Starting in the fall, Williamsburg-James City County Schools will be a using a team approach to manage possible threats to student safety.
In order to comply with updated state guidelines, the school board discussed new threat assessment teams at its work session Tuesday, which would be established at the division-wide and school level. A new WJCC policy would establish the purpose and expectations for teams, each of which would include members with expertise in counseling, teaching, administration and law enforcement.
Training will begin across the division in August, and Superintendent Steven Constantino or a designee will create the teams for the coming year. The guidelines are in the editing stages and are aligned with procedures offered by the Department of Criminal Justice Services.
While threat assessment is addressed in current crisis management policies, a new protocol would outline more specific steps and organize the information in a guide to all staff and any contractors who spend time in the building.
Teams would consider student behavior and communication to identify the violence in the planning stages. A student, teacher or parent could report a concern to start an investigation.
Stephanie Bourgeois, WJCC’s senior director for student services who presented the proposal to the school board Tuesday night, said threat assessment is a multi-faceted approach, with school resource officers and psychologists involved in addition to teachers and administrations. Working to be both holistic and proactive, teams will collaborate to determine the degree of risk.
The threat level could range from low – where a student and family might be referred to support services at the school – to an imminent threat that would require immediate attention.
Heather Cordasco (Roberts) asked whether the revised guidelines from the state are in response to major incidents like the shooting at Virginia Tech in 2007.
Bourgeois said yes, and that a few staff members have attended multiple trainings with DCJS this year, where they learned there were frequently clues prior to violence.
“Almost always when they investigate these situations after the fact they find out that somebody, somehow had a piece of info that might let have folks know that potential was there,” she said.
Chairwoman Ruth Larson (Berkeley) said training might require a tweak in mindset to put safety and support for students over any concerns of bad public appearance. “I’m not accusing this division of this, just in general sometimes we want to keep these things quiet, so that if your school has faced a possible threat, you don’t want anyone to think poorly of the school. … This will not be a reflection on a school or on a principal or on teacher,” she said.
Cordasco agreed a system should be in place, as word of incidents can quickly spread through social media.
“We have got to have a way that we know: This is the protocol, this is what always happens. It shouldn’t be about anybody. It should be about people safe,” she said.
