Photo by USAG Vicenza

Photo by USAG Vicenza

To improve school safety, Californians overwhelmingly believe that having guidance counselors in every school would be more effective than deploying armed police officers.

That is a principal finding of a poll of 1,200 registered voters conducted in the wake of the Newtown school massacre, which has raised concerns well-nigh school condom throughout the nation. Ii-thirds of those surveyed said they would cull putting a counselor in every school over having an armed constabulary officer in that location. The mid-Jan survey, released Thursday, was commissioned by The California Endowment, a nonprofit health foundation.

"California voters understand that counseling and mental health services tin help foreclose senseless tragedies on campus – and bluntly the focus on prevention has been the missing ingredient from school safety efforts in contempo years," said Barbara Raymond, the Endowment's director of schools policy.

Raymond said that the depth of support for putting more counselors in schoolhouse came as a surprise considering their role has not been prevalent in the national discussion about schoolhouse safe. "What nosotros saw was a common sense response to how to keep young people safe," she said. "Counselors are a critical piece of that puzzle."

The findings echo the results of a survey conducted terminal spring by EdSource on improving school subject area. In that survey of 315 school districts with enrollments of more than iv million students, 2-thirds of the schoolhouse officials in accuse of subject field said that the greatest need was for counselors and other support staff to address discipline problems.

However, increasing the number of school counselors would crave a major investment of state dollars. California has typically had one of the lowest ratios of counselors per student compared with other states. Since the kickoff of the budget crunch in California in 2007-08, an EdSource survey of the state'south 30 largest school districts found that the number of counselors had been reduced by 20 percentage from approximately iii,000 to 2,400. Altogether, 22 out of the 30 districts had fewer counselors than they had earlier the onset of the Corking Recession.

In the California Endowment poll, respondents were given a list of dissimilar policy options to choose from to meliorate safe and prevent violence in schools. They expressed the strongest support for training school staff in emergency responses and requiring every schoolhouse to have a comprehensive safety plan. Other measures, such as preparation teachers and students in conflict resolution techniques, also received pregnant support.

Current law requires every school to have a safety plan. But to requite information technology more teeth, state Sen. Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, has introduced Senate Bill 49 to requite the state superintendent of public instruction the authority to concur back funding for a district or county function of teaching that has not "substantially complied with the requirement that each of its schools develop a comprehensive safety programme."

The poll also found that gun owners – by a 58 percent to 36 percent margin – agreed that counselors mattered more than armed police.

That finding does non seem to point much popular support for the approach embodied in Assembly Nib 202, introduced this week past Assemblymember Tim Donnelly, R-Twin Peaks. The bill would let school districts to use general purpose funds to provide training to whatever schoolhouse employee who is qualified to be trained and is willing to carry a concealed firearm on campus – from administrators and teachers to clerks and janitors.

The California Teachers Association (CTA) has come up out strongly confronting that measure. "Instead of arming teachers, California needs more than school counselors, more than access for students to mental wellness services, safer facilities, and more preparation for educators to spot the mental health needs of students and bullying or other loftier-take chances behaviors," said Dean Vogel, president of the CTA and a old school counselor and teacher. "As we are condign increasingly more preoccupied with student success and achievement gaps – focusing on how to teach, appraise, and differentiate instruction – very trivial time is spent on the emotional development of the child."

Vogel, however, is optimistic that attitudes are changing. "I experience we're on the right track," he said. "People are starting to come effectually to the idea that this obsession with loftier-stakes testing is really missing the mark. Teachers and educators in full general are very open to learning more – how to place kids in problem emotionally and how to intervene to de-escalate conflicts."

Among the other findings from the poll released Th:

  • The vast bulk of respondents (77 percent) idea California schools were safe, though only 22 percentage thought they were very rubber.
  • Business about school safe hasn't inverse significantly since last twelvemonth, despite the Newtown tragedy.
  • At the aforementioned fourth dimension, two-thirds of those polled thought information technology was important for government leaders to meliorate safety in California schools.

Notation: EdSource receives funding from The California Endowment, which has no input into EdSource Today'due south editorial content.

To go more reports similar this one, click here to sign up for EdSource's no-toll daily e-mail on latest developments in education.