3 best practices for implementing school safety tip lines
Categories: US Education News
3best practices for implementing school safety tip lines
As education leaders are once again looking for ways toprevent violence amid the horrors of school and community shootings, someschool safety experts believe the tip line is a valuable way to encouragestudents and others to speak up. May be equipment.In fact, it appears thatschool safety tip lines are gaining traction in both districts and statelegislatures, especially because of the ongoing gun violence across thecountry, said Shawna White, senior lead for school safety at WestAid, anon-profit. Covers profit education and human development.
Mass shootings in schools and their surrounding communitieshave again come to the fore in the minds of education leaders and policymakers,following the tragic mass shooting at Rob Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, whichkilled 19 students and two teachers in May. A month later, Congress passed the$13 billion bipartisan Safe Communities Act—the first overhaul in gun law innearly 30 years.
The law, signed by President Joe Biden, also provides federalfunding to schools to expand mental health support and improve learningconditions and school safety. According to RTI International, a non-profitresearch institute, a 2019 survey of 1,226 school principals found that 51% ofpublic middle and high schools were operating a tip line.
In the same study, 75% of principals said that tip lines madethem more aware of safety issues in their schools, and more than 50% said thattip lines in their schools had prevented violent incidents. If a school orstate is looking to start a tip line, school safety experts suggest consideringthese three best practices:
1. Continuously promote the tip line
Trump said the key to making the tip line most effective isto continually promote it in the school community. In this way, the remindersmake it part of the culture constantly, he said. White agreed on the need forschools to send messages that consistently encourage students to reportbehaviors. More important, she said, is introducing programs that trainstudents on how to use tip lines as needed.
2.Create an anonymous reporting option
White also recommended that schools provide a number ofmechanisms, including at least one anonymous option, to report security concerns.An anonymous option, she said, provides a way for students to feel safe fromretaliation if they report a threat. While there is a risk that someone couldfalsely report anonymously, White said that's why it's even more important tothoroughly investigate the tips.
3. Make the reporting tool easily accessible
When superintendents send messages to school communitiescondemning violent incidents, they should provide a way to access any availablesafety equipment, such as a tip line, in the same message, White said. He saidit should be very easy to locate these tip lines on the district's website aswell. On top of that, once a tip is reported, follow-up investigations must behonest, accurate and fair, said Meg Caven, a senior research associate on schoolsafety at the Center for Education Development.