Kudos to...NEA affiliates at work for safety

NEA Today, Sep 1999

In Kentucky, a broad coalition-- from NEA members to the criminal justice community-has helped pass and implement a comprehensive school safety law. A training cadre from the Kentucky Education Association is bringing members up to speed on the law and general school safety issues.

In Los Angeles, NEA's local affiliate is energetically implementing a state law requiring school site safety plans. Each school has a broad-based safety committee and crisis intervention team, and United Teachers of Los Angeles members can use "incident reporting cards" to flag unsafe conditions.

In Atlanta, the Georgia Association of Educators has helped win state legislature approval for a strong safety law allowing teachers to remove chronically disruptive students from class, and a tough new anti-bullying statute.

In Kansas, the NEA state affiliate has won laws requiring districts to inform teachers of potentially dangerous students and expanding the definition of "weapons" and the penalties for possessing them.

In Connecticut, Association members are tailoring safety programs to local needs. Some examples: student peer mediation in Trumbull, anger management in Southington, and a crisis response team in Suffield. *