WCPSS Begins Threat Management Training

August 20, 2002 - Working to improve school safety and help troubled children, the Wake County Public School System has begun training school principals and working with community agencies to establish a Threat Management by Assessment and Counseling program.


WCPSS Student Due Process Officer Victoria Curtis talks to principals and assistant principals as training program begins.

"This program will provide us with a consistent countywide plan to investigate threats," Superintendent Bill McNeal said. "Schools that have an action plan in place can investigate and assess threats more efficiently and accurately, head off any potential incidents of violence."

The training program grew from discussions in the spring of 2001 about school safety. Since that time, school principals, community doctors and psychiatrists, and school board attorneys have worked together to develop strategies for school safety.

The training will help Wake school staff identify, assess, and treat potentially violent students. Threat assessment teams will be formed at the schools to help determine the seriousness of the threat and determine what steps need to be taken to protect students and get treatment for the threat maker. If the threat is a real threat of violence and the student is removed from school, the student will be referred to community-based psychological teams that are being formed outside the school system to provide help for these potentially violent students.

The training for elementary, middle, and high school principals and assistant principals is being held Tuesday and Wednesday (August 20 and 21). This is the first of three planned training sessions. Once administrators are trained, there will be sessions for school-based teams and school counselors. U.S. Secret Service trainers will assist with the school-based team training.

Principal Vickie Brown of Jeffreys Grove Elementary, Principal Gerald Pickett of Fuquay-Varina High and WCPSS Student Due Process Officer Victoria Curtis talked with news reporters just before the training session began.


Principal Vickie Brown of Jeffreys Grove Elementary

"At the elementary school level, we feel like it is our responsibility to start this process in helping children to understand that threats of violence are serious, even when you are little," Brown said. "A lot of times, we hear from the elementary school children, 'I didn't mean that I was oging to hurt him.' We are trying to help them find other words, words that they can use other than 'I'm going to hurt you.' It's typical to hear this kind of language. I'ts our responsibility to communickate to parents and to children that any threat, even mentioned in jest, is something that we need to work on."

"One of the greatest challenges we have is responding to irrational things in a rational planned manner," Pickett said. "This training will provide us the to expertise to respond to these types of situations."

School-based teams may include an administrator, School Resource Officer, a WCPSS Security Officer, a teacher, and someone that knows the student making the threat. The team will be trained to respond quickly, act on fact, and fully corroborate allegations. School-based team members will serve as positive adult role models, working to communicate constructively, suggesting strategies of support to the parent of the student(s), recommending disciplinary actions to the principal, and directly addressing the problems of bullying at their schools.

In developing community-based psychological teams, Wake schools will work closely with Wake County Human Services, the NC Department of Juvenile Justice and Crime Prevention, Re-Entry Youth Development, and the 3-C Institute for Social Development.

The program will benefit students, schools, and the community in a number of ways:

· Threats will be responded to and assessed in a standardized, structured, and consistent manner;
· Integrated methods for assessing behaviors of concern will result in more effective and appropriate management efforts;
· There will be a single point of contact established for each school and community team, improving reporting efforts;
· Assessment and recommendations will be a team effort with collaboration and enhanced communication promoting information decision making and integrated care;
· Alternatives to longterm suspension and expulsion will be available to the schools, promoting greater stability in the learning environment for students; and
· School staff and community agents will benefit from training, increasing understanding, and awareness of issues related to threats.

"By establishing this program, Wake schools will address a critical, important issue facing school in youth violence," Curtis said. "Why are we doing this? Because its the right thing to do for kids. School climates will be improved and the safety in schools will be increased for all students."

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