School Safety Training - What's the Research?

School Safety Training

Since the Sandy Hook massacre, there has been a figurative explosion in the amount of school safety training provided to schools.  On the surface, this would appear to be a good thing, but is it really?  Many of the training "programs" are not based on research, provide no continuity of training, are not criterion-based, and there is confusions as to who is actually being trained.  For the sake of brevity, one of these issues will be addressed at a time.

There is considerable information out there on how the human mind is affected by high -stress information.  LTC Dave Grossman has written extensively on the subject, as has Loren Christensen, Kenneth Murray, and others.  Dr. Gary Klein has done considerable research on how decisions are made under stress, Dr. Dewey Cornell has done considerable research on youth crime and school safety.  Yet, very few programs being used today rely on any of them to back what they do.

Dr. Cornell said, "Some people leap to dubious ideas, like bulletproof backpacks and arming teachers, when in fact our energy and resources are better spent dealing with less sensational everyday problems like bullying, or mental health issues like depression."  Yet the focus since Sandy Hook have been on "proactive responses" to Active Shooter Situations.  This, despite the fact that from 1998 to 2012, there were 22 Active Shooter Incidents in K12 schools, with 62 deaths in those incidents. 

While one death is a tragedy, schools have finite resources to apply to all the dangers they face.  In that same time frame, many more students died in school transportation-related crashes (525).  Many more students died by homicide (339) or by suicide (129), than by Active Shooter (62) (Satterly, 2014).  Yet millions of dollars have been spent to prepare for Active Shooter Incidents, and little for suicide and crime prevention in schools, or in better training for school bus drivers.

Anytime a school proposes a new program, the question should be asked, "What research supports this program?"  If they can't provide solid, peer-reviewed research that back what they do, then the school can do better.

Next: Continuity of Training.