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How Arkansas education leaders are working to prevent violence at schools

After the tragedy in Texas last month, the Arkansas School Safety Task Force is developing strategies to identify signs before violence ever happens in the schools.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark — Preventing school violence, specifically school shootings, is a big goal for districts throughout the nation-- it's also the objective for those here in Arkansas as well. 

With this mission in mind, the Arkansas School Safety Commission is continuing to meet and find the best ways to make that a reality. 

In a Tuesday meeting, Dr. Cheryl May said they're focused on pinpointing student behavior that indicates a threat, all in hopes of stopping it before it happens. 

May said people have to look at it from a prevention perspective. When most people think about behavioral threat assessment, they're thinking of a credible threat someone is making. 

"Often times, [people] don't spend the time needed to be able to look at a kid that's on a pathway to violence and to use tools like behavioral threat assessment to change that path for that kid," said Dr. May. 

The institute offers a free in-state course for Basic Behavioral Threat Assessment, which they emphasized is a critical component in preventing school shootings and other targeted violence on campus. 

It's an effort that's taking place throughout the state as well.

The Arkansas Center for School Safety was awarded a Bureau of Justice Assistance grant to aid school districts in developing effective behavioral threat assessment teams and processes.

The course also explains how to develop a school threat assessment team for districts and administrators. 

According to Dr. May, there aren't many schools that have utilized the tool. 

"There are 28% [of schools] based on a school safety assessment that we did in 2019," said Dr. May. 

During the group's meeting, Cindy Marble, a former secret service special agent, shared recommendations and encouraged the state to be proactive in preventing violence in schools. 

"Threat assessment doesn't necessarily mean a threat has been made. We can't wait until a threat has been made. We need to look at things that are concerning to us. We need to define these concerning behaviors," said Marble.

She said identifying negative experiences like bullying is one step and schools should have designated teams trained to respond. 

"If they know that our threat assessment teams in our schools and in our communities are meant to help, they're much more likely to bring information to us so that we can help," said Marble. 

Dr. May said they're putting together a report of best school practices to present to Gov. Asa Hutchinson. 

"To make sure that even though the school's that say have a behavioral threat assessment team, that they're training and implementing that team appropriately. When our kids feel safe they're going to have great potential for reaching academic success," said Dr. May. 

The deadline for their preliminary report to the governor is August 1st, with the final report due by Oct. 1st. 

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