"Officers walk around the west side of Hellgate High School on Wednesday morning. The high school was on lockdown following multiple suspected threats made on social media, according to Missoula County Public Schools and the Missoula Police Department."
BEN ALLAN SMITH, Missoulian
Dr. Emily Sallee and Nancy Berg, Montana Safe Schools Center; Dr. Molly Blakely, Hellgate Elementary School District Superintendent.
MISSOULIAN - School safety is defined as “schools and school-related activities where students are safe from violence, bullying and harassment, and the influence of substance use.
Safe schools promote the protection of all students from violence, exposure to weapons and threats, theft, bullying and harassment, the sale or use of illegal substances on school grounds, and other emergencies.” Beyond the obvious, why is school safety important to address? “School safety is linked to improved student and school outcomes. In particular, emotional and physical safety in school are related to academic performance. At the same time, students who are victims of physical or emotional harassment or who are involved in the sale or use of illegal substances on school grounds are at risk for poor attendance, course failure and school dropout” (American Institutes for Research, Safe Supportive Learning, 2023).
Since the start of 2023, there have been 18 school shootings, the most recent being the tragedy at Covenant School in Nashville on March 27. These events have killed eight people, injured countless others, and traumatized tens of thousands of K-12 students, staff, families, and community members. Many perpetrators of school violence are current students or alum (graduates of that particular school) with the median age being 16 (Cox, Rich, Chong, Trevor, Muyskens & Ulmanu, Washington Post, 2023).
A few years ago, pre-COVID pandemic (2019), about 5% of middle and high school students reported a higher level fear of an attack or harm at school as opposed to away from school (National Center for Education Statistics, 2022). Specific to Montana, the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (2021) paints a far more grim picture of our students’ perception of safety in school. One question asks: During the past 30 days, on how many days did you not go to school because you felt you would be unsafe at school or on your way to or from school? Over 6% of respondents said one or more days; considering there are only 20 school days in a month, that is significant. Other questions ask about actual safety at school; 9.1% of Montana students reported carrying a weapon (such as a gun, knife or club) on school property at some point during the past month, whether offensively or defensively the data doesn’t specify. However, over the past year, 6% of students reported being threatened or injured with a weapon at least once on school property; that’s 6 out of 100 Montana students that have experienced school violence in the past year. Perhaps their perception of safety isn’t that far off.
Fortunately there are local resources available to support schools willing to prioritize student (and staff) safety. The Montana Safe Schools Center (MSSC), housed in the College of Education at the University of Montana, is one of them. The MSSC has been working with K-12 schools across the state since 1999 to create, implement, and update school safety measures.
As a fully grant-funded center, all services are offered at no cost to school communities. In the last few years, the MSCC has expanded their vision of “safety” to include attention to perception of safety and mental/emotional wellness of staff and students. Current services include an anonymous reporting tip line (SaferMT.com), REMS site assessments, telecounseling to rural school communities, and wide range of trainings: threat assessment, emergency operations planning, standard response protocols, reunification, suicide prevention and intervention, etcetera.
While schools everywhere grapple with reduced funding and unbalanced budgets, the price tag for these services is just right: FREE. And yet, many still choose not to prioritize these imperative services to prioritize the safety of their school communities… Why?
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Contact: UM Safe Schools Center, 406-243-5230, safe.schools@umontana.edu