1. JACK O’CONNELL State Superintendent of Public Instruction 1 Archived Information IMPROVING SAFETY AT HIGHEST-RISK SCHOOL SITES Meredith Rolfe California Department of Education Safe and Healthy Kids Program Office October 23, 2006

2. JACK O’CONNELL State Superintendent of Public Instruction 2 “Persistently Dangerous” School Identification: California’s Experience CDE assembled a PDS Advisory Committee in March 2002 20 randomly selected large and small, rural and urban LEAs Also included legislative staff, Governor’s staff, Office of the Attorney General, and staff from several CDE offices

3. JACK O’CONNELL State Superintendent of Public Instruction 3 Advisory Committee Process The committee began with a clean slate – all ideas considered Goal was to develop policy, to define “persistently dangerous”, and to identify implementation issues

4. JACK O’CONNELL State Superintendent of Public Instruction 4 Policy Decisions OF PDS Committee The committee believed that the process: Must improve safety at the highest-risk school sites – not just ID them Must use objective data Should use existing data if possible The committee also decided that: “Persistent” means repeated over time – more than one year

5. JACK O’CONNELL State Superintendent of Public Instruction 5 California State Board of Education PDS Definition Uses existing expulsion data for the most serious offenses, plus non-student gun violations To be considered a PDS: –Must have high rates for three consecutive years –Must have more than 1% of students expelled for these offenses

6. JACK O’CONNELL State Superintendent of Public Instruction 6 PDS Offenses Causing serious injury Robbery/extortion Assault/battery v. school employee Sexual assault or battery Firearm violation Selling a controlled substance Possessing explosive Non-student firearm violation Brandishing knife Hate violence

7. JACK O’CONNELL State Superintendent of Public Instruction 7 PDS Implementation Lessons Learned “Hard” data isn’t hard Schools with high rates can be safe Schools with low rates can be dangerous Schools with low rates may have fear Identifying sites based on incident data alone is unfair

8. JACK O’CONNELL State Superintendent of Public Instruction 8 More Lessons Learned Some feel that it is not statistics, but the absence of a good safe school plan or program that indicates high risk The label “Persistently Dangerous” is so emotionally loaded that it defeats the program’s purpose

9. JACK O’CONNELL State Superintendent of Public Instruction 9 Implications for the Future The goal of any future program should be to IMPROVE SAFETY at highest-risk sites Any program which simply identifies or labels schools as dangerous, without helping schools improve, will not improve safety, and Will not necessarily identify highest-risk sites

10. JACK O’CONNELL State Superintendent of Public Instruction 10 Improving Highest Risk School Sites Resources for improvement a must, or schools will avoid the label, rather than dealing with the problem All-day law enforcement presence, plus a long-term prevention program, costs about $180,000 per site per year

11. JACK O’CONNELL State Superintendent of Public Instruction 11 Alternatives for Identifying School Sites There are many possible ways to identify sites, but no process will result in a positive outcome unless LEAs are convinced that the process will benefit them and their students. Any process must be initiated with a campaign to ensure the support of LEA administrators

12. JACK O’CONNELL State Superintendent of Public Instruction 12 Gaining the Support of LEA Administrators State Superintendent should emphasize importance in public campaign Education of each LEA administrator on students’ perceptions in that LEA Workshops on the connection between perceptions of safety, other protective factors, and success in learning Once there is local support, there are a number of alternatives for implementing a program. Three possibilities follow.

13. JACK O’CONNELL State Superintendent of Public Instruction 13 Alternative One for Identifying Sites Require each LEA to nominate one site, or 2% of it’s sites, as the highest priority school safety site(s) Nominated sites with lowest student perception of safety at school would receive a grant to improve school safety Call the grant recipients “high priority” school safety sites

14. JACK O’CONNELL State Superintendent of Public Instruction 14 Alternative Two Use local “hard” data, plus local knowledge of the schools to interpret the data Identify 1% of sites using state data Have a grant application process Only sites identified as part of the 1% would be qualified to apply for the grant

15. JACK O’CONNELL State Superintendent of Public Instruction 15 Alternative Three Use an anonymous survey seeking student perceptions of safety Not subject to as much reporting bias as incident data Perceptions don’t always reflect reality - use in combination with other information Should be a standard survey nationwide

16. JACK O’CONNELL State Superintendent of Public Instruction 16 Recommendations for Reauthorization Reauthorization should mandate identification of “high priority” school safety sites, and provide funds. No identification of school sites should be required unless they are given funds or another positive incentive. Title IV funding must be retained, or their is no point in talking about improving school safety.