- Welcome everyone, to Wednesday
Nite @ the Lab.
I'm Tom Zinnen, and we're here
at the UW-Madison Biotechnology
Center.
I also work for the Wisconsin 4H
program,
which is part of the Division of
Extension here
at UW-Madison as of three days ag
o.
And on behalf of those folks, an
d our other co-organizers,
Wisconsin Public Television,
the Wisconsin Alumni Association
,
and the UW-Madison Science Alli
ance,
thanks again for coming to Wedn
esday Nite @ the Lab.
We do this every Wednesday night,
50 times a year.
Tonight, it's my pleasure to welc
ome back
to Wednesday Nite @ the Lab
David Perrodin.
He's with Viterbo University,
and he'll be talking with us abo
ut school safety
in America, rhetoric versus reali
ty.
David was born in Wausau, Wiscon
sin, and graduated
from Marathon High School in Mar
athon, Wisconsin.
And then, he went to UW-Stevens
Point,
where he studied speech and
language pathology.
He got both a bachelor's degree
there,
and a master's degree at Point.
And then, he got a master's degre
e
in education at UW-Superior.
Then came to UW-Madison to g
et his PhD
in educational leadership and po
licy analysis.
He promotes a safety initiative,
taking action before disaster str
ikes.
He's an author, researcher,
professor,
legal expert, witness consultant
,
and the host ofThe Safety
Docpodcast.
While he was here getting his Ph
D,
he researched high stakes saf
ety decisions
in education, health care, an
d the military.
He was here at Wednesday Nite @ t
he Lab back in 2013.
Since then, he wrote and direct
ed a film
about school safety with
Pulitzer Prize winner David
Obst.
His book,School of Errors:
Rethinking School Safety in America
,
challenges the unchecked expansio
n
of school fortification and hype
r-realistic drills,
and questions the realized benef
it
of inter-agency collaboration du
ring a sentinel event.
Please join me in welcoming Davi
d Perrodin
back to Wednesday Nite @ the Lab
.
[audience applauding]
- Thank you, Tom, for welcoming
me back
to Wednesday Nite @ the Lab, and
I'm glad to be back.
It's great to be here.
We're going to focus on school sa
fety,
rhetoric versus reality, and kind
of what's changed
in that narrative since I wa
s here in 2013.
I do have a podcast, The Sa
fety Docpodcast,
with more than 100 episodes focus
ing on school
and community safety, and also,
my book,
NSchool of Errors: Rethinking
School Safety in America,
with an outstanding foreword by a
ctor Danny Woodburn.
When I presented in 2013, it was
school statistics,
the history of school attacks,
school shooter situations,
and crisis preparedness and
response.
But since my presentation, we hav
e sustained
the frequency of school viol
ence incidents.
We've had Parkland, Santa Fe,
Highlands.
So, what's going on?
I will discuss rhetoric, accounta
bility,
school safety industrial complex
,
fortification, student mental
health paradox,
teaching students about safety,
a recently developed threat to sc
hool safety,
optimism, and reality.
What is rhetoric?
It's persuasion, it's discourse.
It's what people say about school
safety,
but it's not necessarily eager to
research or data.
This is what we'll read about
in the newspapers,
we'll hear about on the radio,
we'll see on our social media fee
ds.
Schools can fortify their way
to safety.
School safety is steadfastly moni
tored and regulated.
Student health mental services m
ake schools safer.
There is a profile of a student
attacker.
Limiting students' experiences ma
kes them safer.
K-12 education in America.
Everyday, 55 million students att
end
more than 140,000 public and priv
ate school buildings.
But we also need to consider tha
t we have
community preschool sites,
thousands of portable classrooms,
and also, students taking onl
ine courses.
When I bring that up, when I do s
afety consulting,
people say, "Oh, we didn't includ
e
"those students in our safety pla
ns."
They often get overlooked in the
narrative of safety.
So, who's in charge of school sa
fety?
Initially, you would think it's t
he federal government.
But actually, the federal govern
ment is terrific
at giving recommendations about
school safety.
It is the state which creates th
e laws and the regulations.
The school districts, then, inte
rpret
and implement those laws and reg
ulations.
43 out of 50 states require th
at schools
have safety plans and do safety
drills.
So, 43 out of 50, you're wonderi
ng,
who are the seven states?
Well, Wisconsin is not in tha
t group of seven,
and I'm not going to identify th
ose states right now.
But hopefully, after watching th
is, they're gonna get
on board, and we're gonna have 5
0 out of 50.
But site-based discretion comes
into play.
Because we have school districts
,
and the way school districts op
erate
is they typically embrace site-b
ased discretion,
meaning that principals are
in charge
of interpreting school safety,
how it should be implemented in t
heir buildings.
And that makes sense, because th
e buildings are different,
the populations are different,
elementary, middle, and high.
In Wisconsin, we have 421 school
districts,
2,216 school buildings, so safety
looks significantly different fr
om building to building,
even within the same school distr
ict.
Before 2017, the only form that n
eeded to be submitted
to indicate that you are comp
liant as a school district
with school safety was this one f
orm, right here,
to the Wisconsin Department
of Safety and Professional S
ervices.
This is completely inadequate.
What day did you do the drill,
how many people participated?
There aren't learning objectives.
This is just a checklist activity
.
Most states still do this,
or they don't even come to this l
evel.
Something had to change, and it d
id.
We had Act 143.
It came about, Wisconsin Act 14
3, Department of Justice,
2017 to present.
So, now the DOJ has taken over s
chool safety
in Wisconsin, we've had big chan
ges.
Schools are required to submit
their blueprints to the DOJ.
Safety plans, safety training rec
ords,
and also conduct an annual drill
in the proper response to a scho
ol violence event,
and then produce a summary for th
e school board.
But this is subjective, beca
use what is
a proper response to a school
violent event?
Districts will go and do large,
full-scale exercises to meet
this requirement,
other districts will not go t
o that extent.
So, we still have some subjectiv
e,
interpretive nature in this.
But the DOJ stepped forward and
elevated Wisconsin,
notably, on the national scene, f
or school safety.
School safety is a $3 billion in
dustrial complex.
And when we look at the dollars
that get encumbered
under school referendums across t
he United States,
that number's closer to $5 billio
n.
That's different than when I was
here in 2013.
The school safety industrial c
omplex
did not exist back then.
So, the majority of dollars
are being spent
on fortifications, a smaller port
ion, student mental health,
training staff, and also
providing mental health services.
We have a sliver, we have a smal
l sliver, right here.
There is a sliver, it's safety re
search.
It's less than 1%.
You'd have to slice it, and it's
even less than that.
We get down to such a small part
of safety research.
So, we're treating direct causes,
we're not getting at root causes
.
We keep funding fortifications,
and this is snowballing.
A rise in school security.
The middle line indicates survei
llance cameras being sold.
That has become a very robust in
dustry.
The top is fortified entrances.
Actually, the bottom line, which
has stayed flat,
metal detectors, for some re
ason, that hasn't caught on.
We're talking millions and mi
llions of dollars
that are going into these ty
pes of devices,
and the question, are they makin
g schools safer?
And empirically, we know we're no
t seeing a decrease
in the frequency of school shooti
ngs and school attacks.
The youth code of silence.
Well, we've known about this
for 30 years,
and we've known it's been wi
dely published for 20 years,
since the 1999 Columbine attack,
where prior to most attacks, som
ebody else knew
that the attack was going to hap
pen.
At least one other person, but mu
ltiple.
In Bethel, Alaska, in 1997, ther
e were more
than 20 students assembled on a m
ezzanine
who showed up to watch the sc
hool shooting.
So, they didn't tell an adult.
Now, threat detection,
the most important part of you
r threat detection
isn't $3 billion worth of devices
that you're putting in schools, i
t's your students,
and we are not researching, we'r
e not putting
the investment into breaking the
youth code of silence.
When establishing a threat asses
sment,
we have to make sure we do not
profile a student attacker.
There is not a profile.
Students have been high acad
emic achievers,
low academic achievers, loners,
have had friends,
have identified as being bullied
,
identified as not being the reci
pient of bullying.
But we tend to put this profile t
ogether
in the rhetoric, in the narrat
ive of it.
Somebody that's been bullied, it
's somebody who probably
dressed in black, in goth, and wa
s into Kiss-type music.
Well, if that was the case, half
my class
in middle school would have been
on a watch list,
because that's just the way th
at it was.
And we have to be very vigilant,
because there are bills
on the horizon, in some states,
to allow teachers
to potentially profile who th
ey think
the next school shooter could be
.
That's terrifying.
Again, since 2013, we've been on
a pace of 400 safety bills
proposed by the states per year,
and about 80 of those get enacte
d.
And that stayed pretty constant.
So, we can see where the bill
s get enacted,
the funding usually follows.
We have the $3 billion industry,
and something is different, thou
gh, this year.
Something is different in 2019.
Through April 25th, 257 bill
s were proposed.
This will be a record-setting ye
ar for the number
of bills proposed, and the number
of bills passed,
and it's not slowing down anytime
soon.
The counter-argument to this is,
we have to reach
saturation at some point, right?
We can only put so many cameras i
n,
and so many bullet-resistant
doors,
and things like that, but there'
s always something else
that you can sell, or an update,
or an upgrade,
or a second fence outside of the
first fence.
And believe me, these things are
marketed.
There's a new app.
We're gonna see some things toda
y
that I never thought I would see
as a veteran in the safety profe
ssion.
So, we go back to 2018.
The Department of Justice awarde
d $100 million
in grants for school safety enhan
cements,
impacted 600 public and private
schools
in Wisconsin, part of Act 143.
Fortifications, mental health
and threat assessment training,
and also,
mental health community part
nerships
were working with clinics and ho
spitals
so they might be able to train s
chool staff
and also work with students ident
ified
with mental health needs in the s
chool setting.
The Wisconsin Department of Publi
c Instruction
has some similar grants to pu
t together
school-based mental health servi
ces.
They expire in 2021.
But there's an inherent problem
with grant funding.
Grant funding expires.
You have to sustain whatever
initiative is
that you put together with grant
funding.
So, with the DOJ dollars, the $1
00 million,
if it's a device that you purchas
ed,
you're responsible for maintainin
g that device.
You can't contact DOJ and say, "
We bought this
"out of our grant money, and now
we need money
"to do an upgrade, or to do maint
enance to it."
It's the same thing with trainin
g.
Now, this is huge.
So, if we do mental health an
d threat assessment training
for staff, Wisconsin did a wonder
ful job with this
in the last year or two, but we h
ave a high turnover
in teachers, and also, principals
.
Principals, two or three years,
superintendents,
every two or three years, turn
over.
And teachers, it's really free a
gency in Wisconsin
after Act 10, meaning teachers g
o
from district to district, and al
so burn out.
So, you have to have an induction
process
for the people coming in, and sc
hools don't have that.
So, this will fade, the impact
of the trainings will fade
because it's just not sustainabl
e.
Anybody can become a school safet
y expert.
Arguably, you could leave here t
oday,
print this slide off, and put yo
ur name on it,
and you could be a school safety
expert.
It is vendors, marketers, taking
advantage of this,
because no certification, lic
ense,
registration, permit, nothing.
So, schools are confused.
They get approached by a vendor,
and they assume this vendor has e
xpertise
in the area of safety, and th
e vendor
probably doesn't have a great de
pth of expertise,
generally, in assessing the need
s of the district.
Now, the vendor knows the vendor
catalog,
knows what the vendor can sell yo
u.
But as far as a needs assessment
, no.
So, this has really clouded and
fogged
school safety across the country
.
I wrote in my book, School of
Errors:
NRethinking School Safety in
America, that I recommend
schools go right to their insura
nce carriers,
and ask their insurance carr
iers to come in
and send someone to do a risk as
sessment for the facility.
I think that's an authentic way
to find someone
who would meet what I would say
is a robust set of criteria for
school safety expert.
Customer perceived value.
It's a marketing term, but it ap
plies to schools right now.
The customer is the parent.
This is obvious.
The customer is the parent.
When the perceived value is incre
ased,
student safety, it's practica
lly unthinkable
to assign a price tag to peace o
f mind.
The moment you do this, you can
justify anything.
If I come in, and I sell this, a
nd I say,
"This device, right here, can de
tect a gunshot,"
or "This device can do some other
magical thing,
"you need to have it,"
they're probably going to purchas
e it,
especially if I'm a good salespe
rson.
I think I probably would be.
But again, it's peace of mind,
lead to decisions to fuel this 3
to $5 billion
school safety industry, usin
g peace of mind.
We're gonna see some really stret
ched examples
of where peace of mind came into
play
in some school safety decisions.
But remember, the customer i
s the parent,
and the perceived value is incr
eased student safety,
you're gonna spend those dollars.
A school administrator.
So, with Viterbo University, I te
ach legal issues
for school superintendents,
and also special education law
for aspiring special education di
rectors,
and I've done that for 16 years.
Very proud to be a faculty member
with Viterbo University,
and working with administrators.
So, I stay in contact
with what's happening around the
state.
I have a pretty--
I have a number of inputs of te
lling me what's happening
in the state of Wisconsin, includ
ing my national work.
A school administrator shared wit
h me, he said,
"David, parents in the community
want to see safety.
"This is the reason we've put a
ring of new fencing
"around our school complex, but o
ur PA systems
"aren't heard in all parts of
our building."
So, there's a fundamental flaw i
n that,
because let's think of an int
ruder situation.
If somebody is unable to hear th
at announcement being made,
they can't get to a safe are
a, or tornado,
or some other announcement that w
ould be made.
So, this whole thing comes into a
needs assessment,
a prioritization matrix.
But again, vendors come in, and
they tell schools
what they want to hear, and not
what they need to hear.
That's a big difference, what you
want to hear,
and what you need to hear.
And again, schools have allo
wed the vendors
to become the experts.
Looking externally for the answer
s.
Schools want something that t
hey can purchase.
And I'll have an example of t
hat later.
When I work with schools, I have
nothing to sell them,
outside of my staff training, an
d the expertise
that hopefully, I can impart int
o their systems.
I don't have any device, anything
in a box,
that is going to magically make t
heir school safer.
That's just a myth, also.
And we have so much House mo
ney right now,
through the form of grants, 257
bills through April 25th.
The dollars are flowing in, the
vendors and marketers
are going after it, they're goin
g after the schools.
They're taking advantage of panic
ked parents
and superintendents who feel t
he stress.
Superintendents will also say to
me,
"Dave, if I don't go along with
this,
"I might not be renewed.
"I might not have a job here nex
t year.
"Then I have to up my family, and
I have
"to go somewhere else, and I don'
t wanna do that,
"so I'm gonna go with it, ev
en though I know
"it's not the right thing, as far
as our needs.
"Maybe our two-way radios are a
higher priority,
"but this is what the board want
s."
And people want to see safety.
School safety devices aren't req
uired
to undergo any research tria
ls or be certified.
So a school district might buy an
app
because 300 other schools in the
state use it.
It's saturation.
You're convincing people upo
n saturation.
Just because a lot of people us
e it
doesn't mean that it's effective
.
Saturation's not the same as
effectiveness,
but it is very effective to use i
t
as a marketing technique, coming
in and saying,
"Eight districts around you
use this app,
"why don't you use it?"
They give in to the pressure.
NBC 15, February 21st, 2018.
Somerset High School in Wisconsi
n, senior, Justin Case.
Not Justin Case, Justin Reva
rd, invented a tool
he calls the Justin Case.
He made this in shop class, in sc
hool.
It's steel plates, connecting rod
s,
and it fits under doors, jam.
With it in place, Revard has sai
d,
"If high school football players
have charged
"into the door, it's held, with
my device in place."
Okay.
So, taking initiative, have to c
ommend him for that.
But here's the device, these imag
es
were taken off of Amazon.
It's marketed, right now, on Amaz
on.
He has some other versions of it
,
but it slides under a door.
Not sure how it fully works.
So, here's what happened.
So, he develops this, the school
buys 50 of them.
And the principal said, "We star
t at the high school,
"then we went to the middle schoo
l,
"then we went to the elementary
school."
So, we have a very, very small am
ount of time
between something that gets in
vented
by someone who's not an engineer.
This is a high school student,
and the school buys it.
So, who's liable for this?
What's the scientific method to s
ay that this works
across all different settings
, and what if somebody
uses this to lock students into
a room,
and you can't get in from the ou
tside?
Those scenarios, for these ty
pes of devices.
Now, I will say I'm not making
any claim
about the quality of Justin Revar
d's product.
I'm just pointing out here, that
we go from conception
to actually creating and mark
eting products
in a very small amount of time.
We don't have the scientific met
hod at all.
So, some of the things are going
to be effective
for what they're marketed for,
and some of the things aren't.
This is the bulletproof igloo.
I never thought I would see a
bulletproof igloo, and this is
in Oklahoma, where it doesn't ev
en get that cold.
But here's the bulletproof igloo.
Paul Hunter from CBC, Canadian Ne
ws,
came down to check this thing out
.
This is a couple weeks ago, folks
.
This bulletproof igloo, right
here, this is a few weeks ago.
It can accommodate up to 30 peopl
e.
I'm sure it takes in a lot of
room in your class to do this.
So, the thought is, if there
was an intruder,
you could get 30 people inside o
f here, seal this up,
and they would be safe from t
he intruder.
So, here's how they made the dec
ision
to purchase the bulletproof iglo
o.
The school superintendent went i
nside of an igloo
that was outside, and this is wh
at he said.
"AR-15s, nine millimeters, 380s
, full metal jackets,
"they unloaded on us, and they e
njoyed it.
"It was a surreal feeling.
"The $30,000 price tag unit i
s a fair price
"for peace of mind," he said.
"The feedback from parents has be
en wonderful."
He purchased seven units.
I think they purchased two more,
actually, in the last week.
Wow.
So, peace of mind, the feedba
ck from parents.
The parent is the customer.
If the product can provide pe
ace of mind, it's purchased.
$210,000.
Now, all of the logistics that w
ould have to play out
for a scenario when this would ac
tually be applicable
in a school intruder situatio
n are numerous.
And also, what's the status
of your public address system?
Can your intruder announcement
be heard all parts of your buil
ding?
But we see these types of things.
And imagine, it's theater, it's
on YouTube.
People watching as a superintende
nt proudly goes
into this igloo, and then people
start shooting at him,
or shooting at this igloo?
But then, once you walk out,
how do you not buy that product?
How do you not say, "Yes, we're
gonna spend the money
"on this, because if anything ha
ppens, we can get our kids
"into one of these, and ther
e's an intruder
"with a gun in the building, they
'll be safe."
Wow.
Wow, I never thought I'd see this
.
This is an elementary school in
Wisconsin
that uses Department of Justice
dollars to put in
the yellow bollards in the front,
which you can't miss.
So, somebody could not drive a ve
hicle
into the front of a building.
That's not how schools are attack
ed.
The odds of somebody doing this a
re one in two million,
not that there would be an i
njury or fatality.
One in two million.
We know that this isn't the
way that schools are attacked.
But what does this convey?
You look at this, and it's like,
that's safety.
Those two tusks, right there,
those two yellow tusks, that's sa
fety.
Parents can see that, they can g
o up and tap it,
they can kick it, if they want.
It's not going anywhere.
And it's probably gonna stop a v
ehicle.
If somebody charges a vehicle
toward it,
it would probably do that.
But you have winter in Wisconsin
.
And you have to shovel around th
ese.
And you can tell, on either sid
e of 'em,
those are permanent benches.
So, if you have a wheelchair, yo
u've got one shot,
down the middle, and you bett
er be accurate.
So, we have ice that develops, th
ings like that.
It just makes sense, in a dist
rict that, I know,
has needs for a public addre
ss system,
that, I know, in talking with the
superintendent,
also has needs for induction of s
taff at 4K sites,
in a discussion I had less t
han one week ago.
Why do we see this?
It's visible, people want to see
it,
people want to touch it.
Well, we can't fortify our way
to safety, this doesn't work.
In 2014, a New Jersey teenager we
nt
to the World Trade Center as i
t was being completed.
He took what was available to him
.
He worked his way through some h
oles in fences,
and he went through some open do
ors,
some unsupervised stairwells, he
worked his way
up to the top, and he watched th
e sunrise,
which sounds pretty awesome.
I'm afraid of heights, it wou
ldn't be for me.
But every day, curiosity seekers
are foiling our most secured ven
ues.
And I have hundreds, hundreds of
examples just like this.
Student mental health.
We hear this in the same sentence
as school safety.
We need to increase school safet
y.
We need to increase student
mental health.
We have a definition paradox, tho
ugh,
with student mental health.
How do you define it in children
?
The American Psychiatric Asso
ciation
has what's called the DSM-5.
It's the book of medical mental d
isorder diagnoses.
957 pages long.
So, this is where you buy my book
first, which is 204 pages.
It's a good primer, nonfiction,
get you started, more engaging.
Hundreds of diagnoses in the DSM
-5.
You can diagnose anything.
The number one diagnosis
is Generalized Anxiety Disord
er for children.
It has been for a number of years
, but then we have
depression, suicidal ideation, an
d just a few.
But it's not that you'd get
one single diagnosis, it's comor
bid.
You might get three, or four, or
five,
and different medications going
with that,
and how do you work all of this
together?
So, we don't understand this near
ly as well as what we do,
what we think we do, what is p
ortrayed in the media,
the rhetoric that we have an unde
rstanding
of student mental health needs.
We don't.
We also have an out of contro
l epidemic with suicide.
15 to 19 year olds, it's increase
d 33% since 2009.
The blue line going down, th
at was the last represented.
We can indicate suicide prevalen
ce continues to rise.
Actually, it's everywhere.
Male, female, it doesn't matter w
hat age you are.
It's across demographics in the U
nited States.
So, this is huge.
Our number two cause of death fo
r children is suicide,
if we're looking at age 18 and u
nder.
Number one cause, accidental dea
th,
mostly vehicular accidents, or ov
erdoses.
And of course, I had to inclu
de this slide,
because it's so significant.
Since 2013, when I was here, agai
n, the line going up,
accidental death, our leading ca
use of death right now,
with kids, is opioid overdose.
That, combined, again, with c
ar accidents,
contributes to accidental death.
So, the whole landscape of school
safety has changed.
So, we hear about intruders, and
that we have to fortify,
and all of that, and yet, we have
this opioid epidemic,
that's just crazy, right now,
in schools.
It's not slowing down.
Mental health legislation.
Well, we said the feds recomm
end, they do
a great job at recommending, righ
t?
But we had a chance, we had on
e chance, March 3rd, 2015,
there were bills simultaneously i
ntroduced
to the House and Senate, the Ment
al Health in Schools Act.
It would have required a framewo
rk
for mental health services in sc
hools,
funding, staff development, trai
ning family members,
which was great, because now, we
get family members,
we get a wraparound support.
Expanding successful, evidence-b
ased programs.
Here's where the research dollars
come in.
It had overwhelming support, it w
as never enacted.
So, we do not have a federal fram
ework
for student mental health.
There's nothing on the horizon.
We had a chance, it never happene
d.
So, states don't require
mental health screenings for indi
vidual students.
They will give anonymous grou
p surveys
to high school students, middle
school students,
and they might find out,
for example, in the last 90 days
,
12% of our high school students
indicated that they considered h
arm to self.
Okay, but what value is that?
If we don't know know the student
s
who responded to that, how do we
produce a response
to that that benefits those stud
ents?
So, this just gives a general ba
rometer of where things
are at, but it doesn't really
help us
with putting together treatment
plans.
Teachers observe, but teachers d
on't diagnose.
We have to remember, educator lic
enses
do not allow for medical evaluati
on,
medical diagnoses, or medical tre
atment.
Teachers can describe the behavi
ors
that they have observed,
that they've noticed, but they c
an't, however, say,
"This student has depression, AD
HD,
"anxiety, or mental illness."
School-based mental health servi
ces.
Since 2013, youth mental health f
irst aid training
has been provided for a lot of
school districts.
2018, $100 million from DOJ.
A lot of those dollars went
into youth mental health first a
id.
That's a formal program, it's mul
tiple days.
I participated in it.
It helps staff to identify anxiet
y, signs of depression,
signs of suicide, and then, refe
r out to medical providers.
The treatment side of this, scho
ols can directly hire
mental health providers, but of c
ourse,
where are you gonna get the
dollars for that?
'Cause grants are one time, you'
re not gonna hire
those folks out of a grant, beca
use they're gonna want
to know they have a job after th
e grant
is encumbered and expended.
So, you can co-locate community
mental health clinics
in schools, bring in the mental
health providers
into schools, works very effecti
ve
with the Kimberly School District
for the last 10 years.
But that's a handful of dist
ricts in Wisconsin.
421 districts, a handful have pro
grams
that are this successful, and
have lasted this long.
So, the model is highly dependent
upon your geographic location,
which we're gonna get to in just
a moment.
But let's step back.
Wisconsin has 148 practicing chil
d psychiatrists.
That's 12 per every 100,000,
or 75% less than the recommended
level.
There's not enough, and they
're burning out.
We're getting high turnover.
Amy Herbst of Children's Hospital
of Wisconsin,
quoted in an article by Chris Mil
ler
ofAppleton Post nCrescent,
May 22nd, 2019.
She said, "The wait for an appoi
ntment for a child
"could be weeks or months to
see a mental health provider."
Weeks or months.
In the southern part of the stat
e, probably weeks.
Northern part of the state, p
robably months.
So, believe it or not, I actually
created this map.
I'm pretty proud of myself.
I was able to use Microsoft Pain
t
to color in the four counties,
it only took me two days.
[audience chuckling]
We can tell,
we have four counties, Dane,
Brown County,
Waukeshaa, and Milwaukee, which
are darkened in.
111 out of those 148 child psychi
atrists practice
in those four counties, that's
where they're concentrated.
And also, most of our population
is in Dane County,
in Milwaukee, southern part o
f the state.
So, we have the red line going a
cross
roughly where Highway 29 is.
Above that, we have service dese
rts.
My superintendents in those area
s tell me all the time,
"We just don't have the prov
iders up here."
The 37 indicates child psychiatri
sts practicing
above Highway 29, or roughly half
of the state.
We also have some other barr
iers to this.
Winter weather, which starts in
October,
if you're in Bayfield, and en
ds in June,
if you're in Bayfield, right?
So, you have that to deal with,
and you don't have the infrastruc
ture.
So, I don't want to portray that
the southern part
of the state, the situation's mu
ch better,
because you have more population,
so you don't have to drive as far
for an appointment,
but you still have a waitlist for
an appointment.
So, until we do something to add
ress this issue
of service deserts, which real
ly would probably come
from a federal-level bill, we're
not gonna get anywhere.
Some districts will have some se
rvices,
other districts will have nothin
g.
And we know that there's one dist
rict
in Wisconsin, indicated last wee
k
that they want to dissolve their
district.
So, what kind of services hap
pen there?
And you have to keep thinking,
we go back to induction process.
The districts where you have
high turnover,
where somebody's there for a year
, they're trained
in youth mental health servic
es, they leave,
and their counties, they have tu
rnover.
I worked with one county above th
is red line,
and the county, literally, w
as training
four or five people at one ti
me in the school,
just so they had somebody left f
or the next year
because of turnover, so they had
some continuity.
It's that dire out there for ment
al health.
So, mental health looks signif
icantly different,
depending upon which districts yo
u're in.
But of the 421 schools in Wiscons
in,
the majority are really, really s
truggling
to put in place any mental h
ealth programs.
You have key questions, too.
So, who evaluates?
Who qualifies for services,
what criteria do you have to have
?
One superintendent told me, "Wel
l Dave, worst is first.
"We get everybody together, all
of our principals,
"and we just make a list of our
students,
"and whoever we rank as worst
becomes first
"when we have service slots avai
lable
"for a provider which drives in
and sees students
"for three hours a week in our
school district."
So, what's the best treatment?
Who knows, right?
We've only really worked with st
udent mental health issues
on a deep, empirical level probab
ly since the 80s.
And I'll have a perfect exam
ple of that.
How do we measure progress?
How do we know if the student is
benefiting
from the service, or not?
Or if something ancillary is
happening,
they're getting more attention
because they're in a club, or som
ething like that?
We don't have research to specif
ically say this works
for this presentation of need.
And also, discharge criteria.
Again, a superintendent said, "W
ell, in our district,
"if somebody qualifies for mental
health services,
"they get eight therapy sessions
"with an outside provider, and th
en it's done."
Well, it doesn't mean the need i
s done.
It just means that they've qual
ified
for their eight sessions, which
the district has paid for.
And if these needs continue, how
do you address
your waitlist, which districts wi
ll say
"We have more and more students o
n our waitlist,
"because we're not discharging st
udents."
At the top, I have opt-in.
Parents have to agree, also, to t
his, and if they say no,
then, really, the school doesn'
t have an option.
So, a summary of what we know,
and this will close out our ment
al health segment.
There's not standardized protocol
for defining
what constitutes school-based me
ntal health in America.
We lost that opportunity
with that 2015 fed bill, didn't g
et passed.
Teachers are trained to identify
and respond to signs
of mental illness, but they can'
t diagnose children.
We have insufficient empirical st
udies to support
the efficacy of youth mental hea
lth treatments.
In 1983, PBS did a documentary,
nChildren of Darkness.
You can find it, it's on YouTube.
This was, actually, a therapy.
So, this was a student who was in
a mental health institution in
his state, not Wisconsin.
Pink bunny suit shaming therapy.
Actually wore a pink bunny suit f
or weeks, several weeks.
And the thought was, he would not
run away
from the facility in the bunny
suit,
because he'd be embarrassed
to do that.
He ran away four times after they
did that, by the way.
So, this whole thing with the pi
nk bunny suit, no.
But that's where we were, and ac
tually, people thought,
psychiatrists and mental health p
roviders, they were
experimenting, they thought that
this might be effective.
We're still kind of in our infanc
y.
In 1983, the age of the kid in t
he video?
That was me, I was that age.
I wasn't that kid, but I was that
age.
We have this nationwide shortage
of mental health providers
that only continues to increase,
we have burnout.
And the whole question of, have w
e created the stigma
by co-mingling mental health and
school services?
Do you want to be identified
as having received mental hea
lth services?
It's a deep question, becaus
e the legislation
coming out now, the narrative,
it's always school safety and men
tal health,
school safety and mental health.
The question is, does it kind of
imply
that if you receive mental h
ealth services,
that you might be at risk of brin
ging harm to your school?
That was a big threat after Adam
Lanza,
with Sandy Hook, for about two we
eks.
Parents who had children with au
tism
were very afraid that their chil
dren were going
to start to be profiled as pote
ntially being at risk
to bring harm to their fellow
students.
That didn't happen, and it's
not authentic,
that that could happen, but fo
r about two weeks,
there were articles in the medi
a that were circling.
So, you also open up this questi
on.
Have you ever been treated fo
r a mental health condition?
So, if you say "Yeah, when I wa
s 15 years old, I had
"mental health treatment for anxi
ety, when I was in school."
So, is that a fair question?
Well no, it's not a fair questio
n,
and it becomes a lifetime scarlet
letter.
If you're applying to be in
law enforcement,
a doctor, a pilot, that questi
on will get asked.
And personal privacy is also an
authentic concern.
I work with some of the top folks
in the intelligence community, a
nd my goodness,
data hacks, what we know about,
is the tip of the iceberg.
But how many times do you open u
p a letter,
and it's like, "Oh, your dat
a from whatever
"was just compromised again?"
The parents are saying, "What if
somebody finds out
"that my child, when they wer
e 15 years old,
"received services for anxiety?
"How will that impact them down
the road?"
Pink bunny suit.
It didn't work for Ralphie, eithe
r.
Aunt Clara gave him that suit, an
d he has to wear it
every time she visits, to this da
y.
But it's ironic, that was the sa
me year, 1983.
So, we have the bunny suit inCh
ildren of Darkness,
and the bunny suit inA Christma
s Story.
Teaching safety to students, a
collapsing roaming range.
100 years ago, the typical ei
ght-year-old
had 30 miles that they could tra
verse,
woods, streams, having fun.
Now, it is less than a mile.
That's a study by David Derbyshi
re.
Less than a mile.
Write about this in my book.
Exploration's a type of safety
exercise.
We've just taken it away from kid
s,
'cause we don't let them explore
.
You go 300 yards to the end of y
our block, and that's it.
We're losing in-vivo experiences.
Real world, in-world experiences.
Here's an example.
In 2017, Ohio's North Ridgev
ille City schools
canceled the 8th grade field trip
to D.C. over threats of terrorism
.
There were no threats of terror
ism at that time.
They were just feeding off of
the rhetoric.
And they said, "Nope, we don't wa
nt this to happen.
"We don't want our kids to go the
re."
And the superintendent said, "Wel
l, we've done this
"for years, and there's a progra
m
"where they meet us over there."
But we have an irony, right?
We have an irony.
Founding fathers embraced peril,
and 242 years later,
their heirs won't allow thei
r kids to go
to the Smithsonian to see the mus
kets.
But here's the replacement, here
's prize B.
Virtual reality field trip.
Everybody, today, we're goin
g to the gym.
And you're gonna get your VR gogg
les.
We contracted with a company who
just sold us
the D.C. trip, and you're gonna
get it in the gym.
This happened, this happens.
Here's why it's marketed so succe
ssfully.
15, 20 years ago, if you had this
technology,
you could market it and say it
's cost-effective.
You don't have to spend gas to
D.C.,
you don't have to do lodging and
all of that.
That would make sense, right?
But it's marketed now, as sc
hool safety.
We can keep your kids safe if
they never leave the building.
And you experience it through th
e eyes of somebody else.
Carol, your tour guide.
Positionality, maybe one person.
Instead of 40 kids individually
experiencing Washington, D.C.
, the superintendent said,
"We did this trip, and one of the
kids
"had his wallet pick-pocketed,
and he said it was
"a learning experience," and thin
gs like that.
But he said, overall, they had a
great time
on the trip, and that kids, smal
l groups of kids, learning.
But yeah, this was all wiped out.
So, yeah, this isn't the field tr
ip of the future,
this is the field trip of right
now
for panicked parents who are
the customers,
who want peace of mind.
Hyper-realistic intruder full-sca
le exercises
have become very popular and cont
roversial.
Have they gone too far,
and are we focused too much o
n one crisis?
This is when fire, ambulance, po
lice, set up at a school,
and basically simulate as if a
shooter had been there.
So, people will have simulated gu
nshot wounds,
they'll do the med flight choppe
rs coming in,
they'll run through the school l
ooking for shooters.
I saw one where they put peop
le in body bags
and lined them up outside of
the school,
all announced in the local newspa
per,
so anybody could participate.
You could play any role you w
anted, right?
Wow.
Your odds of dying.
Lifetime likelihood of dying
in a school shooting is one i
n two million.
Lifetime likelihood of dying
from a lightning strike is o
ne in 218,000.
I could run a ton of statistics s
imilar to this,
but again, we're out of whac
k with prevalence.
So, if we look at the $100 m
illion from DOJ,
if we look at the $3 billion scho
ol safety industry,
they're not selling you lightnin
g strike detectors,
that you can put on your ball fie
lds
and your playgrounds, which migh
t make sense, statistically.
Some of those things were market
ed, short-term,
after some localized events a nu
mber of years ago.
But we're preying on fear,
we're preying on panicked parents
.
In January of 2019, this made the
news everywhere,
the Indiana--
some Indiana elementary scho
ol teachers
were shot, execution-style, with
plastic pellets,
and injured during an active sho
oter training.
The sheriff said, "Hey, we'r
e gonna stop
"doing these active shooter trai
nings."
Well, you don't stop doing the tr
ainings,
you just don't try to execute pe
ople during your trainings.
You improve your training,
you put learning objectives to it
.
You just don't shut it down.
And parents and teachers
are now exempting some studen
ts from drills.
I spoke with James Sibley, who's
an attorney
out of San Jose, has a son with a
utism.
And he said, "Yeah, this is beco
ming an authentic issue
"right now, because of the trauma
that students
"have inflicted upon them by
these hyper-realistic drills."
Wall Street's Dan Frosch, if you
want to do some reading,
has curated a list of all litiga
tion in this area.
But let's think about this, okay
?
If painting kids up with fake blo
od,
role-playing as a gunshot victim
, and firing blank rounds
inside a school was the gold sta
ndard,
why don't we pump smoke into s
chools
to simulate fire for every fire d
rill?
Why don't we fire up the old barn
fan and throw
those rubber pellets in it to si
mulate a tornado?
And there'd be some basis for do
ing a hyper-realistic,
full exercise tornado drill, bec
ause, well,
June 8th, 1984, Barneveld, Wisco
nsin,
during the night, an F5 tornado s
truck.
Destroyed 90% of the community, n
ine fatalities,
hundred injuries of the city
's 600 residents.
Where's Barneveld?
25 minutes from right here.
Barneveld is 25 minutes from
right here.
Since 2017, 15 students have die
d when their schools
have been ripped apart by tornado
es,
but we don't bring in the drama
club
when we're doing tornado drills,
we only save that for the intrud
er drills.
I argue that, if it wouldn't pass
institutional review board, then
we shouldn't do this.
And this is what I instruct my s
tudents at Viterbo.
Institutional review board is som
ething
that universities have for res
earch.
It came about in 1974, meaning yo
u have to take
into consideration the physical a
nd psychological harm
of your subjects during research
to make sure that you weren't br
inging harm to them.
We had some pretty wild rese
arch experiments going on.
1971, the Stanford prison experim
ent,
which got so out of control, they
had to shut it down early.
In 1963, the Milgram shock experi
ment,
so every time somebody was gettin
g an answer wrong,
another person was told to a
dminister a shock,
and the person would be yelling,
"Oh, you're killing me,
"I have a heart condition, don't
do this."
And they weren't actually bei
ng shocked.
The actor had a light that would
come on,
and then, they would play this.
But the person didn't know.
They're like, "I don't think I sh
ould
"be doing this," but most people
did.
Virtually everybody turned the k
nob
all the way up, and zapped 'em.
And those people got paid $4, an
d were never told
it was an experiment, by the way
.
Walked away like, "I think I mig
ht
"have hurt somebody really bad t
oday.
"But, it's pizza and beer money,
I guess."
Here's Barneveld, the morning of
June 8th, 1984.
Situational awareness has been c
ompromised.
We've lost roaming area.
Kids spending seven to nine hour
s
a day looking at their device.
We have so many videos of peo
ple walking
into signposts, and things like
that.
There's also videos of people wa
lking
into traffic, being killed.
Less recess, fewer field outings.
Today's youth have been robbed
of the environmental awareness sk
ills
achieved by their predecessors.
Less aware equals less safe.
It doesn't matter what we spend
on fortification.
Less aware equals less safe.
But there's ways to combat this.
We can address this and it doesn
't cost us money.
In 1908, Sir Baden-Powell put to
gether the book,
Scouting Games, used by Boy
Scouts, Girl Scouts,
now military scouts, also mi
litary snipers, to this day.
Here's a variation of how you co
uld do this
in a school setting to develop a
student's capacity
to observe and remember details.
So, you'd take students on a truc
k around the campus,
and you have some things set up a
head of time.
A unicorn on a flagpole,
"Jingle Bells" is playing by a s
lide,
and you have a strong scent of o
ranges on a sidewalk.
So, you have visual, you have au
ditory, you have olfactory.
You take students around, you do
n't tell 'em
what to expect, but you come
back, and say,
"What did you encounter when we
did
"this trek around the campus?"
And often times, they're not gonn
a
detect these things right away.
You take 'em through the second t
ime, you point 'em out,
and then you do this more and
more, and pretty soon,
they're telling you, "Yeah, three
blocks away,
"the transformer on the telephon
e pole was humming loud.
"I don't think it's gonna last l
ong.
"Someone should call the power
company."
They get that tuned in.
It actually happens that way.
It's remarkable.
But we don't do this.
Here's something else.
This is called Kim's Game.
Kim's Game involves just taking r
andom things,
putting them in a drawer, or
on a table,
and trying to remember what t
hey are.
And you could either visually do
this,
you could feel items, so forth.
You could have a song that was p
laying,
olfactory sense, however you want
ed to do this.
But very simple, Kim's Game.
Now, a sniper can remember about
200 items,
but you can get a kid, a teenage
r,
easily remembering over 50 items.
And they'll not only remember the
items
the more you do this, they'll re
member,
yeah, there were three things
made of wood.
Wait, there were four things,
'cause the drawer was made out o
f wood.
I'll go to schools, and they'll
say,
"This is great, Dave, we love th
is, how much does it cost?"
It doesn't cost anything.
You just make this.
If I put this in a box, and I
sold this for $90,
they'd put one in every classroo
m.
Probably store it inside their bu
lletproof igloo.
It's safe right there.
This is insane.
But this is what we do.
Now, I said I wasn't gonna profil
e,
but I guess I violated my rul
e, here.
Miquela Sousa's our top threat
to school safety.
This is huge.
Miquela Sousa.
Well, she looks the part, right?
I mean, come on.
She looks the part of your top th
reat to school safety.
Chess club, yearbook, varsity,
Spanish, National Honor Soci
ety, glee club.
The glee club thing kind of seal
s it, right?
So, here's some other photos.
Look carefully.
This is Miquela Sousa.
Look carefully.
Little Miquela's an Instagram mod
el.
She claims to be from Downey, Il
linois.
She's posting on Instagram since
2016.
She has over a million social
media followers.
She is a fictional person.
There is no Miquela Sousa.
She's managed by a team of engine
ers,
marketers, and dreamers.
I have no idea what the job desc
ription is for a dreamer,
but it sounds pretty awesome,
if this is what you get to do.
She's actually used by Calvin Kle
in for marketing.
So, she is benign.
But there are more than 100
avatars right now,
of avatar realism-quality of litt
le Miquela on the net,
and they're not all benign.
Katie Jones was one, just weeded
out,
and she had ties in government i
nfiltration.
Just took her our last week.
We've done something.
Something has happened since 201
1.
We've crossed this uncanny valley
.
In 1970, robotics professor Masa
hiro Mori identified,
the closer robots look like huma
ns,
the more humans were repulsed.
They didn't feel comfortable
with them.
So, he always kept a little bit
of difference in the design.
We also see that in movies, like
the Incredibles
were designed angular for this r
eason.
The movieThe Polar Express in
2004 tried to cross
the uncanny valley, wasn't succe
ssful.
You'll read a number of reviews
where kids left the theater.
They felt very uncomfortable with
that movie.
But about 2011, we got to the
point where we could have
avatar realism, Facebook messenge
r was a thing,
streaming video, so suddenly, a
little Miquela
could come on board and start po
sting
on her social media accounts, wh
ich she's done.
We also have this phenomenon of r
eplacing the meat tribe.
When I was growing up, probab
ly most of you,
it was people getting together.
Now, it's people getting together
with their phones, even if they
're in the same room.
It's the phone tribe, it's replac
ed the meat tribe,
we'll never go back.
Here is how this actually manifes
ts
in large-scale rescues,
and schools need to be aware of
this.
So, in 2017, Hurricanes Irma
and Harvey.
Facebook Messenger,
People are going to Facebook Mes
senger.
So, let's say this house up
here in the right-hand corner,
and this person said "Hey, my are
a's flooded out,
"no one's rescuing me."
Most of the fire departments outs
ide of Houston,
all the small communities, had o
ne boat.
They couldn't do this, so they ne
eded
the Cajun Navy Relief to come in,
which is a non-profit organizati
on,
there were some others.
They would contact them by F
acebook Messenger,
and say, "We need you to come in
and help us."
Then, someone from Cajun Navy Rel
ief,
just typical citizens, would re
spond with Zello,
which is a free app, and they wo
uld contact these boaters.
The person circles, he'd get the
call, saying,
"Yeah, it's right in back of you
is where you need to go.
"They need water and they also
need to be evacuated,
"because the water's rising."
So, we have this whole system now
, which is outside
of FEMA, which is outside of 911
, and these systems
are rapidly developing these
civilian rescues.
And what might this look like
if we have another Barneveld-type
event?
So, it's just something that
we're not aware of
when we talk about school safety.
Six weeks ago, this is terrifying
.
Six weeks ago, Samsung engineers
developed realistic talking head
s
that can be generated from a sin
gle image.
So, on the left, we have static
photographs.
On the right, those are all AI,
artificial intelligence-gener
ated images.
I want to show you a very sho
rt video clip.
- Man: We can push the generaliza
tion even further,
applying the system to famou
s photographs.
- That's all manufactured.
- With each case,
we automatically find people in t
he Vox celebrity dataset
with landmarks suitable for
the animation
of a particular portrait.
[gentle music]
- That's simply terrifying.
That came out of Samsung Moscow l
abs six weeks ago.
You get eight static images,
you can make someone look alm
ost realistic.
For $20, you can hire somebody t
o do deepfakes.
For $250, you or I could buy
the software,
and probably be able to do this o
urselves,
and there now is full text capabi
lity,
so you can make somebody say
whatever you want them to say.
So, how are schools gonna respon
d to these deepfakes?
What's gonna happen when a princi
pal is presented
a 20 second video of someone
making a threat to the school,
and that person says, "I never s
aid this,"
but yet you have the video?
So, this erodes trust, and it
introduces
what's called the Liar's Dividen
d.
Even though that student migh
t be proven
that they didn't make that video,
there's gonna be some doubt, beca
use it's a video, right?
And were they intending to d
o this, or not,
are they gonna be on some watch
list if this happens again?
It will elevate social media bul
lying
to an unimaginable level.
The Ruderman Foundation last week
released a white paper study indi
cating that bullying
of students with disabilities is
at an all-time high.
They continue to be the most
at-risk population
for being the recipients of
bullying.
Now, we throw this into the mix?
And are we going to have stude
nts
have to think proactively
of how do you prove that you did
not
make this threatening statement?
The psychological well-being of s
tudents is at risk.
A reputation can be ruined in mi
nutes,
and that can overwhelm a teen, pe
rhaps to suicide.
Suicide's a second-leading cause
for youth in the United States.
Check out the book, So You've
Been Shamed
by Jon Ronson, 2015.
One tweet can ruin a career and a
life,
and almost take somebody to deat
h.
June of 2019, thankfully, the U.
S. lawmakers got together
for a hearing devoted to the thr
eat
of artificially-generated imager
y,
but yeah, this seems too late, ri
ght?
Like, right now, for just doing t
his,
we're so far behind, we are nowh
ere ready for this.
But we have reasons to be optimis
tic in schools.
We do have great things happenin
g in school safety.
This is Bart Barta and his son, D
aniel.
And Bart is a friend of mine,
and he is a retired police comma
nder.
He's the father of an autistic so
n.
Daniel has autism.
He trains emergency responders h
ow to recognize,
respond, and manage risk in stude
nts with autism.
He's trained officers in Wiscons
in.
So, one of the objectives would b
e,
if you come in and you encounter
a student with autism,
they would authentically have a s
tudent with autism
who might flap hands, might put
hands into pockets,
how do you interact successfully
with that student in a high-s
tress situation?
This is a concern, yeah, because
that student
could be at higher risk, coul
d be shot at.
And attorney James Sibley, who al
so has a son with autism,
shared this in a podcast where we
talked about that.
So, he is doing tremendous thing
s,
but we talk about these hype
r-realistic,
full-scale intruder drills, we n
eed to introduce
learning objectives like Bart Bar
ta is doing.
FEMA Teen CERT.
Ted Zocco-Hochhalter, anothe
r friend of mine.
He had two children at Columbine
in 1999 during the shooting.
His daughter was left a para
plegic from that shooting.
He said to me, "David, whether we
like it or not,
"kids are stakeholders in all
of this,
"and there's a program you sh
ould check out."
FEMA Teen CERT, Community Emerge
ncy Response Team.
This is a great way to help kids
with environmental awareness.
Here, kids are learning how
to do cribbing,
or how to lift something, if it w
as
a heavy object, if it fell on som
ebody.
So, there's some kids,
there's community safety respond
ers there.
Obviously, who wouldn't want
to do this?
This is hands-on and generalizabl
e skills.
Embracing student focus groups.
There's a technology out there ri
ght now, what3words,
and it is emerging as the primar
y safety response
for the Netherlands, for Sweden,
also United Nations,
where I'm standing, right now, t
his spot,
is achieving.land.keep.
If I reported that to emergency
responders,
they would know to come right he
re to respond to me.
It's like telling people, "Hey,
"David's presentation is at UW-M
adison."
What good does that do you?
If you say he's gonna be at ach
ieving.land.keep,
you know I'm right here.
They've taken three meter by thr
ee meter squares
and mapped out the world.
Ford Motor Company will have this
as their GPS system
next year, Mercedes already has
it.
This will revolutionize scho
ol safety,
for evacuation, for unification
sites,
where perimeters, now, can be
miles,
where you're going to go.
You can identify, here's where
you're gonna go
for your evacuation reunificatio
n.
It's a free app.
But, again, this is embraced by
United Nations,
it's really making a difference.
Investing in research 81% of the
time,
somebody else knew, we gotta cr
ack that code of silence.
We gotta get reporting systems.
They're not accessible to studen
ts with disabilities
and English language learners
, we know that,
we've got to get them in the mix
so kids try all these systems th
at we know,
that it works with them.
So, the reality.
Systems can be foiled, crises are
unpredictable.
There's minimal oversight and
accountability in most states.
Safety devices aren't required
to go through any testing or be
certified.
With mental health, we have part
nerships and providers
that can benefit children, but we
don't have
the solid research indicating wh
at works and what doesn't.
We have these service deserts, t
oo.
So, even if we had the dollars,
we don't have the people for the
positions.
There's no profile of a student
attacker, and exploration
is a type of safety drill that i
mproves
situational awareness and threat
detection.
Instead of 400 kids, if we had 4
00 smoke detectors
in our school, we'd want eac
h one of those
with a battery, so they were ac
tively detecting threats.
Students are our biggest threat d
etectors,
yet we've limited the roaming ra
nges, and so much more,
so they're really only focused
on the small area in front of th
em.
Thank you so much for inviting m
e back
to Wednesday Nite @ the Lab.
It's been a blast.
I continue to work diligently
with a wonderful group of saf
ety professionals
to make our schools safer.
Thank you for being here tonight
.
[audience applauding]