Panelists Take a Deep Dive into the Preventative and Responsive Trends in Campus Safety
Deeper Dive: Understanding the Preventative and Responsive Trends in Campus Safety
For decades, students, teachers, and parents have lived with the reality of campus violence, particularly gun violence. It is clear that meaningful action is needed to keep our schools safe, and to prevent violence from occurring in the first place. Educators have a special responsibility to lead on this issue. Across the country educators are joining community and political leaders in search of a multi-faceted approach to intervene, prevent, and respond to school-based violence.
During the 2020 Annual Meeting, a panel for explored this topic during the “School Safety Matters” Deeper Dive session, beginning with a national overview of the state of gun violence on school and college campuses. The presenters discussed policy levers used to address this violence and acquainted attendees with the tools and strategies being used to prevent and respond to school-based gun violence. Moderator Ben Erwin of the Education Commission of the States (ECS) facilitated the discussion between his ECS colleague, Zeke Perez, Amanda Fitzgerald from the American School Counselor Association and Elizabeth Brown, principal of Forest High School in Ocala, FL.
Erwin welcomed attendees and provided a statistical overview of the state of gun violence on school campuses around the country. Fitzgerald spoke about school safety from a preventative and early intervention viewpoint. Perez shared policy/legislative efforts to address and prevent gun violence at the state level, and Brown, who is also a member of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, presented school administrative strategies to address and prevent gun violence in schools.
A video recording of the full AACTE 2020 Deeper Dive session, “School Safety Matters,” is available to Annual Meeting attendees at aacte.org. Additional video recordings, including the Opening and Closing Keynote Sessions and other Deeper Dives from the 72nd Annual Meeting may be accessed in the AACTE Resource Library.
Tags: Annual Meeting, events, safety
