Committee recommends a police presence, more mental health screening in Iowa City schools

Aimee Breaux
Press Citizen
City High School is seen on Thursday, July 12, 2018, in Iowa City, Iowa. City High, along with all other secondary schools, will get school resource officers if the ICCSD school board runs with new recommendations made by the district's safety committee.

The volunteer committee tasked with finding ways to make Iowa City schools safer recommends introducing a police presence at secondary schools and more resources for mental health services. 

The School Safety Advisory Committee will present the Iowa City school board with its recommendations this week, after months of consideration. 

The group has outlined the following four primary recommendations

  • Partner with local law enforcement departments to provide school resource officers, or SROs, in all middle schools and high schools. 
  • Consider implementing a universal mental health screening for students, and continue current community-school partnerships with mental health service providers and school-based mental health services providers
  • Establish a "threat-assessment team" of school staff and community members. The group would provide consultation to the district when safety concerns are reported. 
  • Develop a plan for teaching social-emotional skills, such as communication, conflict resolution and self-regulation techniques. 

The committee also listed four secondary recommendations, including enlisting student leaders to help identify "areas of concern," bolstering the "Say Something" campaign at schools, completing annual risk assessments at each building and increasing training on bullying intervention. 

School officials put out a call for committee members after a gunman killed 17 people at a Parkland, Florida, high school on Valentine's Day in 2018. The committee was not exclusively tasked with preventing and responding to school shootings. 

The 15-person committee included principals, parents, students, law enforcement representatives and a teacher. 

The research on SROs is mixed 

ICCSD does not currently employ school resource officers on campus. The recommendation for SROs on campus comes with a caveat: District officials would need to spell out the role of SROs. 

"We do not want the SRO involved in disciplinary matters," read committee minutes. "We do not want an increase of referrals to law enforcement because of the availability of law enforcement."

According to meeting minutes, the committee reviewed research gathered by Hanover Research. In one 2013 paper, Hanover found reports conflicted on whether having security guards and police officers in schools was beneficial. 

"While some sources have argued that school officers serve as a deterrent to violence, others are far more skeptical and warn against potentially detrimental effects on students," reads the report. 

Photos:Iowa City students hold march for gun safety

More:Student SHOUT volunteers get up close look at Iowa City police work

As a key finding, the Hanover report noted that more severe and pervasive security practices tend to result in more violence and disorder. According to the finding, the most effective security practices are "based on a firm but positive school climate in which students are cognizant of school rules."

Committee minutes show that members see some positive impacts from having officers on campus. SROs, some said, are trained to identify threats and risks. Their connection to both the police department and school might help campuses better meet the safety needs of students, said members.

According to the notes, committee members saw SROs as a means to develop positive relationships between students and local law enforcement.

Committee members said grant funding may be available to add SROs from partnering agencies in the area. 

Mental health screening

The recommendation to establish a universal system of identifying students needing mental health services appears to have come out of a pilot program currently in the works. 

According to committee meeting minutes, the district will test out a new screening tool created by the company FastBridge in the near future. Because there are so many factors to consider when trying to identify students who need interventions, school officials said the pilot will be small in scope. 

School officials said it will be critical to have staff to help students who are flagged as needing resources. 

The pilot is part of a district-wide adoption of a disciplinary approach called Positive Behavior Interventions and Support. PBIS is often described in three tiers. The first tier entails setting campus-wide expectations for all students. The second entails teachers setting classroom expectations. The third entails providing targeted interventions for individual students who have behavior issues. 

Read: ICCSD's new approach to unruly student behavior had a test run — and funding — a decade ago

The district provides some mental health services in-house, but regularly refers students and families to more than a dozen community providers for more specialized help.

Grief counseling services are available through a partnership with the University of Iowa Child Life Department. Prelude Behavioral Health Services provides substance abuse counseling to secondary students. United Action for Youth provides crisis mediation supports at all secondary campuses. 

Every building staffs a Student and Family Advocate, who works with families on issues ranging from suicide interventions to transportation planning. Each building has counselors, who work with students on issues ranging from graduation progress plans to small group counseling sessions.