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school violence

Lightspeed Systems® Launches Lightspeed Alert™ Solution for Threat Detection of Suicide, Bullying, and School Violence

Austin, Texas, April 15, 2021- Lightspeed Systems®, the leading K-12 online safety and effectiveness solutions provider, announces the launch of Lightspeed Alert™, a threat detection solution for self-harm, bullying, and school violence, helping to provide schools and districts with early warning detection to prevent incidents and promote student safety.

Statistics regarding student mental and physical safety are startling. A recent survey found 93% of parents are concerned about their child’s mental health due to extended campus closures and isolation, and another study from the U.S. Secret Service found 75% of school shooters demonstrated concerning online activity before the incident took place. With these concerns, it’s critical for schools and districts to have the type of early warning threat detection that Lightspeed Alert can provide. 

Lightspeed Alert leverages smart AI to actively scan and alert on concerning student behavior anywhere students engage online. Real-time alerts and safety dashboards equip district and school staff with the visibility and tools to respond to threats and manage cases. For an extra layer of protection, Lightspeed Alert provides 24/7/365 human review by highly trained safety specialists who conduct a threat assessment of flagged behavior and escalate imminent threats via a live phone call to school district personnel or law enforcement.  …Read More

How this Texas district prioritizes SEL

The Covid-19 pandemic may be on everyone’s minds right now, but school districts grappled with another pandemic before the virus changed our world. School violence incidents such as the Parkland School shooting were increasing, and students’ physical and mental well-being were at critical levels.

New Caney Independent School District, northeast of Houston, Texas, understood that social emotional learning (SEL) and the missed opportunities to identify students with deficits played out in school–specifically in school violence.

The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) states that SEL programs “provide a foundation for better adjustment and academic performance as reflected in more positive social behaviors and peer relationships, fewer conduct problems, less emotional distress, and improved grades and test scores.”…Read More

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The state of student safety

District administrators are under immense pressure from parents to keep their children safe and are investing money in school safety initiatives. Communities have shifted from the belief that “it can’t happen here,” to doing everything they can to prevent it from happening.

Twenty years ago, the concerns about student safety were about preventing classroom misbehavior, physical bullying, fighting, and drugs. Now, it’s much more complex and the stakes are higher. We are literally talking about life and death issues for our students. What has changed in recent years to explain this increase in personal self-harm, suicide, and school violence?

Related content: 6 reasons we’re using a student safety platform…Read More

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Districts are using tech to prevent school violence

School violence regularly occupies news headlines, turning students into activists as they demand gun control and call on lawmakers and education stakeholders to drastically improve school safety.

This disturbing trend, including the Feb. 14, 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., and the Nov. 14 shooting at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, Calif., has prompted many districts to turn to technology solutions to put an extra layer of safety measures in schools.

Tools that monitor social media for threats, anonymous reporting systems, and databases to track and identify potentially preventable patterns among shootings are growing in popularity as educators recognize the importance of technology in preventing school violence.…Read More

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Op-ed: Does this new curriculum cross the line?

New curriculum aims to stop spread of violence with “character development”

school-violence-characterUnfortunately, it seems that school violence has reached an all-time high, as ‘kids will be kids’ bullying has escalated from hurt feelings to suicide, and banned items from campus have gone from slingshots to guns. In a time when hardly any parent feels safe sending their child to school, or any student feels safe on campus, should schools now also teach what it means to be a good person?

At least one teacher thinks so.

Created by Bobbi Callis, a mother and full-time reading intervention teacher, Veracity Matters is a multimedia character education program for children in elementary school, which hopes to reduce the percentage of children who suffer from bullying and depression.…Read More

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