Schools to have threat assessment teams

Goal of law is to identify students who pose risk

By: Mary Ann Koruth
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey

..... A law signed Monday [08/01/2022] by Governor Phil Murphy requires all New Jersey public school districts to create threat assessment teams starting in September [2022] that will look to identify students who may pose a risk to school safety.
..... State lawmakers introduced the bill, requiring all public and charter schools to create teams of staff members as a preventive measure along with other student mental health initiatives, a day after the May [2022] shootings in Uvalde, Texas, that left 19 children and two teachers dead.
..... The threat assessment teams will be crated by local boards of education and consist of teachers, administrators and a law enforcement liaison to hep identify students who may be at risk of engaging in violent and harmful acts, and establish strategies to intervene with those students.
..... The identities of students who come to the team's attention will be kept confidential, the law states.
..... For students who received special services or have Individualized Education Plans due to learning disabilities, the team will be required to consult with the staff assigned to them.
..... the Teams will consist of:
* A school psychologist, consoler or social worker or another school employee with expertise in student counseling
* A teacher
* A school principal or other senior administrator
* A safe schools resource officer or employee who serves as a school liaison to law enforcement
* The designated school safety specialist.
..... "We really need to determine and have the right people around the table to have a conversation," state Assembly Education Committee chair Pamela Lampitt, D-Camden, said in May. [2022] she sponsored the bill with Assemblyman Bill Moen, D-Camden. "I really, truly believe that if we focus on the students that actually are acting out, and through the crisis and acting out they are causing problems, they are disrupting other students' school or play," she said.
..... The bill passed unanimously in the state Senate and Assembly in June. [2022]
..... Schools boards will also have to create a policy for creating these teams, in accordance with guidelines to be provided by the state Department of Education.
..... The policy will determine what criteria will be sued to assess a student;s threatening behavior should staff members the behavior should be reported, the process for reporting the behavior, the support resources that will be made available to the student and how to refer or involve law enforcement if needed.
..... Boards of education will also establish policies that will require threat assessment teams not to disclose any information beyond what prompted the concern regarding a student' but authorize them to report these concerns to law enforcement or other agencies.
..... Members of the teams will have to undergo training on childhood trauma, implicit bias, and "adverse childhood experiences," according to the law.
..... The training will be conducted by school safety specialists - a position cerated by a 2017 law that requires every school to have one staff member trained in safety and security procedures and acting as a liaison to law enforcement.
..... School security measures were heightened using equipment such as cameras, in New Jersey and nationally, after the Columbine school shooting in Colorado in April 1999.
..... That approach changed as school shootings continued and experts began to recognize the role of addressing behavior and mental health in averting acts of "unimaginable violence" in the post-Columbine era, according to a report issued by a 2015 task force on school security under former Governor Chris Christie.
..... School shootings are usually followed by legislative action to further secure schools.
..... A 2012 directive form the state Department of Education issued after a mass shooting at Sandy Hook elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, required New Jersey schools to conduct at least tow security drills annually for active shooters, non-fire evacuations, bomb threats and lock-downs.

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