By Karla Pomeroy
Editor
School safety issues involve more than just guns
Share
Tweet
WORLAND — Schools in Wyoming are now in full swing for the 2018-2019 school year and along with focusing on education many districts are still working on new security measures. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Balow weighed in on the issue of school security during the national conference in Worland last week.
The conversation about school security, Balow said, is much larger than just a conversation about firearms.
“One thing that is very concerning for me is right now as a nation we talk about school safety and security we immediately start talking about guns, whether that’s guns that are carried by offenders and cause damage in schools or whether that’s teachers or other personnel in schools who are armed. I think that it is really harmful to narrow the conversation about school safety and security to guns,” Balow said.
The Wyoming Legislature approved House Bill 194 in 2017 allowing districts to arm staff if they so choose. “That’s a bill that I supported. There are a lot of guardrails in that bill, but those conversations need to be held at the local level and they need to be had very carefully and in conjunction with law enforcement, teachers, parents, students, community members and others. The reason is, and Washakie County is a perfect example, the concept of arming certain personnel in Ten Sleep is a much different conversation than it is in Worland.”
She said the reason it is different is response time from law enforcement. Washakie County Sheriff Steve Rakness said response could be 20 minutes or longer in the case of an incident in Ten Sleep. For Worland, with a police department in the city, the response time is just minutes.
Balow said having taught in Hulett, where law enforcement response could be up to an hour away, helps her understand why Ten Sleep is having the conversation of arming staff. “The thought of sort of having sentinels that are within the school, and trained and capable and willing to take action in the event of a crisis, is something that is more palatable to the community than it would be in Worland.”
A bill in 2016 that failed, Balow said, would have lifted the ban on guns in the school zone. “I opposed that and I took a little guff for that but I opposed it because my fear is that our schools would be very concerned about implementing that, instead of implementing the correct way. The correct way is from the ground up with a lot of community discussion,” she said.
Balow said “School safety and security is about so much more. One of the reasons I want to focus on it as a major initiative and conversation in our state for the next four years is because we need to be thinking about student mental health. We need to be thinking about all of the factors that didn’t exist 20 years ago, that cause maybe one-on-one violence or mental abuse in our schools, whether that’s violent video games, or social media or bullying in schools and the community. Those are school safety and security issues that we need to address.
“The other aspect of that is hard security in our schools. Are we doing our level best to make sure that we’re preventing the bad guys from getting in.”
She said conversations about “hard security” need to be made with law enforcement, facilities managers and school leaders.
“It doesn’t mean metal detectors or bulletproof backpacks or some of the other crazy notions that are out there. It’s sometimes really simple and inexpensive fixes,” she said, including cameras, locking schools, crisis training for staff, prevention plan with law enforcement.
“Those are the three buckets as a state we need to be talking about [guns, mental health and hard security] and as state superintendent it is my responsibility to facilitate those conversations,” Balow said.
This is the last in a series of articles that stemmed from an interview with state superintendent Jillian Balow who attended the national PLC and RTI conference in Worland Tuesday and Wednesday.
