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Upon completion of a Master of Education in Guidance and School Counseling, I hope to be employed as a school counselor in secondary education. I will aim to help students not only with their academic goals, but their personal and social needs as well.

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Option 1 - Current Top 5 Legal and Ethical Issues

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Option 1 - Current Top 5 Legal and Ethical Issues

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The top five legal and ethical issues I learned while interviewing Tori Talbert and Julie Lewis, both school counselors at Wester Middle School, are:

1. David's Law - Since David's Law was passed in 2017, school counselors and administrators are now having to deal with issues of cyberbullying that comes through students' phones, even if the bullying doesn't take place during school hours.
2. Confidentiality - School counselors are required to keep a lot of information to themselves. It can be hard from a teacher's perspective not knowing the full story about what is going on with a student and thinking the counselors are choosing to withhold information, but really they have a legal obligation to only share certain information.
3. Bullying - Bullying has been a major issue in middle school. Children are transitioning to bigger schools, they are meeting new people, hanging out with new friends, and trying to figure out who they are and where they belong. This age of kids are very susceptible to following the crowd or doing what the cool kids are and it becomes a stage for bullying to take place.
4. Suicide - With suicide being on the rise in recent years, counselors' roles are more crucial than ever to help students.
5. Crossing Lines Happens Often - After speaking with these counselors, I learned they have to rectify problems a lot more than I realized. School counselors are often having to clean up messes other people made, such as teachers crossing certain lines with students or parents. Even though the teacher may think all he/she is doing is being helpful, the counselors sometimes have to reiterate there is a line that cannot be crossed.

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Every day, thousands of teens attempt suicide in the U.S. - the most extreme outcome for the millions of children in this country who struggle with mental health issues.

As we've reported all week, schools play a key role, along with parents and medical professionals, in identifying children who may be at risk of suicide. And one of the biggest challenges: myths that can cloud their judgment.

"People are afraid of the whole topic," says David Jobes, the head of Catholic University's Suicide Prevention Lab. "It just feels like something that's left unsaid or untouched."

Jobes says one of the most common - and most dangerous - myths about suicide is that young children just don't kill themselves.

It's just not true.

Children as young as 5 take their own lives every year. Another myth? Suicides are an impulsive decision, made in the heat of the moment.

Again, not true.

Jobes says kids can spend weeks thinking about and planning for their own deaths. And that, he says, is where schools have a role to play.

"They're going to be letting their friends know, dropping hints, writing essays that their English teacher might pick up, telling coaches," Jobes says. One thing teens considering suicide won't do is tell their parents.

We asked Jobes to walk us through a few other common misperceptions of suicide.
Myth 1: Asking someone about suicide will cause him to become suicidal
"There's already issues and struggles around mental illness within our culture and society. It's highly stigmatized, and suicide is even more stigmatized. It feels like something that's just best left unsaid or untouched, kept under the rug, and that's a problem in terms of saving lives. Because we need to ask, and we need to intervene to actually save lives. You need to be direct. 'Sounds like you're really down, have you thought about taking your life?' Just very direct. The more direct the better."
Myth 2: Depression causes all suicides
"That's just not true. So, we have millions of Americans who are depressed. A small fraction of them take their lives, a very small fraction. So depression and suicide are not synonymous.

"On average, about a hundred and some Americans die each day [from suicide]. About 40 to 50 of them might be depressed. Other diagnoses are relevant - like schizophrenia, psychotic disorders, substance abuse, anxiety disorders. It's not just all about depression."
Myth 3: We cannot really prevent suicides
"We know very clearly that, with proper identification, proper support and treatments that are suicide-specific, we absolutely can make a difference and save lives. Most suicidal people who talk about suicide don't really want to be dead. They're giving other people lots of indications, lots of warning signs, lots of communications that this is something that they would like to not do, but it requires people identifying that and getting them the proper help.

"Some of the warning signs would certainly be depression and ... loss of concentration. People not seeming like themselves. Insomnia can be a big risk factor. Other warning signs might include irritability, withdrawal. And the thing that's really critical: Lots of people have those symptoms and are not thinking about suicide. It's really when the symptoms add up in the mind of that person, where they think 'The way I deal with this is to take my life.' "
Myth 4: Suicides always happen in an impulsive moment
"People contemplate, think about it, imagine it, fantasize about it, write suicide notes, post things on the Web. After many days or weeks, [they] then perhaps make a fatal attempt. There is a major theory in the field that says that no suicides are impulsive. That there is always a history if you dig deep enough.

"The idea that they come out of the blue may happen, but it's actually quite rare. A small number of people, especially among adolescents or school kids, are not going to communicate their intent. But that's the exception. They're going to be mostly letting their friends know, dropping hints, writing essays that their English teacher might pick up, telling teachers and coaches. So when people say this, they're not crying wolf. It's something to take seriously.

"Kids telling other kids is really critical because that's who they're gonna tell. They are not going to typically tell their parents. They get oftentimes a very negative reaction, even a punitive reaction. So, schools are in a position to try to communicate to kids that talking to your friends is fine, but if you really are a friend of this person, keeping a secret about something as serious as suicide is not in their best interest. And they need to pass that information up to teachers or the principal or to ... counselors who are in a position to get professional help involved."
Myth 5: Young children, ages 5 through 12, cannot be suicidal
"Young children do take their lives. In the United States each year, about 30 to 35 children under the age of 12 take their own lives.

"It's hard for a lot of us to imagine that a child that young - a 5-, 6-, 7-year-old - could actually know what it means to say, 'I want to kill myself.' But we do research with young children and know that kids are saying these words.

"They do intend it, and they do sometimes take their lives. Oftentimes, by running into traffic and getting hit by a car. We don't know a lot about young children taking their lives. The suicide prevention literature kind of begins at age 12 to 14. It's almost as if, even in the professional literature, young children can't be suicidal. And it's just not the case."
Myth 6: When there has been a suicide, having a school assembly seems like a good idea
"There's literature and a professional take on all this that in post-vention, which is intervening after a suicide has occurred in a school, you want to find a response that is not overreacting, which would cause other kids to copycat or to follow that behavior.

"Alternatively, you don't want to underreact. And so there is a very useful literature out there, professional associations that provide guidelines where we try to find that sweet spot of attending to the fact that this happened, providing necessary information and then resources, but not letting the whole school out to go to the funeral. Or not having an assembly where everybody comes to hear from an expert about suicide.

"We really want to have these conversations in smaller groups, especially among those kids who were most affected by the suicide. So, just a wholesale didactic event is not necessarily in the school's best interest. And not necessarily the best way to prevent copycat suicides or additional suicides.

" The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention does have very useful guidelines that are specific to schools. The American Association of Suicidology has also had a task force. There is extensive literature that is accessed through those organizations about what is optimal, school-based post-vention.

"We certainly know that children and adolescents are heavily influenced, especially teenagers, by their peers. And that's developmentally normal. So one of the things that we do worry about with kids is the idea of copycat effects, or modeling effects. That a child in a school system who may seem sort of invisible takes their life and then suddenly everybody is abuzz about this horrific event.

"For other kids who look at that, they might say, 'Wow, that's something I could do, too.' And that's the nature of the suicidal mind in a child - to not really think about this in a rational way. And that's where modeling effects are especially worrisome. And then we, of course, worry about clusters or contagion effects. And there is an extensive literature on how to manage that modeling effect so that there aren't additional suicides to add on top of what is a tragic event in most school systems.

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Middle School Suicides Reach An All-Time High

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Every day, thousands of teens attempt suicide in the U.S. - the most extreme outcome for the millions of children in this country who struggle with mental health issues. As we've reported all week, schools play a key role, along with parents and medical professionals, in identifying children who may be at risk of suicide.

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Arming Teachers - An article from Education Week reiterates the problem of school shootings and whether or not arming teachers will be the best solution (Education Week Staff, 2018). The article describes a very split vote on the issue.

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The idea of arming teachers-or loosening state restrictions to allow concealed-carry permit holders to bring guns into schools-is often circulated after school attacks. It gained attention after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in 2012 and was revived in the wake of the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.

But putting guns in the hands of school staff is often met with resistance from educators, who say they don't want the responsibility of carrying and securing a firearm on top of their already demanding jobs. Many teachers believe that arming themselves-and their peers-would make schools less safe.

Here's what you need to know about the divisive issue:

Who Supports the Idea?

President Trump, for one. At a speech just after the Parkland shooting, he argued that armed teachers with training and experience who "love their students" might be better able to protect them in an active shooting scenario than an armed police officer.

"A teacher would have shot the hell out of him before he knew what happened," Trump said, referring to the former student who is accused of the slayings.

Not surprisingly, gun-rights advocates have long pushed for laws that allow educators to carry weapons.

There Are Already Teachers Carrying Guns at School

Many schools are "gun-free zones," but the federal Gun-Free School Zones Act allows states to authorize certain individuals to carry firearms on school grounds.

In addition to Texas, the states of Utah, Wyoming, and South Dakota allow staff members-with certain caveats-to carry guns on school grounds.

According to Everytown for Gun Safety-a gun-control advocacy group-15 states allow concealed carry of some sort in schools, and this year two dozen states considered similar policies:

Adopting a Policy for Arming Teachers Could Be a Minefield

Among the questions schools who want to arm staff members have to answer:

who-exactly-is authorized to carry a firearm,

where should guns be stored, and

should armed employees get some sort of bonus.

There's also the thorny question of liability: Who would be responsible if something went wrong? Many things could go wrong, experts say-a student could find or steal a teacher's firearm, the weapon could accidentally discharge, or a teacher could shoot an innocent bystander during an active-shooter situation.

Arming staff could get expensive. A high-quality, name-brand, semi-automatic pistol or other type of handgun could run anywhere from $500 to $1,200. And the idea of diverting already stretched resources to these and other costs such as firearms training could be a very tough sell. (Perhaps that's why Texas is asking if its districts can tap into those federal dollars.)

Who Opposes the Idea?

All the major teacher, principal, school employee, and school security organizations oppose guns in schools, except when carried by a police or security officer.

And so do most teachers and Americans.

Teach Plus, a national advocacy group for teacher leadership, polled 1,233 teachers and found nearly 80 percent said they strongly oppose arming teachers in school.

The National Education Association surveyed 1,000 of its members and 82 percent of respondents said they would not carry a gun to school even if they had firearms training and were allowed to do so.

And a Gallup poll found less than 30 percent of teachers think that arming teachers would be very or somewhat effective in limiting the number of victims in a school shooting.

Education Week has spoken to many educators who think carrying a concealed weapon is , including school shooting survivors themselves.

Jim Moffatt, a retired principal who was shot by a student at Fergus High School in Lewistown, Mont., in 1986, actively campaigns against legislative efforts to arm teachers:

While their numbers may be smaller than those who oppose carrying guns, there are teachers, principals, and superintendents who favor it.

"I do think it's reasonable for someone like me, but if you look at the landscape of American educators at large, I don't think it's realistic," he said. "I don't represent the majority of teachers."

Jeffrey Woofter, a former sheriff and the superintendent of West Virginia's Barbour County school district, does not think that all school personnel should be armed either. But he believes that trained staff should be allowed to carry concealed weapons or have access to concealed weapons on campus.

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Should Teachers Carry Guns? The Debate, Explained

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The idea of arming teachers-or loosening state restrictions to allow concealed-carry permit holders to bring guns into schools-is often circulated after school attacks. It gained attention after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in 2012 and was revived in the wake of the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.

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Free Speech - An article from Education Dive describes a battle of whether or not free speech limits what is taught on university campuses (Paterson, 2018). The article describes an initiative now in place to "highlight issues about campus media and advocate for laws protecting them" (Paterson, 2018).

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Dive Brief:

There is no easy consensus about policies to handle free speech on college campuses, and a recent meeting of university professors indicated that faculty members don't have consistent attitudes about it either.

At conference of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), some speakers argued for clear guidelines that describe precisely the consequences for violations which would make responses clear and less controversial, according to a report from Inside Higher Education. Others suggested that policies too often are vague or contradictory.

Another panel of professors said social justice "orthodoxy" has been taken to extremes, and that colleges since the 1980s have become increasingly intolerant of conservative views.

Dive Insight:

Some experts say there is a threat that state laws about free speech will limit the ability of universities to make judgments about what is taught or presented on campus, and AAUP recently issued a report about the history of free speech on campus that addresses those issues.

At the start of this year, 34 college and university systems or individual institutions had adopted or endorsed the "Chicago Principles" or a related policy, according to a report from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA). The report notes those principles say the proper response to ideas the community may find offensive "is not interference, obstruction, or suppression. It is, instead, to engage in robust counter-speech that challenges the merits of those ideas and exposes them for what they are." The report reviews how Purdue University successfully implemented them, the first university to do so.

The ACTA report has five key recommendations about creating an "ethos" that respects free speech, is clear about expectations and sanctions, abolishes restrictive speech codes, preserves the right to peaceful protest and puts the university in a position to remain neutral in such a controversy.

Campus safety is another issue of concern, and experts say there are a variety of issues an institution must consider when a controversial speaker, for instance, is expected to visit. They should recognize that social media will be used to incite either side and get quick results. Campus Safety Magazine notes that planning communications and a clear structure for emergency personnel are critical for incidents which, it says, are not likely to diminish soon.

To protect student journalists, a University of Florida media law professor has started the "New Voices" initiative to highlight issues about campus media and advocate for laws protecting them. The initiative has helped get such legislation passed in 13 states.

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No consensus on how to handle free speech on campuses

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There is no easy consensus about policies to handle free speech on college campuses, and a recent meeting of university professors indicated that faculty members don't have consistent attitudes about it either.

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In step two, I identified the topic of arming teachers to solve the current issue of school shootings in the United States. As a teacher myself, I strive to make sure students feel safe in my classroom every day, and the thought of these children being killed in what should be a safe environment is sickening.

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Arming Teachers and School Staff. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.schoolsecurity.org/trends/arming-teachers-and-school-staff/

Nadworny, E., & Cardoza, K. (2016, November 04). Middle School Suicides Reach An All-Time High. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/11/04/500659746/middle-school-suicides-reach-an-all-time-high

Paterson, J. (2018, June 19). No consensus on how to handle free speech on campuses. Retrieved from https://www.educationdive.com/news/no-consensus-on-how-to-handle-free-speech-on-campuses/525872/

Rajan, S., & Branas, C. C. (2018). Arming Schoolteachers: What Do We Know? Where Do We Go From Here?. American Journal Of Public Health, 108(7), 860-862. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2018.304464

Staff, E. W. (2018, August 24). Should Teachers Carry Guns? The Debate, Explained. Retrieved from https://www.edweek.org/ew/issues/arming-teachers.html

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In this article, the implications of arming teachers is explored in depth.

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Implementation Issues Present School Boards and Administrators with Significant Responsibility and Potential Liability

School safety expert advises against arming teachers and school staff

Arming persons at schools should be left to professional school public safety officials: School Resource Officers (SROs) and school police department officers

"The vast majority of teachers want to be armed with textbooks and computers, not guns," said Kenneth S. Trump, President of National School Safety and Security Services, in response to the national discussion on arming teachers and school staff, and armed volunteers in schools.

Trump advises school districts against allowing teachers and school staff to be armed.

Trump says that while gun control and gun rights advocates typically seize on school proposals to arm teachers to further political agendas, his opposition to arming teachers and school staff focuses solely on implementation issues, not political statements and beliefs about rights to bear arms.

"School districts considering arming teachers and school staff with guns would take on significant responsibility and potential liabilities that I firmly believe are beyond the expertise, knowledge-base, experience, and professional capabilities of most school boards and administrators," Trump said. He added that school board members, superintendents, principals, teachers, school safety experts, and public safety officials he has talked with around the nation consistently do not believe that educators and school support staff should be armed.

Trump said he personally supports the Second Amendment and concealed carry laws, but believes that proposals to arm teachers and other school employees crosses the line of self-protection and protection of one's family into a different level of tasking educators and school support staff to provide public safety, law enforcement functions for hundreds or thousands of individuals in a school.

"Suggesting that by providing teachers, principals, custodians, or other school staff with 8, 16, 40, or even 60 hours of firearms training on firing, handling, and holstering a gun somehow makes a non-law enforcement officer suddenly qualified to provide public safety services devalues our highly trained police professionals and is a high-risk to the safety of students, teachers, and other school staff," Trump said.

He said that educators enter a profession to teach and serve in a supportive, nurturing role with children. To ask them to abruptly kick into the mindset to kill one of those same students in a second's notice is not realistic. Police officers train their entire career and enter each traffic stop and individual encounter with a preparedness and life-safety mindset that is different from the professional training and mindset of educators.

Trump, a 30-year veteran school safety expert who has trained and consulted with school and public safety officials from all 50 states and Canada, noted that school districts setting policy to allow teachers and school staff to be armed with guns would take on an enormous amount of responsibility and potential liability.

He says allowing teachers and school staff to be armed begs a number of questions:

Does the school board have appropriate and adequate policies and procedures governing the carrying and use of firearms by teachers and school staff?

What type of "use of force continuum" has the school district created for staff to use firearms? How does that stand up in comparison to such standards held for police officers and others who are armed and deployed in a public safety capacity?

What types of firearms (types of guns, caliber of weapons, etc.) are staff allowed to carry and not allowed to carry? Will staff carry their own personal firearms or school district-issued firearms? If the school allows staff to carry their personal weapons for the purpose of protecting staff and students, what responsibilities do school boards and administrators thereby assume for making sure the firearms carried are functional? Does the school district have regular "inspections" of staff firearms to make sure they are functional and appropriate to policy, and if so, who on school staff is responsible for that function and what is their level of expertise and training to make such decisions?

What type of firearms training does the school district provide on a regular, ongoing basis to those staff it authorizes to be armed with guns? Will the school district build and operate its own firearms range? Who on school staff is qualified to provide such training, operate a firearms range, etc.? Will firearms certification and recertification be added to the school district's professional development training program each year?

What type of weapons retention training has been provided to staff who are armed and what steps have been taken to reduce risks of a teacher or staff member being intentionally disarmed by a student or other person, or for having a firearm dislodged from a staff member's control when the teacher breaks up a fight in a cafeteria or hallway?

How is the district prepared to prevent and manage situations where teachers and/or staff members lose, misplace, or have stolen their firearms while on campus?

How will the school district manage an accidental shooting that could occur?

What is the impact of this type of board policy and practice on the school district's insurance and potential legal liability posture? If self-insured, is the district able to handle potential lawsuit judgments against them for cases resulting from this practice? If insured by a private carrier, what is the insurance provider's position and concerns, or will they even insure the district for such a practice?

Most importantly, what other options have we considered as school leaders? For example, if the school district is concerned about first responder response time from the community to the school, has the school district considered employing a school resource officer (SRO) or its own trained, commissioned and certified school police officer who is a school district employee, such as what is allowed in Texas, Florida and other states?

...and many other considerations.

Trump recommends that superintendents and school boards get written opinions from their insurance carriers and school district attorneys on the risks and liability of arming non-law enforcement, school employees.

Trump has long supported school districts having school resource officers (SROs) who are city or county law enforcement officers assigned to work in schools. He also supports properly organized and operated school police departments, which are in-house school district police officers that are trained, commissioned, and certified professional peace officers in school districts where state law allows districts to have such departments.

Trump says that the arming of teachers and school staff goes is a significantly different issue that goes beyond simply the issue of an individual's right in a number of states to be licensed to carry a concealed weapon. Unlike an individual being trained and licensed under a state law to carry a firearm for personal protection at their home or on the streets, school districts that permit teachers and school staff to carry firearms on campus are in essence deploying those school employees in a public safety capacity to protect the masses with the expectation and assumption that they can and will provide a firearms-related level of public safety protection services to students and other staff. By tasking those employees with those responsibilities, Trump notes, the school district is also accepting responsibility and potential liability for implementation of such policies.

"There is a huge difference between having trained, certified and commissioned law enforcement officers who are full-time, career public safety professionals that are armed and assigned the duty of protecting students and staff versus having teachers, custodians, cafeteria workers and other non-public safety professionals packing a gun in school and tasked with providing a public safety function for hundreds or thousands of children," Trump said.

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Arming Teachers and School Staff - School Security

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Implementation Issues Present School Boards and Administrators with Significant Responsibility and Potential Liability School safety expert advises against arming teachers and school staff Arming persons at schools should be left to professional school public safety officials: School Resource Officers (SROs) and school police department officers "The vast majority of teachers want to be armed with ...

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While researching this topic through the Angelo State University library, I came across an article that efficiently describes the lack of evidence proving that arming teachers will make students feel safer and more secure in classrooms.

Rajan, S., & Branas, C. C. (2018). Arming Schoolteachers: What Do We Know? Where Do We Go From Here?. American Journal Of Public Health, 108(7), 860-862. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2018.304464

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Step 5 - What I Learned About Arming School Teachers

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Step 5 - What I Learned About Arming School Teachers

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After researching the important topic of whether or not to arm school teachers to protect their students in case of an active shooter situation, there is an overwhelming response to not arm teachers. In the article titled, "Arming School Teachers: What Do We Know? Where Do We Go From Here," the article discusses how the school climate could change if teachers were armed. The article states, "Specifically, school climate includes a range of characteristics that help define the quality of a child's learning environment..." (Rajan and Branas, 2018). This quote stuck out to me because it all boils down to the fact that students need to feel safe at school. We, as educators, need to do everything in our power to ensure the quality of a child's learning environment is as positive, safe, and nurturing as can be so that our students can be the best they can be, and this article really made that clear for me.

In the second article, "Arming Teachers and School Staff," I learned more about how important this topic is to educators because it is the safety of ourselves and our students. I also learned more about the responsibilities and liabilities that would come with arming school staff. Questions are posed that really made me think about all the ramifications arming teachers could bring. I also thought after reading this article that instead of arming teachers, we should "arm" schools with more counselors who are qualified to talk about mental illness with students. My future work relates to this topic because schools need counselors who can determine who needs significant help so that issues like school shootings could potentially be prevented.

In the end, I have learned that giving teachers guns could have more consequences rather than benefits. Instead, if we take a more natural approach and have counselors talk more about mental illness then there would be a great chance to see positive changes.