Collateral Damage to Virtual Learning

 Collateral damage to virtual learning

 

Kids are frightened about going to school.   Some with good reason, some with no reason.  The Maryland's public schools were among the last to reopen during the coronavirus pandemic and they are paying the price now. When kids returned to school last school year they brought with them emotional troubles that led to behavioral issues for many students.   Lots of folks will tell you that social emotional learning is a waste of time and money.   But one of the major things kids learn in school is getting along with others, particularly others who are not like you and may have different life experiences.

The media amplifies gun violence in schools and there is quite a bit of violence for it to amplify.   Some students are making posturing threats on social media.  But who can tell a posture from a foreshadow of the real thing?

In Maryland, the issues are more pronounced in Baltimore City where the availability of guns in the general community cannot help but spill over into the schools.  Afterall, the teens with guns in the community do attend school.  City schools are spending anywhere from $250,000 to up to a million dollars to add metal detectors, alarm systems and closed-circuit TV to school security.

Baltimore County is supplementing its school resource officers with school safety assistants, adding as many as 3-5 assistants in both middle and high schools.   They are trained in de-escalation strategies with the hope they can prevent more aggravated violence. 

While the increase in school security hardware seems to show the public that schools are doing something, the one variable that keeps being linked to school violence and violence in general is a feeling of alienation by the shooter or fighter.  Too many SRO’s make kids feel more like suspects than students.  Rallies to increase staff salary won’t do it.  There needs to be a clear code of behavioral expectations that will be explained and agreed to by parents and students.  Then it needs to be enforced by school administrators.  If certain behaviors are unacceptable in school then the precursors of those behaviors need to be unacceptable as well.  We know the gateway behaviors and we need to stop them before they become the unacceptable violence.  Teachers and clinical staff need to get involved with kids.  Make sure every student is “seen” and known by at least one staff member.  We can spend a million dollars on security hardware, but not on staff to connect with kids. In fact, staff are even discouraged from developing relationships with kids.  There is collateral damage to only connecting via technology and that issue has come to school to fight.