NORWICH – Schools should be places of dignity, honor and respect, not fear and violence, according to one of the nation’s foremost experts on school safety.
That was the message Michael Dorn, executive director of Safe Havens International and author of “Weakfish,” had for school board members and administrators from across the county last week, as he addressed those gathered for the Chenango County School Board Association fall dinner.
“Michael Dorn believes that every person in this room has the incredible power to profoundly effect the lives of students,” said CCSBA Vice President Brian Brennan, a member of the Unadilla Valley Board of Education, as he introduced the internationally renowned speaker.
The dinner, held Nov. 5 at the Canasawacta Country Club in Norwich, was the third consecutive event hosted by the organization focused on bullying and school safety.
Dorn discussed the link between safety and test scores. Schools have a “moral and legal obligation to provide a reasonably safe school environment,” he said, the first steps in which are assessing safety, controlling access and providing good student supervision.
Throughout the course of his presentation, Dorn discussed horrific examples of school violence including a 1958 incident in Chicago, where one boy with a match killed 95 students and nuns at a Catholic school.
But despite these grim worst-case scenarios, Dorn called himself “an extreme optimist” when it comes to school safety in the U.S.
“Violence is not a leading cause of deaths in American schools,” he reported, explaining that 30 years ago the homicide rate was twice what it is today. “We’ve made tremendous progress.” Other countries, including the UK, have much higher homicide rates, he said.
But while schools are able to keep students safe “most of the time,” school violence does exist, as Dorn illustrated with one case study after another. And it isn’t only in inner city schools.
“Some of the best schools in America have been caught off guard,” he said, citing the Columbine tragedy as an example.
According to Dorn, who has penned 25 books on the subject, school safety and test scores are connected.
“Fear is one of the greatest barriers to learning that exists,” he reported, explaining that when students are afraid, they aren’t listening, paying attention or learning as they should. To back this up, he cited a California study which found that the state’s safest schools were also the highest performing.
All schools should have written prevention/mitigation plans in place, as well as preparedness, response and recovery plans.
“Policy is important,” he said, and shouldn’t be circumvented for the sake of convenience, particularly when it comes to access to school buildings.
It is important to assess all threats to school safety, he said, suggesting that too much time is spent focusing on the armed gunman scenario that other, more likely threats are overlooked. One of the services his organization performs at the behest of schools are “red team assessments,” to determine their risk levels when it comes to child abductions, theft and other threats.
“We assess, we don’t guess,” he said, recommending that all schools survey parents, faculty and students to see where they perceive safety threats.
Proper supervision of students was another point Dorn stressed, explaining that there is no substitute for the physical presence of adults in decreasing violence.
“People deter more than cameras,” he explained.
According to Dorn, “space management” is also important to maintaining a safe environment. Unoccupied areas should be kept locked, he said.
Dorn spoke at length about his book “Weakfish,” in which he describes two different types of students. The first, which he terms “weakfish,” are the students who are often picked on, teased and bullied. These students, he explained, often fall prey to those he calls “barracudas.”
Drawing from his own painful personal experience, Dorn explained that these weakfish need adults to defend and advocate for them, and how powerful it can be for a student when that happens. For him, it was a teacher who took it upon herself to make sure he was tested for a learning disability at a young age.
“If one thanks you, a hundred thank you in their hearts every day,” he said.
Members of the Norwich City School District’s faculty and staff also had an opportunity to hear Dorn and other educational experts speak during a professional development workshop hosted by the district prior to the CCSBA event.