April 19, 2007
Dear County and District Superintendents and Charter School Administrators:
I know you join me in offering heartfelt compassion and sympathy to our colleagues in education at Virginia Technical Institute as they deal with the horrific shooting incident that occurred on that campus this week. Our hearts and prayers go out to the victims of this tragedy, as well as to the Virginia Tech students, their families, the faculty, and staff.
While we all consider our schools safe havens for learning, I am sure that the tragic events at Virginia Tech have made many of us stop and think about the readiness of California's schools to deal with such an event. The California Department of Education is committed to assisting you in maintaining safe campuses that provide healthy, nurturing learning environments for students of all ages.
Safe School Planning
I urge you to take this opportunity to remind each of your school site administrators that California Education Code mandates that each school site have a current, effective, and comprehensive safe school plan. This plan must be drafted in consultation with representatives from law enforcement and emergency services personnel, and must be updated by March 1 of each year. The plan shall contain, but not be limited to, an assessment of current school crime, appropriate strategies and programs that maintain a high level of school safety, discrimination and harassment policies, and procedures to ensure the creation of a safe and orderly environment conducive to learning. An integral part of each safe school plan is the crisis preparedness and response component.
Implementing The Safe School Plan
Once the plan has been created, effective implementation requires that the students and staff, including support staff, are trained in the content of the plan, and in their individual responsibilities in implementing the plan. This training should occur annually; and additional training sessions should be held whenever a large number of new staff joins a school during the course of the year. School communities must be provided with frequent opportunities to practice all elements of these plans, including the response to crisis. Familiarity with the plan will help to ensure that should an incident occur, school communities are prepared to effectively respond.
Partnerships
I cannot emphasize too strongly the fact that violence is a community-wide problem that is best addressed by all members of the community, including law enforcement, emergency services personnel, and health and social service agencies. These partnerships are vital to addressing not only immediate needs, but also more long-term efforts to promote violence prevention. Please be sure to do all that you can to involve local law enforcement and other responders in the original planning and the ongoing training and implementation aspects of the plan.
Resources and Funding
There are many resources to assist you as you review and update your school safety and crisis response plan. A complete set of planning resources, and funding to implement the plans you make, is available through the CDE Web site.
- Crisis Response Planning – guidance for developing a complete Crisis Response Box may be found at Crisis Response - Crisis Preparedness.
- Safe School Planning – Safe Schools, A Planning Guide for Action is guidance for developing a complete safe school plan. It may be ordered from CDE Press at Catalog Listings of Publications - Educational Resources Catalog. Research-proven programs for implementing your plans may be found at Getting Results: Developing Safe and Healthy Kids [www.gettingresults.org] (Outside Source) and Science-Based Programs.
- Coping With Tragedy – guidance about what can be done to minimize the negative effects of tragedies on students' emotional states may be found at American Red Cross: Masters of Disaster - Facing Fear: Description [http://www.redcross.org/disaster/masters/facingfear/] (Outside Source) and at Coping with Tragedy.
- Trainings in School Safety Planning – CDE sponsors approximately 50 trainings per year throughout the state. These trainings cover crisis response and safe school planning, and bullying prevention and intervention. Most 2006-07 trainings have been completed, but a new set of trainings will be scheduled by August 2007.
- Funding For School Safety Activities – The School Safety and Violence Prevention program provides $35 per student enrolled in grades eight through twelve for violence prevention purposes. This equates to $70,000 for a high school of 2,000 students. The amount each LEA receives from this program and from NCLB Title IV: Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities funding may be found at Categorical Programs. Also listed at this site is the competitive School Community Violence Prevention grant program, which awards 5-year, $500,000 grants to about 35 LEAs each year.
Finally, I would like to note that while the tragic events at Virginia Tech occurred hundreds of miles away from California, the incident and the wide media coverage of the tragedy may be impacting students in our schools. I hope that you will ask your local school site administrators to aware of increased anxiety levels among students or staff who are worried about their own safety as a result of the events in Virginia. Please work to address the emotional needs of your school community as we all try to comprehend this tragedy.
My staff and I are ready to assist you in your efforts to create and maintain schools that are safe havens for learning. For more information, please contact the Safe and Healthy Kids Program Office, (916) 319-0920.
Sincerely,
JACK O'CONNELL
JO:hm
1430 N Street
Sacramento, CA 95814