are actually going to help, not just something that feels good in the short term or satisfies a need.”
The Los Angeles Unified School District in 2019 voted 4-3 to end a policy on random metal detector searches. Students would often be pulled out of class for searches, interrupting the learning and often targeting minority groups.
“The policy is harmful to school climate, reduces learning time and has the potential to lead to unconstitutional searches,” the American Civil Liberties Union wrote at the time.
Russell said Turlock staff is “constantly evaluating and reviewing” the effectiveness of additional security measures such as metal detectors and secured lobbies. She said long lines of students waiting to pass through metal detectors can “present a dangerous scenario.”
Patterson Joint Unified uses hand-held metal detectors at some special events, but “running nearly 6,000 students and staff through a metal detector every day would require a level of staffing that is not sustainable and would remove security staff and our administrative team from other important duties to oversee,” Superintendent Phil Alfano said via email.
Physical security measures at local districts include fencing with limited entry points, gates and cameras.
Districts including Modesto City Schools and Ceres Unified School District use visitor management systems that screen people coming to campus, according to spokespeople.
School resource officers
At the Turlock High incident, a school resource officer sprinted across campus to intervene in the stabbing, according to Turlock Police radio traffic. The officer was able to ensure that appropriate resources, including medical staff, were available, Russell said.
School resource officers are assigned to campuses through partnerships between districts and local law enforcement.
Turlock has one resource officer at each high school, Russell said.
Modesto City Schools has one safety supervisor, eight school safety officers and three night patrol safety officers, said Becky Fortuna, a district spokeswoman. One school safety officer is assigned to each high school, and they also patrol junior high and elementary schools.
In addition, Fortuna said Modesto high schools have six uniformed campus supervisors. Junior highs have three campus supervisors and one yard duty staff, and elementary schools have yard duty personnel and campus assistants. Yard duty employees supervise and monitor students’ behavior, according to a job posting from the district.
In Ceres, three school resource officers are stationed at the district’s high schools, and a fourth rotates between junior high schools and elementary campuses, according to spokeswoman Beth Jimenez.
Alfano said a full-time deputy sheriff is assigned to Patterson schools. The district created the first school security program in the county to augment law enforcement services, he said. These school security officers are trained and authorized to use handcuffs and other non-lethal force, but do not carry firearms, he said.
Three full-time security officers and eight campus supervisors are assigned to the district’s junior high and high school, he said.
Despite national growth in police presence on school campuses over the past several years, research does not support that school-based law enforcement makes schools safer overall, according to a brief from WestEd, a nonprofit research agency.
Klinger also said the presence of officers doesn’t actually equate to safety. They can make school feel like a prison where students are under constant surveillance.
“Pick whatever the threat is, one individual school resource officer cannot be everywhere, cannot see everything and cannot be the only person that knows how to respond,” Klinger said.
However, resource officers can be useful when they work together with schools and make an effort to build relationships with students, Klinger said. The key is making them part of a holistic approach to safety.
“Oftentimes what happens is schools sort of turn it over to law enforcement, and it becomes a law enforcement problem, rather than a collaboration between all of the different agencies — mental health and the school and law enforcement — then that’s very effective,” Klinger said.
This story was originally published November 14, 2021 at 4:00 AM.
