Early intervention is an important role in school safety

TEN SLEEP – School safety starts with early intervention. That was the message Washakie County Sheriff Steve Rakness conveyed Monday evening during the Ten Sleep school board meeting.

“What we are hearing and seeing from going to some school safety stuff and happening around the country is early intervention. Early intervention, if you see or hear something, say something. There is going to be a state program with that coming out in September,” Rakness said. “The overwhelming issue is the safety of the school here, the students, your faculty, your visitors, that’s the overriding goal of what we are trying to do; the safety of everybody,” he added.

Ten Sleep School attorney Scott Kolpitcke added, “Unfortunately we have seen this year a couple of high profile mass tragedies in other states. Aside from the tragedy of what happened when we see those events, one of the other things that happens is you see a spike nationwide of threats all across the country in schools. Some of the reason you don’t see the same result is because there have been situations where students and or staff members reported it quickly to administration and law enforcement. They worked as a team together to really act and reach out to students before something happened. So I can tell you it is critical, what you are talking about with early intervention. I know you have gone through the Safe2Tell training that’s on your website.”

The mission of Safe2Tell Wyoming is to ensure that all Wyoming students, parents, teachers and community members have access to a safe and confidential way to report any concerns about their safety or the safety of others, with a focus on early intervention and prevention through awareness and education.

Rakness explained that parent, students and faculty should immediately go to school administration or law enforcement if they hear or see something suspicious or concerning. “Nipping the problem off the bud” is important to prevent something tragic happening. “I believe that in a small community like this, you guys are going to be hearing stuff, so if we hear that stuff, don’t be embarrassed, let’s jump on it

before hand. They can try to embarrass me, that’s fine but we want to make contact with these people, whatever’s shaken out to see what’s going on in their mind. We want to do that first before we have any issues happen and that’s the best way to do it because you don’t want anything to happen in your school. Let’s go ferret it out to begin with so we don’t have any problems. I think that will put less pressure on your concealed carry holders that are in the school. So if we can do some early intervention, that’s going to be great. Of course you know we have to keep it confidential, legal and things like that,” Rakness said.

Kolpitcke added that the firearm policy is the school’s last line of defense.