First Presenter's Institution

Tennessee Organization of School Superintendents

First Presenter's Brief Biography

Dr. Wanda Shelton Wanda Shelton has served in public education for more than 30 years. She taught social studies, was a high school counselor, a supervisor of instructional programs, a testing coordinator, and finally Director of Schools in Lincoln County Tennessee. Wanda currently works with the Tennessee Organization of School Superintendents as Assistant Executive Director. She works directly with over 1950 Associate Leadership Institute members. That program seeks to provide high quality professional learning to help leaders “Bridge Policy and Practice” in Tennessee’s schools. She was a teacher during a school shooting, worked with the shooter to help determine his 'why' at her school, and went to to lead the system as they developed threat assessment crisis teams in the system and in each of their eight schools. This presentation will share bot the why for crisis intervention teams in all schools, and the how to instructions to help create them.

Document Type

Individual Presentation

Primary Strand

School Safety

Relevance to Primary Strand

This presentation presents research based data around school shootings, but leaves the attendee with a feeling of empowerment to help them feel able to prevent such events in their own schools. The presentation begins with the story of a school shooting, but it ends with positive methods to address both violence, trauma, and behaviors in schools.

Brief Program Description

Dr. Shelton spent her last day as a classroom teacher with her back against her social studies classroom door while a shooting took the life of a student. After that day, she was determined to find out why that happened in her school and how to make sure it never happened again. She developed a crisis intervention plan that she feels can be replicated in any school system in the nation. Join her to learn how threat assessment changes lives.

Summary

Part one of this presentation will lead the learner through a school shooting event, but will include not just the events that led up to the shooting, but the events that led to better understanding the shooting. Data will be presented from interviews with the shooter himself over a two year period, his teachers, and his friends. Rarely has an educator been allowed access to a convicted school shooter to learn about how the school could improve its safety measures for the future. Part two will look at school violence in communities across American and attendees will see how supports for mental health and interventions differ across states and counties. Part three will allow the learners to walk away with a clearly outlined crisis intervention plan that can be implemented upon return to their home base. This plan will include what a crisis team in action looks like, who should serve, how the members should be trained, and what MOUs and community planning should take place as you begin this work.

Evidence

From the implementation of the crisis intervention program in one school system in 2002, incidents of violence were drastically reduced. Although reports of students in crisis have continued to go up annually, having a plan that allows those students to be both supported and referred to approved interventions has created a far safer school system. During this presentation, data will be presented on teacher perceptions and student perceptions of crisis in schools, discipline data from one school system, and research data around crisis intervention and crisis teams.

Biographical Sketch

N/a

Learning Objective 1

Participants will be able to create a crisis intervention plan to support learning and safe school environments for all students.

Learning Objective 2

Participants will be able to understand how a shooter can become active in rural, suburban, and historically safe schools.

Learning Objective 3

Participants will be able to better understand the bully, victim, bystander triad as it relates to school violence and crisis intervention.

Learning Objective 4

Participants will be able to walk away with a crisis intervention planning tool that can be used in grades 1-12.

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Portrait of a School Shooter: A threat assessment perspective

Part one of this presentation will lead the learner through a school shooting event, but will include not just the events that led up to the shooting, but the events that led to better understanding the shooting. Data will be presented from interviews with the shooter himself over a two year period, his teachers, and his friends. Rarely has an educator been allowed access to a convicted school shooter to learn about how the school could improve its safety measures for the future. Part two will look at school violence in communities across American and attendees will see how supports for mental health and interventions differ across states and counties. Part three will allow the learners to walk away with a clearly outlined crisis intervention plan that can be implemented upon return to their home base. This plan will include what a crisis team in action looks like, who should serve, how the members should be trained, and what MOUs and community planning should take place as you begin this work.