ESTF Roadmap: State Leaders
A Roadmap For State Leaders
There are critical roles, responsibilities, and opportunities for all involved in the education system at each level to take actions that will improve educator safety. The role of state agencies includes setting state standards, establishing standardized or model systems, providing technical assistance to local leaders, creating and delivering trainings and identifying resources for district leaders. State elected officials also have important roles that span from State Board of Education adoption of rules and collaboration with CDE leadership to legislative actions to provide resources, establish minimum requirements, authorize data collection, support specific programs like co-responder models, support workforce strategies for recruiting and retaining educators and mental health experts.
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Pre-Incident: Incident Reduction & Preparation
State leaders should prioritize requiring or providing resources, training, technical assistance and guidance to educators, building leaders and district leaders to empower them to take the actions likely to reduce the number or severity of these incidents and be prepared for those incidents to occur.
Roles in the pre-incident category identified by the ESTF are listed in the table below.
| Element | Roles & Responsibilities |
| Training | State officials should explore requiring certain trainings, particularly de-escalation as part of the professional preparation or licensing of classroom teachers and administrators. Consideration should also be given to the role of the state establishing requirements for this or other training for all adults who work regularly with students in a school environment which may include paraprofessionals and others. The state should direct the Office of School Safety to provide de-escalation training and to engage with education stakeholders to identify other related trainings discussed or inferred in any of the ESTF Roadmaps for Action. All state agencies should collaborate to ensure district leaders, building leaders, educators, professional associations and others are fully aware of the trainings and courses available through the OSS and other agencies including de-escalation, crisis response, Integrated Emergency Preparedness and others. |
| Classroom Incident Response Team (CIRT) | The appropriate state agencies should make available overviews and documentation describing multiple models of Classroom Incident Response Teams that can be implemented in different geographic, staffing, population and resource condition contexts. Co-responder models should be encouraged. State leaders should establish programs to assist district and building leaders in establishing, growing and maintaining co-responder models. This should include funding when possible and technical assistance to support the design, piloting, and scaling of co-responder models. |
| Staffing | The state should continue its commitment to improving the funding available to all schools. As it relates to the safety of educators, particular attention should be given to the educator, paraprofessional and mental health professionals. The goal of these efforts should be to increase student access to mental and behavioral health services, to reduce adult to student ratios in classrooms and, where possible, to provide small learning environments. This does not always require only addressing class size but can include utilization of smaller group learning environments, differentiated supports within the space and prioritizing lower adult to student ratios for high-need or high-risk groups of students. As part of their efforts, state leaders should undertake all possible efforts to increase the number and ratio of mental health professionals to the ratios recommended by professional associations. The National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) recommends a 1:500 student-to-school psychologist ratio, while the American School Counselor Association (ASCA) recommends 1:250 student-to-counselor. The School Social Work Association of America also recommends a 1 to 250 ratio. In addressing the educator workforce pipeline and student to adult ratios in classrooms, state leaders should examine all opportunities to leverage, expand and support the paraprofessional career pipelines including recruitment into these roles and the para-to-teacher pipeline. |
| Space to Recalibrate and Recharge | State leaders should engage with BOCES, district leaders and other stakeholders to determine the technical assistance needs in establishing these spaces. |
| Conditions | State leaders should continue to reinforce the importance and complexity of creating positive school conditions as part of overall school safety and specifically, educator safety strategies. |
Incident Response: Managing Incidents
Even with the best training, preparation and healthy school cultures, not every aggressive or violent behavior by a student toward an educator can be prevented. When such incidents do occur, classroom, building and district staff and leaders need to be fully equipped, prepared and supported to respond. State leaders’ role is to maximize the preparedness by setting clear expectations, providing technical assistance in system design and identifying or providing resources where possible.
Roles for managing incident response are listed in the table below.
| Element | Roles & Responsibilities |
| Technical & Communications | State leaders should explore providing guidance and technical assistance to district or building leaders evaluating their communication systems and procedures to ensure efficacy and multi-system compatibility, particularly with local emergency officials or other partners. State agencies should identify any additional grant programs that may be available to support purchases of communication systems. The Office of School Safety and the Division of Homeland Security & Emergency Management should continue to engage with stakeholders to determine the potential need for training or technical assistance with communication protocols and procedures. This may include direct training and assistance or the creation of exemplar systems and materials to guide local action. |
| Classroom Incident Response Team (CIRT) | In addition to the previously mentioned direct support of co-responder models, state officials should remain responsive to the needs of district and building leaders regarding the training of CIRTs or other responders. |
| Physical Space | State agency leaders should engage with district and building leaders to provide technical assistance when or if needed in training on space utilization. |
| School Community Management | State agencies should remain responsive to district or school leader requests or needs for expertise and training on managing the in-school community during an incident of aggressive behavior by a student toward an educator. |
Post Incident: Recovery & Return
Following an incident of violent behavior by a student toward an educator or staff member, the return to comfort and learning for all affected will be different depending on the nature of the incident. There will be immediate, short-term and longer-term effects and steps to be taken to advance that cycle of recovery. All of the adults in a school will often be torn between the needs of their students, including the offending student, and those of the involved or affected adults.
Roles for state leaders in supporting the needs of all involved as part of the post-incident recovery are largely limited to ensuring resources and systems in place as is listed in the table below.
| Element | Roles & Responsibilities |
| Educator Supports | State agency leaders and legislators should carefully review each Roadmap for Action and determine where additional rules, regulations, guidance or technical support may be needed to ensure comprehensive support for educators. Support for educators who have been assaulted by a student cannot be left to arbitrary decisions at the building level. The rights and expectations should be established at the system level to ensure all affected and involved educators or staff have access to an appropriate and full range of supports following an incident. In addition to immediate resources for medical or mental health needs, a dedicated point of contact should be established to advise educators and staff of all available resources and their rights. Services such as the CU Anchutz Colorado Educator Support should be actively promoted as should the benefits of services provided by an Employee Assistance Program (EAP). State leaders should determine how best to ensure affected educators or staff are fully aware of all of their rights and any available resources including medical care, mental health supports, time off, if needed, and access to workers compensation benefits where appropriate. |
| Processes to Support All Affected | State agency leaders should work with district leaders and other education stakeholders including educators and staff to ensure the establishment and implementation, at the building level, of clear processes to support all involved with or affected by an incident. An appropriate state agency should develop and provide to district leaders a post-incident toolkit to help guide conversations, ensure appropriate follow-ups and help navigate supports. This guide should be made available for local use or tailoring to specific needs or contexts. |
| Reporting System & Standards | The ESTF has recommended the creation of a standardized reporting process and set of facts about each incident. The Roadmap for Action recommends that these be created at the school system level with support from the state and that the state require a minimal set of facts about each incident. The collection of this data should be done by CDE as part of an existing report or system. The ESTF members discussed and explicitly recommended this data collection be mandatory but that guardrails be put in place to ensure it cannot be used punitively which could have a negative effect on the likelihood of valid reporting. |
| Communications | State agencies should be responsive to district or building needs for technical assistance establishing communication standards. |
| Other | State agencies and legislators should explore whether any resources or programs available to frontline workers and emergency responders may be available to educators, staff or incident response team members. |
Other: System & Partners
There are a number of issues or factors that can affect educator safety and a school or school system’s ability to respond to incidents of aggressive or violent behavior by a student toward an educator. System-level issues and actions also have the potential to drive change at scale and need to be part of a strategy that includes short-term actions and long-term system change.
The ESTF identified actions and opportunities listed below that exist beyond the continuum of pre to post-incident.
| Element | Roles & Responsibilities |
| Public Awareness | To garner greater support for the resources, training and systems necessary to minimize the risk of injury to an educator by a student, local elected officials, school boards, state leaders and the public need to be fully informed. This awareness should include both the scope of the problem as identified in the educator survey and in the national APA research as well as the effect it has on educator job satisfaction, general retention and willingness to serve in high-needs environments. State leaders should broadly disseminate the ESTF Roadmaps for Action and Educator Survey to all legislators, superintendents, district school boards and appropriate agencies of state government including CDE, CDHE, CDHS, HCPF, DORA and the BHA. In addition to state agencies, the Roadmaps should be provided directly to education organizations and associations including CASE, CASB, CEA, Teach.org and others with opportunities for discussions if and where there is interest. CDE should explore the potential of using bright spots, The Spark, discussions within the Commissioner’s Teacher Cabinet and all other means to elevate stories on what educators are doing to overcome challenges relating to violent behavior by students toward educators and staff. CDE should integrate questions from the ESTF, Confluence PSG administered educator survey into the TLCC survey to collect more frequent data about incidents and continue finding additional ways to share TLCC data. |
| Alternative Placements | The number of alternative placement options in Colorado has reduced dramatically over the past twenty years. As a result, many students with behavioral or learning needs who might otherwise be educated in an alternative education campus (AEC) are unable to be provided with such an environment that might better meet their needs. We are instead asking educators, at times without the necessary knowledge and skills, to provide services to these students, and in many cases, to the detriment of other students in their classes. State legislative leaders should direct an appropriate state agency to collect information or undertake a study on the statewide impact of the reduced AECs, identify high areas of need and develop recommendations. Based on those findings and the state budget, elected officials should consider all avenues possible to increase the number of AECs and increase support for staffing of and transportation to existing campuses to expand the number of students served. |
| Affective Needs Centers | In the absence of an appropriate AEC and to complement the educational environments offered within schools, state leaders should partner with BOCES and district leaders to examine opportunities to expand the number of affective needs centers (ANCs). These in-school programs are specialized programs designed to support students with significant social, emotional, and behavioral challenges that impact their ability to function in a general education setting. |
| Educator & Administrator Training | As is noted elsewhere in this Roadmap, CDE should take necessary steps to ensure that appropriate training, including de-escalation training, is provided as part of educator preparation and administrator training programs. |
| Continuous Learning & Improvement | As part of their ongoing collaboration, CDE and the OSS should undertake an intentional examination of existing rubrics and accountability reports to determine the best way to both support educators, building leaders and district leaders and to continue learning from their experiences. Attention should be given to opportunities to improve assessment of both physical and cultural safety indicators. |
| Other | The ESTF members and contributors identified several additional needs or opportunities for state leadership. These include:
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