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Jersey, I'm loving this thread so thank you very much for that. I like a lot of what is in your proposal but I'd like to push back on one point and maybe ask you to expand on why you think police presence on campus is necessary.

I think this article from chalkbeat does a good job of summing up the issue as I understand it with some great sourcing.

TL:DR police presence in schools is tied to signifgant increases in arrest and suspension rates. This includes for fairly "low-level" offenses that otherwise would likely have been handled with less strict methods without an officer. These suspensions and arrests disproportionately impact minority students and likely have long term negative impacts as we know that once a kid is caught in the justice system they often struggle to break that cycle.

For me I just don't believe police have a place in schools without some deep and serious reform to how they execute their duties. Perhaps you envision a world that adopts your other proposals as being one that also has a reformed police force but I'd be remiss if I didn't highlight the current disparity.

Xenophon wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 08, 2021 2:26 pm

I think this article from chalkbeat does a good job of summing up the issue as I understand it with some great sourcing.

Something ain't right with that link.

Kukulkan wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 08, 2021 3:28 pm

Something ain't right with that link.

And this is why I hate posting from mobile, I don't know what happened in the copy/paste that went off. I've adjusted it so maybe give it another run. Thanks for the headsup.

Xenophon wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 08, 2021 4:58 pm

Kukulkan wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 08, 2021 3:28 pm

Something ain't right with that link.

And this is why I hate posting from mobile, I don't know what happened in the copy/paste that went off. I've adjusted it so maybe give it another run. Thanks for the headsup.

It seems to work fine when I click on it from mobile but not when I try to from my computer. Weird.

Kukulkan wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 08, 2021 6:10 pm

Xenophon wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 08, 2021 4:58 pm

And this is why I hate posting from mobile, I don't know what happened in the copy/paste that went off. I've adjusted it so maybe give it another run. Thanks for the headsup.

It seems to work fine when I click on it from mobile but not when I try to from my computer. Weird.

Same here.

Xenophon wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 08, 2021 2:26 pm

Jersey, I'm loving this thread so thank you very much for that. I like a lot of what is in your proposal but I'd like to push back on one point and maybe ask you to expand on why you think police presence on campus is necessary.

I think this article from chalkbeat does a good job of summing up the issue as I understand it with some great sourcing.

TL:DR police presence in schools is tied to signifgant increases in arrest and suspension rates. This includes for fairly "low-level" offenses that otherwise would likely have been handled with less strict methods without an officer. These suspensions and arrests disproportionately impact minority students and likely have long term negative impacts as we know that once a kid is caught in the justice system they often struggle to break that cycle.

For me I just don't believe police have a place in schools without some deep and serious reform to how they execute their duties. Perhaps you envision a world that adopts your other proposals as being one that also has a reformed police force but I'd be remiss if I didn't highlight the current disparity.

Sure. Let me attempt to defend that idea. Police already have a presence in our schools as School Resource Officers. According to a 2020 article, in my area there are some 20 officers assigned to cover our high schools--that doesn't cover the number of high schools according to a previous post I made. Whether or not they are physically stationed inside or outside school buildings, I can't say. I have an article saved about that, that I haven't gone through yet and won't have time to go through until later today.

In any case, some thoughts...

1. Ethan Crumbley is being charged with terrorism. When I visited Manhattan in 1994, there were police stations (you might think of them as guard shacks) up and down 5th Ave. Those were a response to 9/11 the year prior. I don't know if they are still there. Isn't what's happening in our schools an act of terrorism?

2. I think a physical presence would act as a psychological deterrent to school shootings. Would you open fire in a building located adjacent to a police station? Would you rob a bank drive through while police were physically standing on either side of the window?

3. One alternative I can think of would be to install airport scanners in every school. I've done some reading and apparently metal detectors aren't the solution. I think installing airport scanners would cause an uproarious response from parents (Think: anti-vaxxer crowd) who are worried about exposure to radiation even though the radiation exposure to airport scanners is extremely low. There may be some other type of full body scanner I'm unaware of that would serve the same purpose.

Res Ipsa wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 08, 2021 7:33 pm

Kukulkan wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 08, 2021 6:10 pm

It seems to work fine when I click on it from mobile but not when I try to from my computer. Weird.

Same here.

Finally back to a desktop and repulled the link, should work fine now.

Jersey Girl wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 08, 2021 8:12 pm

Sure. Let me attempt to defend that idea. Police already have a presence in our schools as School Resource Officers. According to a 2020 article, in my area there are some 20 officers assigned to cover our high schools--that doesn't cover the number of high schools according to a previous post I made. Whether or not they are physically stationed inside or outside school buildings, I can't say. I have an article saved about that, that I haven't gone through yet and won't have time to go through until later today.

In any case, some thoughts...

1. Ethan Crumbley is being charged with terrorism. When I visited Manhattan in 1994, there were police stations (you might think of them as guard shacks) up and down 5th Ave. Those were a response to 9/11 the year prior. I don't know if they are still there. Isn't what's happening in our schools an act of terrorism?

2. I think a physical presence would act as a psychological deterrent to school shootings. Would you open fire in a building located adjacent to a police station? Would you rob a bank drive through while police were physically standing on either side of the window?

3. One alternative I can think of would be to install airport scanners in every school. I've done some reading and apparently metal detectors aren't the solution. I think installing airport scanners would cause an uproarious response from parents (Think: anti-vaxxer crowd) who are worried about exposure to radiation even though the radiation exposure to airport scanners is extremely low. There may be some other type of full body scanner I'm unaware of that would serve the same purpose.

Thanks for expanding on that Jersey. I can appreciate where you are coming from.

I suppose these are my two big hang-ups with armed officers in schools.

1)They don't seem particularly good at discouraging shootings, there have been many instances of shooters picking locations with armed guard/officers and despite drastic increases in their presence following Columbine we continue to see school shootings. It isn't surprising to me since these shooters represent about as extreme a form of suicidal violence that any human can. Their location choices often have significant personal meaning to them regardless of how they are protected. Perhaps even more officers at a location might curtail violence but so far the track record is pretty terrible for "increased police presence in schools = less school shootings".

2) The negatives of having officers in schools on a day-to-day basis currently seems to outweigh the good, at least in my opinion and from my reading of the available data. School shootings are still a fairly small number of the gun deaths we face as a nation and I would hate for us to overreact to that problem and create more issues in the long run. This isn't to downplay the severity and devastation of these kinds of events, especially for those that survive and will be left with lasting trauma. I just think it is a worthwhile debate to question if drastic increases in suspensions and arrests or lower graduation rates (the two biggest documented negatives in schools with officers) is worth the offset, an offset that I should point out we don't really have a good grasp on. I haven't seen much evidence to suggest that officers in schools have been saving a bunch of lives.

This also isn't to say that nothing should be done, just that I'm not sure we've actually taken a hard look as a society at what will actually reduce these kinds of incidents. To your terrorism point, how good were those guard shacks at stopping another 9/11? What I want to avoid is a solution that is mostly just optical in nature and does little more than make us "feel" safer. You're likely right that any actually effective deterrent may be met with deep mistrust and resistance (not saying scanners would work per se, just that I can see additional safeguards being fought against).

Xeno I'm posting on the fly. If you look over my posts and specifically the introduction and proposal, I think you will see evidence of a holistic approach. Having LE on campus is one piece of the approach. As I stated, LE is already on school campuses.

You say, "1)They don't seem particularly good at discouraging shootings, there have been many instances of shooters picking locations with armed guard/officers and despite drastic increases in their presence following Columbine we continue to see school shootings. It isn't surprising to me since these shooters represent about as extreme a form of suicidal violence that any human can. Their location choices often have significant personal meaning to them regardless of how they are protected. Perhaps even more officers at a location might curtail violence but so far the track record is pretty terrible for "increased police presence in schools = less school shootings"."

Could you please link me to information that provides an example of student mass shooters who offended where armed guards or officers are present. I'm asking specifically about school shootings which is the main topic of this thread. I do know that Denver school systems removed their SRO's. That's one of the saved articles I have yet to read through.

But let me ask you this. If you disagree with creating a larger police presence on school campuses, what might your counter proposal look like?

I'm a little surprised that no one has seemed to notice or comment on the absence of parents in the proposal. I do mention parent education, but intentionally put the parents role on hold until I figure out how to incorporate them into the overall plan. I do have some ideas about that, but not enough to work them into the proposal yet. When I introduce parents into the proposal, I automatically want to expand the program to include an infant nursery and that presents challenges with consideration to health and safety. It can be done, but not done effectively enough for my liking.

So far.