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SALT LAKE CITY -- In the years following the Columbine High School shooting there have been millions of dollars spent by public and private schools nationwide on school security. Schools have implemented, at a significant impact to school budgets and patron convenience alike, such things as video surveillance, electronic access control, single point entry and computerized visitor management.
Law enforcement personnel and private security staff added to school campuses are another cost item. In addition, more time and money have been spent on developing response procedures and staff training, centered on school violence. Not to mention, bullying awareness and prevention programs.
In this time of increasingly limited funding for education, there are questions that need to be asked. How real is the threat of school violence? Is this money well spent?
In this time of increasingly limited funding for education, there are questions that need to be asked. How real is the threat of school violence? Is this money well spent?
To answer the first question, there is a need to define just what school violence is.
The Center for the Prevention of School Violence in the North Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention defines school violence as “any behavior that violates a school’s educational mission or climate of respect or jeopardizes the intent of the school to be free of aggression against persons or property, drugs, weapons, disruptions, and disorder.” This definition is recognized by the National Criminal Justice Reference Service as well.
In a survey of high school students as part of the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance 2003 report on the CDC website, 17.1 percent had carried a weapon to school.
And 71 percent of public elementary and secondary schools experienced at least one violent incident during the 1999-2000 school year, according to school principals as reported in the Violence in U.S. Public Schools: 2000 School Survey on Crime and Safety, October 2003.
"Indicators of School Crime and Safety," a 2006 study by the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Justice, found that public schools experiencing violent incidents increased from 71 to 81 percent over a five-year period (1999-2004).
In the 2006-07 school year, the most recent that complete statistics are available for, the Centers for Disease Control reports that nationwide, there were 27 homicides and eight suicides taking place at schools. The same report, however, indicates that there were 1.7 million non-fatal crimes committed in schools and that 86 percent of all schools reported some type of criminal activity.
The National School Safety and Security Services lists a total of 284 school-associated violent deaths from 1999 through 2010.
The National School Safety and Security Services lists a total of 284 school-associated violent deaths from 1999 through 2010.
Many of the systems deployed have a large deterrence value as well. However, it is difficult to prove a negative. How do you determine what may have happened but for the preventive actions that were in place?
Given this, there is little telling what the statistics would look like had not most schools and school districts expended significant resources for school security systems, training, personnel and prevention in the years following the Columbine High School shootings.
It appears that the threat is real and the money was well spent.
Guy Bliesner is a longtime educator, having taught and coached tennis and swimming. He is school safety and security administrator for the Bonneville School District in Idaho Falls, Idaho. He has been married for 26 years and has three children.
