How an LEA manages matters related to school safety can affect students’ well-being and academic outcomes, employee morale and retention, and trust within the community.

To aid in the effort, CSBA launched its virtual Safe Schools Toolkit (csba.org/safeschoolstoolkit) this summer that includes relevant terminology, information about the most current human-caused threats and up-to-date resources that can inform governance teams as they work to address threats. The toolkit also includes research, applicable questions and board policies and administrative regulations.

onsisting of 13 sections, the toolkit covers topics including bullying and cyberbullying; behavioral threat assessment; armed assailant response; the impact of safety threats; crisis communications; use of alcohol, tobacco and illicit drugs; school climate; and infrastructure improvements.

“Governance teams play a unique role in leading the way in fostering a safe and supportive school environment. Not only are governance teams tasked with reviewing and approving safety policies and procedures, such as Comprehensive School Safety Plans, but they must also be informed and make decisions on myriad safety issues,” said CSBA Principal Research Manager Angela Asch. “The toolkit is a resource that addresses ways governing boards can create and foster a positive school climate where students feel safe, supported, connected to others and prepared to learn by aligning budgets to safety plans; supporting students and staff by reviewing and updating policies that make schools safer; communicating safety information and procedures and collaborating with education and community partners in times of crisis.”

Among the policy recommendations presented in the toolkit is a call to increase mental health supports and services by funding professional development on mental health for those in the field; investing in an adequate number of mental and physical health providers and social workers for students; increasing access to student mental health services and offering continuity of care.

Asch, who worked on the toolkit, explained that a safety concern at one site can pose more than just an immediate, localized physical concern on a single day. Depending on the situation, it can cause ongoing apprehension at surrounding schools and in the community and weigh on students’ mental health in the long term.

“Threats to safety can impact students in several ways. In the toolkit, our brief on the impacts of safety threats highlights how violence on campus like fighting, threats or bullying affects students and how they feel about school and their engagement with peers and learning,” Asch said. “Safety concerns also impact how families and the community feel about the school environment, especially if families and students feel it is unsafe to return to school. Research has shown that attendance rates may drop, learning and test performance may be impaired, and students’ mental health may suffer after a safety threat.”

Providing students with a positive school climate can improve attendance, engagement, graduate rates and test scores. “Additionally, having clear and consistent behavior expectations and creating a trusting environment whereby students and staff feel empowered to report any concerns or threats also supports overall safety,” Asch noted. “This is especially important when it comes to students’ willingness to report threats and provides an opportunity for schools to prevent significant safety incidents.”

Modoc County school districts use various mental health-support programs and all LEAs partner with public health officials, said Modoc County Office of Education Safety and Communications Specialist Heather Hadwick. Some students reside in areas split by county lines and their address must be used to determine where they qualify for services.

“We are very remote and so that makes it more challenging,” Hadwick said of the Northern rural county, which is nestled against both the Oregon and Nevada borders. “We also don’t have a ton of licensed mental health professionals in our county.”

The COE recently hired a mental health director, however, and thanks to grant funding, is building a “grow your own” program to address the shortage of licensed mental health professionals.

Bill Engel, also a safety and communications specialist for the COE, added that they do have behavior assistants who work with district students and that those “meaningful relationships” make a big difference in getting through to young people and their families and finding solutions to behavioral problems.

Across the state in Riverside County, the Beaumont Unified School District has a three-pronged approach to school safety that addresses physical safety, student well-being and personnel/practices.

Assistant Superintendent of Instructional and Support Services Ebon Brown said that in response to community input, the district has added more licensed behavioral therapists at secondary school sites as a priority in its Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP), offering individual, group and family therapy. They also have student support specialists (social work interns) at elementary schools and counselors serving all grade levels, as well as a third-party counseling service for families who want to pursue help outside of the school environment.

Three times a year, the district conducts a climate study with students, families and staff to gauge their feelings of safety, Brown added.

Beaumont USD recently enlisted a third-party safety analysis to evaluate things like perimeter fencing, camera and alarm systems, and policies and procedures to provide recommendations for improvement for its sites, roughly a dozen locations mostly spread across a five-mile radius.

“They really gave us a clear picture of things that we needed to work on and areas of vulnerability,” Brown said. “I would say that if I were to give advice to other districts, we notified the public that we were doing that study, but we did not make it public … We had the company share it directly with our attorneys, and so that way we could present the information with attorney-client privilege in closed sessions. We don’t want to share vulnerabilities that we have.”

The analysis was part of an ongoing effort to upgrade standard safety procedures, which has resulted in actions such as having single points of entry at all sites, electronic check-in systems at front offices and a $5.8 million project overhauling the district’s camera system that involves installing more than 900 cameras with nearly 2,000 fields of view — compared to about 200 with the existing system. The camera project is being paid for with general fund dollars and is included in the LCAP as a non-contributing item.

Brown said the public was aware of these safety improvement efforts even though the project isn’t funded by LCAP dollars, which are principally directed toward serving English learners, low-income and foster youth students.

They are also establishing geofencing parameters using cameras, an alternative to more costly upgrades to physical barriers. “If that virtual fence is breached, the camera has the technology to automatically alert personnel based on who we deem is necessary to be alerted and then it goes up a chain of command,” Brown explained.

Safety has always been an area of focus, Brown said, and that comes from the top down.

“Student safety is a top priority in our district,” said Board President Susie Lara. “We continually adjust and implement safety measures to ensure all of our sites are safe for our students, staff and visitors.”

Modoc COE is also consistently expanding safety efforts in ways that make sense for local districts. “They all want safety as a priority, but they all wear a lot of hats, so we just give that support to the districts,” Hadwick said.

The Safety and Communications team that she and Engel lead was established two years ago and has created trainings for staff (like how to handle a mass casualty incident) and students (e.g., the effects of cyberbullying) as well as a threat assessment system. As part of the mass casualty initiative, Engel secured donations to create kits including materials like tourniquets, bandages and quick clot for classrooms.

The team also assists with safety plans and vulnerability assessments, arranges relevant assemblies and speakers and helps identify potential grant funding when needed.

“That’s a perk of being small,” Hadwick said. “You can make change happen fast.”

Lack of funding does make some of the campus upgrades needed to deal with modern times a long-term goal, though. Hadwick said that smaller LEAs can’t always compete with their larger counterparts when it comes to grant funding even though they are equally at risk and need to take precautions too.

The need for more funding for safety improvements is one reason Beaumont USD placed Measure E on the November ballot.

“It’s about providing a quality education in a safe and secure learning environment, and I don’t think you can provide a good high-quality education where students are going to excel and succeed if they’re not feeling safe and if they’re not feeling secure,” Brown said of school safety efforts.

CSBA Deputy Legislative Director of State and Federal Programs Erika Hoffman acknowledged that there aren’t many financial resources available to LEAs specifically for facilities or technology upgrades at the state or federal levels.

California’s Proposition 2, a $10 billion facilities bond measure supported by CSBA, will appear on the November ballot, Hoffman noted, and could be used for facilities updates and construction that support campus safety. For behavioral health-related funding, Hoffman said there are dollars available through the Department of Health Care Services, Department of Health Care Access and Information, state behavioral healthcare funding for mental health services for young people and the LEA Medi-Cal Billing Option Program, although there can be “a lot of hoops to jump through” to file.