A parent’s worst nightmare: A 17-year-old girl is abducted and raped on the way to school. What advice should parents give their children? A brutal sexual assault on a Cleveland girl last week captured media attention. Our local ABC affiliate, WEWS, asked me to provide safety tips for children to and from school. My primary […]
My Congressional Testimony vs. Stephen Colbert’s Performance
Legislation, sausage, and the news are three things you never want to see being made. Of the three, I think legislation is the ugliest with the least predictable (and sometimes least meaningful) outcome. I have had the opportunity to testify on school safety issues four times before our nation’s Congress: House Education and Labor Committee […]
Bullying: Rarely the only cause of a young person’s suicide
The media, educational, and political craze around “bullying” focuses on the symptom, not the underlying problem, in teen suicide cases. In today’s opinion section of Cleveland’s Plain Dealer newspaper, I responded to a recent story on teen suicides in a neighboring county in a letter to the editor entitled, “Bullying: Rarely is it the only […]
What Parents Expect After a Shooting & Pipe Bombs at School
A 14-year-old South Carolina high school student shoots at a school resource officer (SRO). He has two pipe bombs in his backpack. A search of the student’s home finds a wide array of items including shotgun and handgun shells, multiple cigarette lighters, exploded bomb pieces, 14 carbon dioxide cartridges, and the list goes on. Authorities later find […]
School Safety Challenged by Volunteer Criminal Backgrounds
Is the parent volunteer in your child’s school a convicted sex offender or drug dealer? School officials struggle balancing parental involvement and protecting students from adults with criminal backgrounds who want to volunteer at their child’s school. The tension was highlighted in Wednesday’s Associated Press article entitled Would-be School Volunteers Thwarted By Their Past. Parent […]
Why Florida Father of Bus Bullying Victim Was Wrong
The frustrated father whose daughter was bullied on a Florida school bus was justifiably upset, but wrong in how he approached the issue. Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Right James Willie Jones made national news this past week when a school bus video captured him yelling at students and the bus driver, and gesturing in anger […]
How the Media is Contributing to the Bullying Fad Craze
A father is labeled a school bus bully to fight for his child who is being harassed. Five teen suicides focus questions on bullying. A state legislator plans for more legislation on bullying while Congress has introduced its own federal anti-bullying laws. “We talk about bullying every week now,” one local news anchor said in […]
Why Teen Mental Health, Not Bullying, Must Be Suicide Focus
The headline, “5 teen suicides put focus on bullying issue in Mentor,” should have read, “5 teen suicides put focus on youth mental health issues.” This Monday Plain Dealer article in Cleveland, Ohio, is the latest in a number of national news stories linking bullying with incidents of teen suicide. I first addressed this last […]
Federal Court Rules on School Visitor Management System Suit
Does requiring parents and other visitors to provide personal identification to determine whether they are registered sex offenders violate the visitors’ constitutional rights? According to the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, in affirming a decision of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, the answer is, “No.” Plaintiffs-Appellants Larry and Yvonne Meadows […]
School Safety: Are You Doing What You Say You Are Doing?
Disconnects between what is on paper and what actually occurs in day-to-day practice in school safety can present school leaders with safety risks and potential legal liability. One Midwest school district was challenged in a law suit for allegedly not following its emergency plan when a student choked on a hot dog in the school […]