Safe Schools Center established at UM

The Montana Board of Regents has approved establishment of the Montana Safe Schools Center at UM.

Located in the School of Education’s Division of Educational Research and Service, the center continues the work of longstanding school and community safety projects and helps to fulfill the outreach initiatives of UM’s education school.

“This is a thrilling development,” said Roberta Evans, interim dean of the School of Education. “DERS has a long and highly successful track record of working on critical safety and child-wellness issues in schools all across Montana. Establishing this new center is an excellent step for UM, as well as for Montana’s children.”

DERS collaboration on safety projects at the national level and innovative work with Montana’s schools earned them an invitation last year from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools to join a group of national-level school safety centers.

In addition to providing the DOE with information about state activities, these centers also help influence national education policies such as No Child Left Behind. That act is slated for reauthorization next year, and one of the components being discussed by these centers are definitions of what constitutes a safe school.

Montana Superintendent of Public Instruction Linda McCullough endorsed the inclusion of DERS into this group last November. The DERS team then waited until the Board of Regents approved the center in September 2006. Two weeks ago MSSC staff attended their first official meeting with the Department of Education.

Rick van den Pol, the director of DERS and MSSC, is pleased to be a part of this elite group of centers and says that school safety is once again at the top of many school administrators’ concerns.

“Recent school shootings and hostage situations, particularly in rural schools, bring back memories of Columbine,” van den Pol said. “While schools are still the safest places for young people, these events remind us that we must be vigilant and have effective plans in place to deal with emergencies.”