When the South Kitsap school board met Sept. 18, the planned discussion of the district’s threat assessment program was embraced more urgently due to the recent school shooting in which a student killed four people and injured many others.
Jennifer Skinner, a school psychologist and the district’s threat assessment coordinator, spoke about how to keep schools safe.
“After a school shooting like the recent tragedy in Georgia, it’s common, and it’s healthy to ask what we are doing here in Kitsap,” Skinner said. “The primary purpose of this type of threat assessment is to prevent targeted violence.”
Skinner said the system the school district uses is “a behavioral evaluation model, and looks at factors that might indicate a student is preparing to act,” she said. SK meets monthly with district-level members of the threat assessment team, as well as community partners like social workers, family members, counselors, police officers, etc.
The model does not rely on discipline. It’s based on evaluating students, and preventing violence by intervening if behavioral signs are present. It’s based on work done between the Secret Service and the Department of Education, in which specific behavior patterns were recorded before various acts of violence.
Following a multi-disciplinary approach to common threat behaviors, Skinner said it’s important that various viewpoints from all members of the team are discussed. “It allows us to get all of the information on a student or set of students on the table, and we can then identify risk factors,” she said.
“We then can do intervention, which takes time, but can also help increase psychological safety. When we know threats are taken seriously, it helps not just students, but our community and our staff feel safer.”
Skinner dispelled “myths” about school violence. “There is no such thing as a profile of a student who will cause harm. Profiling can unjustly stigmatize a student, and it can throw off our focus to the wrong place,” she said. “The goal is to redirect these students to more constructive and non-violent solutions.”
She said perceived safety is not the same as real safety. “Often the feeling is that a student who threatened the school or students should be taken out of school. But that disconnects the student from school, and disconnects them from our opportunity to provide intervention and to monitor them,” Skinner said.
Since the program’s implementation in South Kitsap in 2016, 230 students have been assessed. Skinner said that the students come from all grade levels, but mostly high school. “About a third of those are pre-screened and dismissed,” she said, adding about 60% of students assessed are low risk. But about 7% are a moderate to significant risk.
District superintendent Tim Winter said, “When we look at what’s happening in our world, in our school and in public places, it’s really important that we do everything we can to prevent those things from happening in our district.”
Skinner said the effort helps everyone. “This work saves potential victims, but it also saves that child who could be the attacker. The average age of a school shooter is 15, and no one’s life should be over based on the actions of a 15-year-old, including that 15-year-old,” she said.
