As a school psychologist, I have been doing training in the area of school safety for many years. I wanted to share some current information about school safety with the community. There are two areas of school safety, psychological safety, and physical safety. Psychological safety includes things schools do to promote mental health. For example, if a student is struggling with depression or anger, school personnel can provide help to deal with difficult emotions. This reduces chances of the student taking out his anger on the school community. Thus, lowering the odds of a school shooting. Our schools help students like this frequently before a problem escalates. Since violence does not happen, the community never knows about all the work the schools did to help prevent and avert a crisis.
The second area is physical safety which focuses on the physical structures of the school environment. This includes natural access, natural surveillance, and territoriality. Natural access means keeping people out that are not supposed to be there. Examples of this include a double-entry doors into the school, an intercom/communication system and classroom door locks. Natural Surveillance means being able to see what is happing in the buildings and includes having a clear line of sight in hallways, reduction of blind spot areas by stairs or alcoves, appropriate windows, and cameras. Territoriality means having a sense of ownership, examples include a well-maintained buildings and grounds and positive messaging throughout the schools.
As a Nordonia parent I have watched the schools closely in all these safety areas. Nordonia schools do an amazing job with psychological safety and prevention to help avert crisis. You have no idea how hard they work to make sure crisis does not happen.
As far as physical safety, there have been many advances in the field of physical safety of schools since the Columbine tragedy in 1999. Unfortunately, Nordonia High School was built 38 years before Columbine even happened. Our youngest school was built 29 years before Columbine. Keep this in mind when you make your decision on issue 5.
Laura Gabel, School Psychologist, Nordonia Hills Resident
