What the data say about the right ways and wrong ways to improve school safety

By Mark Brodie
Published: Thursday, September 22, 2022 - 11:56am
Updated: Friday, September 23, 2022 - 10:44am

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elizabeth anthony
Arizona State University
Elizabeth Anthony

Metro Phoenix students have been back in school for around a month, and already there have been a handful of incidents that have required schools to go on lockdown.

This, of course, follows the shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, in May, in which 19 children and two adults were killed. Since that time, there’s been a lot of talk about "hardening" schools to make them more secure, and the kinds of lockdown drills students and teachers do.

But Elizabeth Anthony says added security does not necessarily make schools safer.

Anthony is an associate professor in the School of Social Work at Arizona State University, where she studies youth. The Show spoke with her to learn if there are best practices to protect schools while not traumatizing students in the process.

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