Should parents know when violent events occur at their child’s school?
One new legislative proposal says yes. HF 59 would require that teachers and parents be digitally informed within 48 hours if a violent incident occurs at their child’s school that results in injury. Additionally, notice would be given if a dangerous weapon is seen or confiscated. The bill protects teachers and school employees from retaliatory action if they report incidents of school violence.
State law currently requires districts to create a school discipline plan that includes “a presumption that a district or school official will notify the parent of the reported target of the prohibited conduct and the parent of the actor engaged in the prohibited conduct.”
Unfortunately, parents are not always told when their children are involved in incidents, or when violent behavior leads to an unsettling classroom evacuation.
A report compiled by American Experiment’s Catrin Wigfall illustrates this difficult reality. Ramsey Elementary’s introduction of a new non-exclusionary discipline method led by a new principal created chaos in the classrooms. Parents and teachers reported dramatic, violent classroom scenes that were withheld from parents by the administration. Parents learned of seemingly constant classroom evacuations caused by violent students from their children. One fourth grader was jumped by a group of six children, a third grader was strangled by other children more than three times, and children were allowed to flip bookcases, throw desks, and fight other children in the classroom — all without parents being informed or legitimate administrative consequences. The school lost significant amounts of staff members due to the perception that school administrators were unwilling to support teachers.
Publicly voiced concerns about Minnesota’s violent school environment have swirled for some time. Almost a decade ago, the Twin Cities’ Pioneer Press published comments from a St. Paul teacher, who wrote,
Teachers feel powerless to discipline. I am not exaggerating. We are told to never under any circumstances touch a student as a behavioral intervention. We have no way to discipline. If a child is running around screaming, we let them run around and scream. If a student throws a chair at the Smart Board we remove the other students and call for help. If a student shouts obscenities, we simply use kind words to remind them to use kind words themselves. I am not kidding… [W]e are afraid to discipline for two reasons: district policies and fear of parent reprisals.
High-profile cases from the past decade remain powerful reminders of school violence. Less than a year after a video showing one student robbing another at gunpoint in the bathroom at Harding High School surfaced, 15-year-old Devin Scott was stabbed to death on his first day at the school in February 2023. St. Paul teacher John Ekblad was choked to unconsciousness in 2015 after he tried to break up a fight in his capacity as a lunchroom monitor, leading to a traumatic brain injury and a lifetime of neural issues. Former Edina elementary teacher Debbie York suffered a career-ending injury from a student in 2009. She now uses her experience to advocate for teachers in her role as the co-chair of the Safe Schools Movement Team, and has publicly argued that existing school safety statutes are not being adequately enforced.
A 2023 St. Paul school district survey found that the majority of K-12 staff in the district felt “unsafe” or “very unsafe” in schools. Nearly 80 percent of the district’s high school staff have witnessed or experienced physical violence.
While the Minnesota Department of Education nominally publishes school violence data, the most updated data is two years out of date. Measuring school violence is always difficult due to the unmeasurable nature of violence itself and the natural incentives for teachers and administrators to underreport or downplay incidents. Unfortunately, the obscuration of the data by the years-long delay in reporting makes a clear assessment of the situation nearly impossible.
Is this a quality tool to find a solution to school violence?
There are some questions about how the new proposal can avoid some obvious pitfalls. Younger students often roughhouse on the playground, sometimes with scrapes and bumps as a result. Would schools be able to distinguish between playful “violence” and the more concerning outbursts that lead to classroom evacuations or harm in their emails to parents? It is not prudent to email parents every time a well-meaning push leads to a light fall. The bill does not clearly define “injury.”
Another obvious concern is that the increased transparency could simply lead to internal suppression of violent incidents. While the law attempts to protect teachers and school employees from retaliation, it’s unclear if such protections will go far enough.
The increased spotlight on school violence might lead some parents to change their child’s school. While advocates for high-violence districts might worry that such a measure could cripple the district’s enrollment, it is unacceptable to purposely keep parents in the dark and students in a volatile learning environment in order to protect the financial interests of a school administration. A better way to advocate for a high-violence school would be to use the increased transparency to insist upon a full assessment of the school’s current discipline policies, publicize parent volunteer opportunities, emphasize community involvement, and argue for higher safe school spending.
One thing is clear: Minnesota’s students should be in safe schools, where regular fights and classroom evacuations are not the norm.
Administrators and teachers should be empowered to take action and create safe schools. Students that may benefit from increased social/emotional learning opportunities or a different classroom environment fall through the cracks when their behavior is considered “part of the norm.” Increasing parent transparency could make the issue of school violence a community priority, empowering administrators and teachers to serve students through the community support of violence prevention efforts.
The bill was introduced to the House Education Policy Committee and awaits a hearing. It will be interesting to see its development.
