Format

Individual Presentation

First Presenter's Institution

Georgia Southern University

First Presenter’s Email Address

kf10548@georgiasouthern.edu

First Presenter's Brief Biography

Katherine Fallon, M.S. is a fourth-year doctoral student in the Clinical Psychology program at Georgia Southern University. Katherine is a research assistant with a focus on scholarly practitioner research for the NYAR Research Center. Her research interests include developing a comprehensive assessment of parental perceptions of risk factors for adolescent behavioral aggression. Additionally, her clinical interests include working alongside and advocating for underserved children, adolescents, and adults exhibiting difficulties related to trauma, behavioral concerns, and safety concerns.

Second Presenter's Institution

Georgia Southern University

Second Presenter’s Email Address

jmcbrayer@georgiasouthern.edu

Second Presenter's Brief Biography

Dr. Juliann Sergi McBrayer is an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and is a Co-Director of the NYAR Research Center centered around scholarly practitioner and interdisciplinary research via community partnerships. As a scholarly practitioner, her research interests include the development, implementation, assessment, and impact of educational leadership programs with a focus on purposeful, collaborative, and sustainable professional learning and programming to ensure effectiveness and accountability while emphasizing P-20 community partnerships.

Third Presenter's Institution

Georgia Southern University

Third Presenter’s Email Address

dtysinger@georgiasoutherm.edu

Third Presenter's Brief Biography

Dr. Dawn Tysinger earned a Ph.D. in Psychology with a Concentration in School Psychology and a Subspecialization in Counseling Interventions from The University of Memphis in Memphis, Tennessee. She has also earned the Nationally Certified School Psychologist credential from the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP). She is a Full Professor in the nationally-recognized and National Association of School Psychologists – Approved School Psychology Program at Georgia Southern University. Dr. Tysinger has publications in school psychology journals, and presentations at the local, state, regional, and national levels.

Fourth Presenter's Institution

Georgia Southern University

Fourth Presenter’s Email Address

cposick@georgiasouthern.edu

Fourth Presenter's Brief Biography

Dr. Chad Posick is the Interim Department Chair of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Georgia Southern University and Co-Director of the NYAR Research Center. He teaches in the areas of victimology, public policy, statistics, and quantitative research methods. He has published over 40 peer-reviewed publications and five books on issues concerning violence, crime, and research methods. He was awarded the New Scholar Award from the Victimology Section of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences and the Faculty Researcher of the Year Award from the Victimology Division of the American Society of Criminology. He was the principal investigator for the Savannah-Chatham Innovative Prosecution Solutions project, which began in 2015. He has led funded research projects and is an expert on mixed methods research and data analysis using several software programs.

Fifth Presenter's Institution

Georgia Southern University

Fifth Presenter’s Email Address

mc36280@georgiasouthern.edu

Fifth Presenter's Brief Biography

Mary Jo Carney, M.S. is a first-year master's student in the Experimental Psychology program at Georgia Southern University. Mary Jo is a research assistant with a focus on conference development and implementation and scholarly interdisciplinary research for the NYAR Research Center. Her research interests include the intersection between autonomic nervous system dysfunction and emotion dysregulation in populations diagnosed with neurodevelopmental, psychiatric, and traumatic brain injury conditions, and the application of neuro-rehabilitative and talk therapies for children, adolescents, and adults with symptoms of ANS dysfunction and emotion dysregulation.

Location

Session Three Breakouts (Westbrook)

Strand #1

Hands: Safety & Violence Prevention

Strand #2

Health: Mental & Physical Health

Relevance

The extent to which online schools respond to crisis is unknown. K–12 online learning institutions may be protected from certain school safety concerns, physical distance does not offer protection from all potential crises that may impact individual students or the online school setting and we are seeing this even more so with the health pandemic. There is minimal current evidence-based safety and intervention planning or training on a statewide or national level designated for online education. Districts continue to be challenged with the question of how to develop professional learning plans in the area of crisis preparedness to detect and effectively respond to crisis in varied settings. Further research is warranted to spark purposeful, collaborative, and sustainable professional learning in online education to provide adequate assistance to all areas of the student including academic performance and emotional well-being.

Brief Program Description

As incidents of school violence have hit the news media, school safety is of increasing interest to scholars and practitioners. Unfortunately, schools are ill-equipped to prevent violence and intervene when it occurs. This presentation will discuss how research can inform school readiness and public policy to prevent and intervene in violence.

Summary

National trends indicate a need for continued crisis interventions in terms of detection and preparedness, specifically for online settings. The purpose of this study was to examine perceptions of crisis frequency and preparedness of online educators and this research is needed to provide guidelines for detecting and responding to crisis events to meet the educational needs of students in a safe school setting, specifically with the prior 2020 global health pandemic. The methodology utilized survey data from participants to provide perceptions of crisis frequency and preparedness in varied crisis areas. Findings from preliminary research by the research team suggest that in the different areas of crisis, the percentage of educators who felt ‘very prepared’ were in need of improvement. The amount of training required for educators in online programs seemed to deviate across these different crisis events. Moreover, few educators noted receiving training geared toward an online program. Educators may have received training in many areas, but their level of perceived preparedness is too low for these states of crisis for students, teachers, parents, school staff, and community groups to adequately ensure school safety. Implications for practice suggest a need for crisis management planning and training for online settings and promote the need for this plan to translate into professional learning that is purposeful, collaborative, and sustainable to ensure school safety. The aim of this study is to inform the work around compiling school Safety Plans to ensure our students stay safe. Recommendations for future research include gathering data on a wider scope from education professionals nationwide.

Evidence

Foundational research suggested that 93% of educators working in traditional school environments have been required to respond to a crisis event and the authors assume this would also be high in an online setting (McBrayer et al., 2020; Tysinger et al., 2016). Homicide is the second leading cause of death for all youth, and the leading cause of death for non-Hispanic Black or African American youth (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021). Within the last two decades, 95% of multiple-victim academically associated youth homicides were due to injuries caused by fire-arms procured through family or friends (CDC 2021). Additionally, twenty three percent of the children reported victimization of any form of bullying (i.e., cyber, relational, physical, verbal) within the last month (Waasdorp & Bradshaw, 2015), while nearly 20% of students have reported being bullied on school grounds (Basile et al., 2019). From 2016 to 2021, there was a 153% increase in the amount of emergency room visits from 5- to 18-year-olds for suicide attempts or self-harm (Children’s Hospital Association, 2022).

Regarding school safety preventative measures, schools may perceive themselves as being prepared for a crisis, in actuality, their plans may lack specificity to their school, the quality of their steps, and overall comprehensiveness (An et al., 2021; Steeves et al., 2017). When evaluating specific crisis-focused drills, “[many] states have legally mandated armed assailant drills without providing much guidance, which has contributed to confusion about the differences between lockdown, options-based training, and full-scale simulation drills, as well as growing concern over the unintended harm caused by conducting drills inappropriately” (Association of School Resource Officers, 2021, p. 1). When school personnel participate in school safety planning, such as drills, their perceived preparedness and execution of the proper steps taken to respond to a crisis also improves (Schildkraut & Nickerson, 2020; Dockson & Varg, 2017).

Comprehensive school crisis plans are essential and should include provisions not only for intervention in the face of a crisis, but also prevention and preparation (Steeves et al., 2017). There is a need to focus on school safety as a means of preventing incidents as a significant part of prevention is recognizing and addressing the mental health needs of students and staff. Teachers have concerns about their students when in an online setting, especially at the peak of a pandemic in regards to factors such as their physical, emotional, and mental wellbeing and the after effects remain (Alathari et al., 2018; National Education Association, 2018; NASP School Safety and Crisis Response Committee, 2015). While we strengthen our response and recovery capabilities, we must also strengthen our capacity to identify and address mental health issues and create a positive and healthy learning and working environment for the entire school and surrounding community.

Learning Objective 1

Participants will develop a better understanding of how prepared educators feel in detecting and responding to various crisis situations in an online learning environment.

Learning Objective 2

Participants will develop an understanding of the level of training educators receive on crisis events and how much training is specific to online learning.

Learning Objective 3

Participants will better understand evidence-based safety and intervention planning needs across brick-and-mortar and online learning environments.

Keyword Descriptors

Crisis preparedness, online learning, professional learning, school safety

Presentation Year

2023

Start Date

3-6-2023 2:45 PM

End Date

3-6-2023 4:00 PM

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Mar 6th, 2:45 PM Mar 6th, 4:00 PM

Sustainable, Accessible, Feasible, Effective (SAFE) School Safety Planning: Educator preparedness in crisis detection and response

Session Three Breakouts (Westbrook)

As incidents of school violence have hit the news media, school safety is of increasing interest to scholars and practitioners. Unfortunately, schools are ill-equipped to prevent violence and intervene when it occurs. This presentation will discuss how research can inform school readiness and public policy to prevent and intervene in violence.