From Schools to Communities: Creating a Culture of Safety Together

Presenters

• Veronica Gutierrez
• Crystal Garrant, Sandy Hook PromiseFollow

First Presenter's Highest Degree Earned

Master of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education

Year First Presenter's Degree Was Awarded

2024

First Presenter's Field of Study

Education

Institution Where First Presenter Received Highest Degree

Harvard

First Presenter's Institution

Sandy Hook Promise

First Presenter's Brief Bio and Description of Credentials for This Presentation

Crystal Garrant is the Chief Program Officer (CPO) for Sandy Hook Promise, joining Sandy Hook Promise in February 2022. Garrant brings to the role nearly two decades of professional experience as a youth development practitioner in the education and nonprofit sectors. As CPO, Garrant is responsible for developing the overarching strategic vision and roadmap for Sandy Hook Promise’s many gun violence prevention and school safety initiatives, while also setting the vision and direction for future programs in service to the organization’s continued expansion and sustainability. Garrant is a native Midwesterner and currently lives in Atlanta with her husband and seven-year-old daughter. She holds a dual Bachelor of Science in African American Studies and Sociology from Eastern Michigan University, a Master of Science in Nonprofit Management from Capella University and is a candidate for a Master of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Location

Scarbrough 3

Document Type

Individual Presentation

Primary Strand

School Safety

Relevance to Primary Strand

Our proposal supports the School Safety strand by addressing all components of the strand: prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery. Our session will show that safety plans extend beyond the classroom into homes and communities, while using real life examples of implementing our programs and looking at what we’ve learned and what changes we’re making to make our programs even more sustainable based on educator feedback.

Alignment with School Improvement Plan Topics

School Safety

Brief Program Description

This session will explain how to create long-lasting, locally focused violence prevention and school safety plans that extend beyond the classroom into homes and communities. Sandy Hook Promise will share lessons from partnerships with schools and local youth-serving organizations like Communities in Schools of Atlanta and the Boys & Girls Club in Ridgefield, CT. We will cover research-informed way to develop programming based on student and educator feedback, to ensure the programs have a positive impact, centered in the specific needs of the community.

Summary

How can we ensure that our school safety initiatives are truly sustainable and effective? This actionable session will show attendees how to build a resilient, comprehensive safety system powered by your local community and available data. Attendees will come away with a clear roadmap for shifting safety plans into a contextually relevant, dynamic, and community-supported system that creates safer and more stable environments for all.

Attendees will learn how to:

• Develop Tailored Strategies: Learn about the best practices for identifying sustainable school safety strategies that create supportive environments for all staff and students.

• Make Data Your Blueprint: Learn practical methods for applying data integration to your safety programs. We’ll show you how to use existing district, county, state data, and input from stakeholders to accurately establish baselines, pinpoint the greatest areas of need (like bullying or suicide prevention), and prove the impact of violence prevention initiatives. This section is also designed to turn data analysis into a tool for evaluating program success.

• Build Stakeholder Networks: This session will detail how to effectively mobilize an inclusive network that involves students, parents, educators, and other local organizations to worktogether in violence-prevention initiatives. Through real-world examples from our learning projects, including partnerships with Communities in Schools of Atlanta and the Boys & Girls Club in Ridgefield, Illinois, we will demonstrate how to connect and engage with trusted local organizations that are already part of students' lives.

• Creating a Community of Upstanders: This session will also highlight how to expand anonymous reporting systems to empower parents and adult community members as active safety partners, creating new avenues for involvement and proactive risk reduction.

Evidence

Sandy Hook Promise’s Start With Hello and Say Something programs are evidence-based prevention programs that build safer and more connected school communities. Start With Hello teaches children and teens how to be more inclusive and connected to one another. Say Something teaches youth and adults how to recognize warning signs and signals, especially within social media, of people who may be a threat to themselves or others and to Say Something to a Trusted Adult before the person hurts themselves of someone else.

In a randomized control trial of 19 Miami-Dade middle schools, researchers from the University of Michigan and Johns Hopkins University found that the SS-ARS significantly improved students’ confidence and intention to report warning signs and led to reduced exposure to school violence over a nine month period.

In addition, a 2024 study published in Pediatrics showed that the SS-ARS enabled over 1,000 mental health interventions, averted multiple planned school attacks, and prevented suicides through early student reporting.

Hsieh, H.F., Lee, D. B., Zimmerman, M. A., Pomerantz, N., Cunningham, M. C., Messman, E., Stoddard, S. A., Grodzinski, A. R., & Heinze, J. E. (2022). The effectiveness of the Say Something Anonymous Reporting System in preventing school violence: A cluster randomized control trial in 19 middle schools. Journal of School Violence, 21(4), 413–428. https://doi.org/10.1080/15388220.2022.2105858

Thulin, E. J., French, A., Messman, E., Masi, R., & Heinze, J. E. (2024). Firearm-related tips in a statewide school anonymous reporting system. Pediatrics, 153(2), e2023063861. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2023-063861

Learning Objective 1

Attendees will learn how to strengthen cross-sector collaboration between students, parents, educators, and community partners to create violence prevention efforts and empower youth and adults to be “upstanders.”

Learning Objective 2

Attendees will learn the importance of leveraging available data to determine areas of need for violence prevention programs.

Learning Objective 3

Attendees will learn how take a realistic look at what they can implement with varying amounts of administrative support.

Start Date

6-2-2026 10:15 AM

End Date

6-2-2026 11:30 AM

Recommended Citation

Gutierrez, Veronica and Garrant, Crystal, "From Schools to Communities: Creating a Culture of Safety Together" (2026). Southeast Conference on School Climate. 46.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/secsc/2026/2026/46

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.