Commentary: Op-ed on school safety was as misleading as it was incomplete

It is disappointing, but not necessarily surprising, that blogger Steve Smith has taken to once again bashing Newport-Mesa schools, its school board, the performance of its students, and most recently, the safety of our schools.

His misleading article has been published with apparently no fact checking or editorial review. Smith selectively picks out bits of information that, taken alone, misinterpret the progress and successes of our schools.

Specifically, with his Aug. 6 commentary in which he states, “Preventing the next school shooting depends on vigilance, not gizmos. But the absence of any psychological component to the district’s safety proposals underscores the need for new trustees and new ways of thinking in this election year.”

Mostly, I am outraged by Smith and the Daily Pilot for publishing Smith’s misleading musings. I would like to point out a number of facts, things that Mr. Smith seems to deliberately avoid in his writings because they don’t support his unfounded diatribes.

The fact is: NMUSD is hiring four additional school psychologists — at a cost of over $480,000 — who will share in the delivery of psychological support services, conduct risk assessments and participate in crisis response and threat assessment teams. This is in addition to the investment made in 2017 to hire two additional social workers at a cost of $250,000.

The fact is: NMUSD is reconfiguring the current roster of school social workers to provide drug and alcohol education and intervention directly from each school zone social worker and the social work interns assigned to that zone. This structure effectively adds another social worker to serve an additional caseload of students and manage social work interns with their caseloads.

The fact is: NMUSD is recruiting 20 social work interns for the 2018-19 school year. Each of these interns will manage a caseload of students who are struggling at home, at school, or at both places. They will be supervised by their mentor school social worker and connected to school-community partnerships to enhance services to families when the district’s services have been exhausted.

The fact is: NMUSD has hired a coordinator of student services to pick up responsibilities like homelessness, foster youth issues, truancy and attendance, among other responsibilities. This will allow the director of student services to focus attention on emerging safety issues like custody and divorce matters, civility issues and threat assessments.

The fact is: NMUSD is investing a great deal in training related to the psychological component, including:

• Training on a threat assessment team model in partnership with the FBI and other community agencies on Sept. 14. This training will focus on identification and responses to potential threats including, but not limited to, school shooters.
• Development and implantation of a three-year plan to increase restorative culture practices throughout the district.
• Annual training on suicide prevention, identification and response to all K-12 teachers.
• Annual training on LGBTQ support for all secondary teachers and administrators.
• Ongoing training for administrators in the areas of school discipline.
• Updates to safety committees created for the collective bargaining units.
• Refresher training on crisis response.
• Continuing with the district-wide support of positive behavior and intervention systems to enhance school climate and promote positive school-student relationships.
• Exploration and information gathering on the possibility of conducting universal screenings for anxiety and depression among students.

The fact is: NMUSD is investing in partnerships to improve school safety, among them are:

• Continuing with a community alliance partnership that links services in the community to students and families.
• Partnering with Challenge Success in the Corona del Mar and Newport Harbor high school zones to enhance school climate and mitigate student alienation.
• Using the Raptor Visitor Entry System to manage “red flags” in Aeries.
• Using Titan as the District’s emergency broadcast platform.

All of the facts stated above were presented by our director of student services, Phil D’Agostino, at the Aug. 23 “School Threat and Violence Prevention Symposium.” The symposium was put on by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Los Angeles Joint Regional Intelligence Center and InfraGard, a partnership between the FBI and private sector institutions.

D’Agostino’s presentation on “Taking a Holistic View Towards Reducing School Violence: One District’s Approach to Leveraging Resources and Enhancing School Safety” was met with overwhelming praise by the over 150 participants from local, state and federal law enforcement agencies, as well as a sizable number of participants from the private sector, schools and universities.

Every Newport-Mesa school board member and all district administrators are committed to working collaboratively with parents and teachers to continue improving the safety of all concerned.

We don’t have a problem with the community being critical of the things we do. We welcome input because we are a part of this community and believe our passions run in the same direction: to support all students and families.

But when an individual takes to using misleading statements to score cheap political points in an election year and undermine the public’s trust on a critical issue like student safety, I’m not going to stay silent.

Karen Yelsey is a Newport-Mesa Unified School District trustee.