Saliva-Based, COVID-19 RT-PCR Pooled Screening Strategy to Keep Schools Open

Background: As of March 2020, governments throughout the world implemented business closures, work from home policies, and school closures due to exponential increase of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases, leaving only essential workers being able to work on site. For most of the children and adolescent school closures during the first lockdown had significant physical and psychosocial consequences. Here, we describe a comprehensive Return to School program based on a behavior safety protocol combined with the use of saliva-based reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) pooled screening technique to keep schools opened. Methods: The program had 2 phases: before school (safety and preparation protocols) and once at school (disease control program: saliva-based RT-PCR pooled screening protocol and contact tracing). Pooling: Aliquots of saliva from 24 individuals were pooled and 1 RT-PCR test was performed. If positive, the initial 24-pool was then retested (12 pools of 2). Individual RT-PCR tests from saliva samples from positive pools of 2 were performed to get an individual diagnosis. Results: From August 31 until December 20, 2020 (16-wk period) a total of 3 pools, and subsequent 3 individual diagnosis of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) disease were reported (2 teachers and 1 staff). Conclusion: Until COVID-19 vaccine can be administered broadly to all-age children, saliva-based RT-PCR pooling testing is the missing piece we were searching for to keep schools opened.

Districts Implementation of Active Shooter Drill Policies

High-profile school shootings provoke public outcry and calls for policy responses to gun violence in schools. However, policy makers face pressure from diverse stakeholders with distinct agendas, and in some areas, there is little empirical research to guide policy makers’ decisions. Active shooter drills are one such example of a hotly debated policy response in need of further study. As a preliminary step to filling this research gap, this mixed-methods study investigated how school districts in Florida have implemented active shooter drills following legislation passed after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida. We analyzed school safety specialists’ perceptions and reports of drill procedures and their alignment with best practices. The majority of the districts surveyed aligned with Best Practices established by the National Association of School Psychologists and National Association of School Resource Officers. Implications for future research and considerations for the implementation of active shooter drills are discussed.

Building Stronger Connections Among Students, Families, and Schools to Promote School Safety

Safe schools help promote positive social, academic, and educational outcomes. Research consistently suggests that students tend to be most successful in schools where they feel safe. For example, prior literature establishes that when students attend safe schools, they are more likely to graduate from high school compared to students who attend schools with behavioral problems or safety concerns. Over the last three decades, school shootings have garnered increased public attention, and the public has a heightened awareness that not all schools are safe environments for students. Drawing from ecological systems theory, this chapter will examine how the bonds between students and their schools are important for creating a school culture that is safe, inclusive, and supports the success of all students. Bridging social capital between families and schools also helps foster a safe school atmosphere, where students can focus on their academic and social development.

Fear vs. Threat, School Shootings and Violence

The first recorded school shooting took place in Charlottesville, Virginia on November 12, 1840. The most recent school shooting took place on July 11, 2019 in Hartford, Connecticut. Over 500 school shootings have taken place since the Charlottesville incident. Sadly, school shootings are not an anomaly to many communities in America. Administrators, and particularly principals, are faced with significant challenges in creating an environment that is conducive to the development of a productive and safe school culture. The content of this manuscript will explore the existing administrative roles and responsibilities with respect to school safety and the implementation and supervision of those procedures. Also discussed in the manuscript will be the role that fear plays in the decision making process and how some decisions may be misplaced and could be redirected toward more favorable areas of emphasis (i.e., counseling, active supervision, alternative academic options, community outreach, and inclusive student opportunities).

School Resource (Police) Officers in Schools

Having police officers in schools (school resource officers – SROs) is controversial with a growing debate as their presence has proliferated nationally over the past 20 years. A majority of high schools and middle schools today have police on campus providing a variety of services, though primarily law enforcement. While the intent is to provide improved school safety and protection to students, unexpectedly this has not been the outcome for many school campuses when reviewing most criminal activity and school shootings. While the presence of SROs is complicated, the unintended impact has harmed more students than anticipated by criminalizing misbehaviors and disorderly conduct, making the learning environment less conducive by negatively changing school climates and disproportionately impacting many already at-risk young people.

Associations of Physical Activity, School Safety and Non-Prescription Steroid Use in Adolescents: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach

Non-prescription steroid use can negatively impact adolescent physical and mental health and wellbeing. Determining correlates of this risk behavior is needed to help mitigate its prevalence. Two potential correlates are physical activity and school safety. The purpose of this study was to examine the associations of physical activity, school safety, and non-prescription steroid use within a sample of adolescents from the 2015–2019 US National Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS). A multi-stage cluster sampling procedure yielded a representative sample of US adolescents from the 2015–2019 YRBS (n = 44,066; 49.6% female). Two latent variables indicating physical activity and unsafe schools were the independent variables. The dependent variable was a self-report of non-prescription steroid use. A weighted structural equation model examined the associations between physical activity and unsafe schools with non-prescription steroid use, controlling for age, sex, BMI percentile, race/ethnicity, and sexual minority status. The latent physical activity variable did not associate with non-prescription steroid use (β = 0.007, 95%CI: −0.01–0.02, p = 0.436); however, the unsafe schools latent variable did associate with non-prescription steroid use (β = 0.64, 95%CI: 0.59–0.69, p < 0.001). An unsafe school environment may be a determinant of non-prescription steroid use in adolescents. Physical activity behaviors did not associate with steroid use.

School security management – ethical, psychosocial and institutional conditions

School security – of students, teachers, and other staff – is a critical issue in education policy. Due to the multiplicity of threats in the school environment, this issue still occupies a leading place in the discussion on education and forces constant care to improve this state. The headmaster manages school safety. The style of performing this duty is significant. The article discusses school security management, emphasizing the participatory method, which assumes the involvement of all educational entities in decision-making processes. Moreover, the prepared material presents many legal bases and other documents regulating safety rules and obligations to act in an emergency. Various educational programs and projects were also presented, which would be worth getting interested in to improve safety in schools.

Training of Future Teachers for the Formation of the Competence of Safe Life of the Younger Generation

The article highlights the new conditions of providing future teachers with targeted training to master the competence of safe life for children; the new aspects of the concept of "competence of a person's safe life" is determined, the structural components of the preparedness of future teachers for activities aimed at building a system of conscious actions and actions of the younger generation for self-preservation in all spheres of life are revealed. The purpose of the article is to reveal the need to optimize teacher training to safety aspects of their activities, determine the essence of the formation of competence of safe life of the participants in the educational process and experimentally test new pedagogical conditions of training future teachers to form the competence of safe life of children. To achieve this goal, general scientific methods of theoretical level were used: analysis of scientific literature on the safe existence of the individual, didactic modelling of educational conditions and forecasting of learning outcomes, as well as methods of empirical level: observation, interviews, questionnaires, testing, etc. The results of diagnosing the state of readiness of future teachers for the formation of safe competence in the life of the younger generation are presented. Purposeful work on the development of those indicators of readiness of future teachers to form the competence of safe living of the younger generation, which, according to the diagnosis, were underdeveloped (at low and medium levels), contributed to a significant improvement in EG compared to the results in CG. The international significance of the article is due to the new requirements for school safety in conditions of increased stress, hyperinformation, bullying and other destructive factors requiring scientific solutions. The authors propose a way to optimize educational conditions, which hypothetically should improve the above-mentioned competencies and become the basis for further improvement of life safety, educational and professional activities.

Impacts of school shooter drills on the psychological well-being of American K-12 school communities: a social media study

The toll from gun violence in American K-12 schools has escalated over the past 20 years. School administrators face pressure to prepare for possible active shootings, and often do so through drills, which can range from general lockdowns to simulations, involving masked “shooters” and simulated gunfire, and many variations in between. However, the broad and lasting impact of these drills on the well-being of school communities is poorly understood. To that end, this article applies machine learning and interrupted time series analysis to 54 million social media posts, both pre- and post-drills in 114 schools spanning 33 states. Drill dates and locations were identified via a survey, then posts were captured by geo-location, school social media following, and/or school social media group membership. Results indicate that anxiety, stress, and depression increased by 39–42% following the drills, but this was accompanied by increases in civic engagement (10–106%). This research, paired with the lack of strong evidence that drills save lives, suggests that proactive school safety strategies may be both more effective, and less detrimental to mental health, than drills.