A statewide survey of schools on their safety practices is producing stark preliminary data. The Montana Safe Schools Center presented those early results to lawmakers this week.
The nonprofit group says of more than 200 schools surveyed so far, half haven’t examined their safety procedures within the last three years.
That includes best practices for handling an active shooter or fire. One example: labeling doors to tell first responders where to enter.
More than three quarters don’t have a tip line students and staff can use to report potential threats to school safety.
The Safe Schools Center’s training specialist Christina Hayes says some staff and students might not know how to respond after seeing a possible threat, like a social media post.
“We need to do a better job of training our educators on what threats are. We also need to do a better job training students what constitutes a threat,” Hayes said.
Montana sets essentially no funding aside for school safety. Districts can ask their voters to approve safety levies, but those are increasingly failing as property taxes rise.
Lawmakers during the meeting indicated some interest in putting together a package to boost school safety during the legislative session next year.
