We find ourselves once again grieving with the students, teachers, families and community touched by this most recent act of senseless violence that occurred at an Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania (and last week in Bailey, Colorado)

Sample talking points on school violence:

Schools should be safe and secure places for all students, teachers, and staff members. Without a safe learning environment, teachers cannot teach and students cannot learn.

As unfortunate as these incidents are, they should be an urgent call to parents to ask questions and take action for children.

• These acts of violence are not simply family or school problems – Communities must realize the shared responsibility and work with parents and school administrators to identify safety issues.
  • According to the National Crime Prevention Council, the crime rate can decrease by as much as 30 percent when a violence prevention initiative is a community-wide effort. All parents, students, school staff, and members of the community need to be a part of creating safe school environments for our children. Many PTAs are working to identify the problems and causes of school violence and possible solutions for violence prevention.
• As school safety policies and measures are reviewed or new ones created at the local and state level, PTA believes parents need to be informed and involved at all levels of this decision-making process.

Help Develop A School Violence Prevention and Response Plan

• We must address the reasons for these recurring outbreaks of unthinkable violence and take the necessary steps to prevent them from happening again.

• School communities that have violence prevention plans and crisis management teams in place are more prepared to identify and avert potential problems and to know what to do when a crisis happens. The most effective violence prevention and response plans are developed in cooperation with school and health officials, parents, and community members. These plans include descriptions of school safety policies, early warning signs, intervention strategies, emergency response plans, and post-crisis procedures.
• Questions parents can ask to assess the safety of their school community

o       What is your child’s school procedure for getting information to parents during a crisis (website, phone tree, email, etc.)?

o       Does every teacher have a copy of emergency procedure clearly posted in the classroom? Is it reviewed with children?

o       Does your school practice emergency procedures with children? (much like a fire drill)

o       Does your child’s school review safety policy year-to-year? Does this review process involve parents?

o       Workshops on helping children deal with violence?

o       Community-wide violence prevention programs?

o       Conflict management and peer mediation programs offered in school?

o       Substance abuse prevention programs?

o       Gang prevention program for children?

o       School policy on guns and weapons?

Talk with and listen to children. As parents, teachers and caring adults we are in a position to listen, explain and develop positive ideas about the world around them.

• Find out if your children are concerned or frightened about going to school.
• Reassure your children that they are safe. Let them know that you are doing everything you can to protect them. Talk to them about crime prevention groups in your community that work everyday to ensure that your home and school is safe and that they are always there to help
• Make sense of the information that children are exposed to – Discuss what they’ve seen or heard, and what their friends and teachers are saying.
• Give clear instructions to children about how to avoid danger and how to respond to threatening situations.
• Remind children that if they see or hear the news stories being repeated, it does not mean the incident happened again, the story is just being told again.