On June 14, Catalyst Life Services in conjunction with the 2017-2018 Leadership Unlimited Class empowered students to lead the discussion on school safety. Local school officials, law enforcement, legal representatives, social service organizations and other community leaders gathered for a forum at Catalyst Life Services. Catalyst organized the forum in an effort to discuss mental health risk factors and to positively impact school and student safety through collaboration.
“I think that the students are very brave to do this,” President and CEO of Catalyst Life Services Veronica Groff said. “I am very excited about this meeting. As students identify gaps, you and I as leaders can come together to close those gaps. We know that there will be some things that we cannot do anything about, but we are going to act on the things we can.”
Leaders listened to the recommendations of eight students, and then responded with both initiatives they are currently planning within their organizations and areas they can improve on to make schools safer.
The meeting quickly turned into a positive collaboration between students and these community and school leaders. School superintendents, principals, college deans, and the Mansfield Police Chief Ken Coontz as well as Richland County Sheriff Sheldon cited safety as top priority.
A common theme between all students’ responses centered on bullying and mental health awareness. A main concern many students expressed was not knowing what to do or who to inform when they saw fellow students struggling.
When asked how many of the students noticed another student battling mental health concerns, all raised their hands. All students raised their hands again when asked if they believed these concerns had the potential to manifest into violence.
But when asked if they had received any instruction about what to do when they saw these signs, no hands were raised.
Student Panelist Tessa Gerhardt said that her main recommendation is educating students on how to recognize warning signs of severe mental illness. She said that should be followed up with informing students who to approach when they themselves were struggling, or when they saw a friend struggling.
She also suggested focusing on educating student organization and classroom leaders about mental health concerns, as they are usually the first to notice when a peer is acting differently.
“We learn about physical illnesses and diseases in health class, but we just kind of brush over mental illness,” Gerhardt said.
Another common theme from the students is that they don’t believe teachers have enough training to notice and handle warning signs in students.
Student Panelist Michael Marhefka suggested that building teacher-student relationships could positively impact many students’ lives and help prevent tragedies.
“They need to come up with better ways to listen to students and see the signs,” Marhefka said. “A lot of us have that one teacher we’re really close with. Teachers can help, and they should be trained about what to do when their students are struggling.”
Many of the students expressed concerns that the lockdown drills their schools perform are not helpful nor realistic.
“The teachers don’t take them seriously, and that attitude runs off onto the students,” Samantha Avery said. “I wouldn’t know what to do if a shooter was actually in my school.”
As a response to this, Judge Ron Spon mentioned that he partook in a court training seminar recently that consisted mostly of safety training in emergency situations.
“Real life active shooter drills were the most helpful to me and many other judges,” Spon said. “Maybe we could look at implementing that in our schools also.”
Joe Trolian, Executive Director of the Richland County Mental Health and Recovery Services Board, also responded to this by saying, “We all know what to do when lightning is nearby, but we don’t all know what to do when there is an active shooter in our area”.
There was some frustration expressed by the students that not enough is being done to combat school safety and mental health awareness, but this was met with caring responses by officials.
Norman Jones, dean and director of OSU Mansfield, noted how much his campus is doing to identify potential at-risk students and scenarios as well as how he believes they have made progress.
“We care about you guys so much, and we are doing everything we can for your safety,” Dr. Jones said. “You hear about the tragedies that happen nationwide, but not about the situations we were able to prevent.”
Passion from both students and leaders surged throughout the room. It was evident that community members want to do everything possible to ensure student safety. Leaders recognized that little can be accomplished overnight with gun control laws or extreme security measures, but expressed willingness to collaborate and take steps toward more effective safety measures.
Many community and school leaders expressed several times how much they truly cared about the students and their safety. They listened, took notes and commented on every measure the students suggested.
“Open dialogue and communication is the key to creating change,” said Kevin Young, Lexington High School Principal.
The forum ended with the Leadership Unlimited class adding their perceptions to the conversation.
Jessica Hiser of Spherion and Leadership Unlimited responded, “Every student said we know what’s wrong, we see it, help us know what to do and who to turn to.” Hiser went on to add that the lightning bolt example really resonated with her, “When there is lightning, we know how to react – we cancel baseball games and the whole community has protocols of how to handle this. How do we put these similar protocols into action in the community outside and not just in the schools too?”
The next meeting on mental health awareness and school safety will be on July 12 from 8 to 10 a.m. at the Rehab Center location of Catalyst Life Services. If you would like to attend, please RSVP your attendance to Lisa Wintersteller at 419-774-6705.
