On Wednesday morning, the Duval County Public School Board will discuss a concept to identify troubled students before they become threats.
They would like to put Threat Assessment Teams in schools throughout the district.
Action News Jax Courtney Cole talked to parents to find out what they thought about it.
"I think that's a great idea. I think that would be good in Duval County to protect everybody, teachers and all,” Anita Henry told Action News Jax.
According to the draft, the team's job would be to figure out which students could potentially be harmful to themselves and other students—based on their behavior.
"Maybe that'll cut out the violence or things nobody knows about, before it happens,” Karen Waters said.
The team would be made up of a:
- School counselor
- School administrator
- Instructional staff member
- A Duval County School Police Officer
If the team determines a student could be a danger, the plan says they would then have permission to look up the student's criminal history and call his or her parents.
While none of the parents Action News Jax spoke to on Tuesday night are opposed to the idea—
Dale Carson, our Action News Jax Law and Safety Expert, believes parents would be justified in having concerns about their child being profiled.
“I recognize that the schools are trying to protect our children and that’s a noble effort. But it's not something that can be resolved entirely by an assessment group assessing children. That's not going to deal with an external threat. An external threat would just come to the school,” Carson said.
Carson said he believes the key to making schools safer isn’t singling out certain students…
“Just because you aren't like everyone else, doesn't mean something is wrong with you.”
Instead, he believes the focus should be making schools less accessible to any threats outside of the building.
“You may have to have metal detectors, you may have to have someone checking bags, and things like that—but sadly, that's what it's come to. That is an effective way to protect children,” Carson told Action News Jax.
The threat assessment team would meet at least once a month to make sure any issues with students are being handled.
We will continue to bring you more information on this idea as it develops.