The shooting last week at Perry Hall High School brought a heightened police presence, an increase in counseling for students, and more prayers and vigils for the victim, who is expected to survive, though with greater disabilities.
The Baltimore Sun reports that the school is looking for its path back to normality.
One expert from Johns Hopkins said the school should focus on making it easier for kids to come forward when they notice declining behavior patterns in classmates. “There’s lots of reasons why they don’t,” the Sun quoted her as saying.
Most school systems have already come to a realization that zero-tolerance policies for minor infractions don’t work as intended, but their reasons have focused on the loss of instructional time. This expert from Hopkins focused on the idea that zero-tolerance policies would only force students who are in distress to take their activities off campus, making it less likely that school staff would notice a potential problem.
Another expert, however, said teachers and other school staff members aren’t really qualified to make observations that could determine if something might trigger any given student to act violently.
“That doesn’t fit with someone who goes into education,” the Sun quoted him as saying. Law enforcement personnel, trained to see the dark side of humanity, are “looking for trouble,” he said. Educators, on the other hand, “are just the opposite,” referring to the fact that teachers normally look hard to find the positive side in every kid.
This is why school resource officers are often helpful. Not only do these law enforcement professionals give kids someone to talk to besides school officials, but they also provide better instincts when it comes to observing signs that might lead to violence. One study, published in the April 27, 2005 edition of Education Week, found that 78 percent of school officers had taken weapons away from students in the past year.
And trust me, that was way more than school officials in those schools reported. Schools often don’t report these incidents, perhaps believing it’s not necessary, but as the new superintendent in one Illinois school district learned last week, reporting is required for certain incidents.
Perry Hall High School, Baltimore County’s largest public high school, was not listed as a persistently dangerous school by the Maryland State Department of Education, which is required, under the No Child Left Behind law, to list schools it believes fit this description. Anecdotes from school officials, reported in news stories, seem to suggest there’s nothing on the shooter’s record at the school that would indicate he was potentially violent.
Yet, in the past, signs have turned up about school shooters that officials have missed. Sometimes they saw those signs and didn’t report them, while other times, the signs went unnoticed. It is true that educators don’t normally see the dark side in students and may overlook signs, even if they’re present, but failing to report signs in the interest of maintaining a reputation is not something that leads to positive behavior from students or parents.
Crisis intervention in schools promotes a feeling of ‘being helped’
Of course, the most immediate concern in a school shooting is to provide professional support as quickly as possible, especially for those with a less supportive family network, one study finds. That’s because students who have better access to support from family and friends tend to feel better helped—and more comfortable, should the need arise and the post-traumatic distress reach a critical level, seeking help from professional counselors.
The study also encourages follow-up care for everyone exposed to a major traumatic event. This is just to check on those boys who didn’t seek counseling right after the event (because they are less likely than girls to seek help) and make sure everyone’s OK with any long-term needs.
Attention must turn toward community
But attention will soon turn toward the community in Perry Hall. Research out of Finland, after school shootings there in 2007 and 2009, suggests that social solidarity will increase in the Perry Hall community immediately after the shooting, as it has, evidenced by the vigils and a meeting for parents to express their concerns at the school on Sept. 4.
However, social scientists generally warn of negative-leaning social forces hitting the community in the not-too-distant future.
Our results suggest that there was a rise in social solidarity after the shooting tragedy. However, the increased level of solidarity was also followed by a variety of negative phenomena such as strengthened group divisions between youth and adults, social stigmatization, and feelings of collective guilt. These experiences are familiar in the cultural trauma processes.
If school (and community) officials are aware of these potential impacts to community life, we hope they can take steps to mitigate the damage.
Parents and other community members attended a meeting at the school Tuesday, WBAL-TV (NBC affiliate) reports. The school’s principal, George Roberts, told the station that healing is starting to take place throughout the Perry Hall High School campus a little better than last week.
Some say communication should be better, as several parents reported finding out about the shooting at their child’s school through the media rather than from the school.
Some say whatever was done to care for the shooter last year wasn’t enough, as he obviously came to school on the first day this year ready to take matters into his own hands.
Finally, some parents wondered if metal detectors would deter students from bringing weapons to school. There was some discussion of the possibility at the meeting, WBAL reported, but any decision has been put off to a later date.
“I think that’s kind of a stupid idea because nobody wants to walk through a metal detector. People have phones that are metal, and iPods,” WBAL quoted one student as saying.