Ensuring School Safety: Dr. Haug on Tackling Digital Challenges

Join us as Dr. Haug candidly shares his experiences and the difficult choices he had to make in ensuring the safety and well-being of his students. He takes us through the steps his team took, from involving counselors to the School Resource Officer, and how they navigated the complex decision-making process of when to communicate these concerns to parents and the community. 

Dr. Haug also gives us a sobering look at the broader impact of social media on students' mental health, revealing how pervasive and distressing online messages can exacerbate their anxieties. He doesn’t shy away from expressing his frustration with the negative influence of certain online platforms and passionately advocates for increased parental involvement in managing their children's digital lives. Hear Dr. Haug's heartfelt commitment to protecting his community and his personal approach to safeguarding his own family from these digital dangers. This episode is a must-listen for anyone concerned about school safety and the well-being of our youth in today's digital landscape.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

I'm David Howe, superintendent of the Jefferson R-7 School District. Thanks for listening. Here I'm going to address kind of where I'm at with some of the school shooting concerns. So earlier this week we had a group of students at the middle school a small group of students express concern that there could be a school shooting here. We immediately brought in the counselor, the principal, the SRO to review everything and ultimately it boiled down to stuff they had seen online that concerned them about school shootings and they had a conversation and that started to kind of move around a little bit school shootings and they had a conversation and that started to kind of move around a little bit.

Speaker 1: 0:50

Ultimately, I take full responsibility for not sending a letter out on Monday, for the simple fact because I've always looked at it like if your child's at our school district and they hear somebody that would have said something specific, if they would have seen something online, or like Wednesday when Mr Horn addressed the kids, the students, at lunch. I think a letter is deserved. But going back to Monday, when we can't even see anything online and nothing's presented to us and or there's zero specific threat and we're just dealing with student fears, I chose not to send out a letter because, quite honestly, at some point we'll be sending a letter once or twice a day with everything that our counselors deal with with student fears, student concerns for multiple subject areas. So I want to get that out there in the open. If you're getting a letter from us something your child would have seen at school or possibly online that we have tangible, almost like physical evidence of we're sending something out, by sending the letter out last night we did have a couple patrons. Help us today maybe better understand of what's going on online.

Speaker 1: 1:58

So in your children's social media accounts there are after school shootings. I guess it's I'll just call it clickbait. They are getting pounded with messages. Click here to see if your school's next. So we did get to see one of those this morning and we didn't see any schools in the immediate area obviously Jefferson R7, but the point is that your child's being bombarded. This you may not even be aware of it. Some of our administrative team even took a search to look to see if it's online. We constantly look when we hear this stuff to see what's out there. We take it extremely seriously, but at some point we have to make a decision and it's on me whether we send it out, notify the community, and this week I just didn't think it was valid based over social media concerns. What we have a better understanding today is that your children are being pounded relentlessly on their different apps that they have through social media for kids to click on it. So those conversations are constantly coming up with them, coming up with them. So I sit here today and tell you this entire week we've had zero, nothing that even relates to Jefferson R7 that we've been able to see. We didn't even have anything presented to us earlier in the week. It's simply dealing with student fears.

Speaker 1: 3:18

I'm scared. I don't like this environment. I hate the fact that people that run these apps are allowed to do this and destroy our communities. I'm tired of it and, quite honestly, as a parent, my wife and I have chosen to work with our kids on social media. They don't hardly have any apps. We don't live in a world at home where I even get to see this stuff. We just don't do it. I'm not judging, but for those that live in that world and their children have access to that, I'm just looking out for our kids. I will always do everything I can to take care of our community. I've been here a long time. I'm proud to be here. I'd like to say I'm exhausted. I'm just tired of other people destroying our communities. That's what I'm tired of and that's what these people are doing on our social media apps. I just want to share that message with you today.

Speaker 1: 4:11

We are always vigilant. If there was any hint of any concern, not only would we let you know, we'd be taking immediate and firm action. Every time that something like this pops up, we immediately involve different people to look at it. We want different and I'm talking about our administrative team, whether it be other principals come in. We include our SRO, mr Nanny. We take hard looks at it to see where we're at and ultimately I sat there in my office late Monday afternoon and said there is absolutely nothing here other than addressing kids' fears.

Speaker 1: 4:44

Those parents were contacted, the kids were spoken to. It was vetted through. I'm sorry. We live in this day and age. I hate it for our kids, but that's where we are. I'm not asking you to agree with me, I am not. But if you get a letter from us, that means something tangible. Somewhere was seen. If you don't, there's just nothing there we will let you know immediately. If you have a concern that we may not be aware of something, let us know. We'll be glad to look into it. That we may not be aware of something, let us know. We'll be glad to look into it. If you hear something from your child, you can let us know. But at some point I don't want our community to become numb to this with multiple letters coming out over things that have absolutely zero credibility. Thank you for your time. I love this district, I love being around our kids and I love our staff. That's all we're trying to get to. If there was a real concern, I assure you I'd let you know. Thank you.