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Welcome to the Classroom Narratives Healing and Education Podcast, the space where education meets resilience.

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I'm Dr. Joey Weisler, and in each episode, we dive deep into the personal stories of educators, students,

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leaders, and frontline advocates who are navigating the complexities within modern education.

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Whether you're just starting your teaching journey or are a seasoned professional looking for inspiration,

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we'll explore how to foster meaningful change, prevent burnout, and build trauma-informed communities within our schools.

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Now, let's take a seat at the front of the classroom as we get started.

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Welcome to the Classroom Narratives Healing and Education Podcast, where we explore stories of resilience, healing, and transformation in education.

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Today, I am deeply honored to be joined by Dr. Scott Poland, an internationally renowned expert in school safety,

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suicide prevention, and crisis intervention.

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As a professor at Nova Southeastern University and the co-director of its Suicide and Violence Prevention Office,

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Dr. Poland has dedicated his life to supporting communities through some of their darkest moments,

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and his work has brought him to the forefront of critical conversations following tragedies like the Parkland School shooting

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and in the ongoing fight against youth suicide.

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So Dr. Poland, big thanks for joining us today. It's such an honor to have you with us.

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My pleasure.

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So I'd like to begin our conversation, Dr. Poland, by asking that you have worked very closely with the Parkland community

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in the aftermath of its shooting, and I wanted to know if you could share some of the key lessons learned directly from Parkland alone

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in supporting educators, students, and families through their traumas.

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Well, I certainly can, and with a colleague, we did a short book on school shootings, lessons from the United States,

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and in particular, recommendations that I've made numerous times after school shootings are to designate somebody as a recovery coordinator,

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somebody who will focus on that district-wide, make that their sole job,

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and probably there are immediately characteristics that would come to mind about who would be good at that.

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Also, do not turn down any sources of assistance.

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Realize you're in this for the long haul, and it would probably take many political twists and turns,

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and focus on helping all of the adults first, helping parents understand typical reactions that children have to a tragedy.

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They regress academically, behaviorally, have nightmares, sleeping problems, and worries about the future.

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Those aren't the unusual. Those are pretty much every kid will have some of those.

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And then help the school staff so that they are ready to really focus on helping students, listening to students,

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focus slowly on everybody trying to move forward and find some of those keys to resiliency.

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And one of my recommendations was to move trailers onto the campus.

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Project Serves, Schools Emergency Response to Violence Money,

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you're going to get a lot more mental health staff, but they need a confidential place

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to be working with staff, students, and families that were affected by the tragedy.

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And one thing I'm concerned about, Joey, is that decades ago, schools reopened a lot quicker.

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We've had a tendency in recent years for the administrators to close the school for a week, two weeks,

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maybe even almost a month in Oxford, Michigan.

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And that largely leaves students to their own devices because the parents get up and go to work.

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And kids are often almost desperate to get back into a routine, be with all their friends, classmates, and be with the teachers.

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One of the other things I've seen happen is that there's often a lot of very well-meaning volunteers.

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But I've had some Parkland students say that it was like they just kept changing my counselor.

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And I felt like I was starting over with a new person time after time.

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And I'm a big fan of the Eagle's Nest and all the community work.

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And in reality, somebody should be writing all this up in a way that the next school that has a mass shooting

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would have a little more insight into what worked the best in previous locations.

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There was a time period where the U.S. Department of Education, I was asked,

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"who do I think would be a good principal that I'd met responding to school shootings

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that could be working for the department and being a consultant and helping the next school principal

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that experienced a mass shooting?" And that was done for a while, but I'm not aware that that's being done anymore.

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And people like Bill Bond from Paducah, Frank D'Angelo from Columbine, the experience they went through,

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they could be of so much support to the next school. And unfortunately, there will be another one.

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Definitely. And one thing that you've mentioned already is that teachers should also be equipped with certain skills and strategies

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in order to help students who might be facing crisis.

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What are some of those strategies that just the basic classroom teacher can acquire to help their students?

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Well, you know, you make me think of when I worked with the Columbine teachers, basically, I said,

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"let your heart be your guide". In your heart, you have really good ideas about how to help students.

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Give them an opportunity to talk about it, write about it, music, artwork, project, ceremonies.

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And don't be afraid to share some of your own emotions. I think in an ideal world, there would be regular

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in-services for teachers on helping students after tragedy. Now, obviously, we're talking about one of

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the worst school shootings in our history, but virtually every teacher out there has had a student's

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best friend die, somebody's sister dies, or even one of their coworkers die. And it's like, it doesn't seem

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to really be a part of that training. And yet a lot of it is just compassion, caring, being a good listener

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and being willing to say, these are some of the thoughts I'm having and let's talk about it.

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I like to, and responding to tragedies in schools, I like to put all the desks in a circle and I sit down.

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And the less I say and the more they say, the better. Kids just want to, they want to talk about the person.

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They want to reminisce. There's a beautiful thing about, especially adolescents, I like to call it the gift of hope.

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They want to make the world better. And the March for Our Lives out of Parkland was a fantastic movement

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to make the world better. Now, unfortunately, they didn't get the national support they needed, but

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I applaud them. And you're reminding me of a line from Frank D'Angelis. I believe I read this in one of

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his anthologies. And Frank D'Angelis, who are listeners, is the acting principal of at Columbine

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during their tragedy. And D'Angelis said that when he came back, he had to lead from the heart.

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And his ability to lead his staff from the heart was taking that first step towards vulnerability

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and courage and letting them all find their sense of recovery, whatever that looks like for them at

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that time. So I wanted to also turn our attention for a moment towards youth suicide awareness and

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addressing the crisis of youth suicide. So I wanted to think about how your work and youth suicide

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prevention has been so instrumental across all different types of schools and platforms nationwide.

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And what are some of the most critical warning signs that you have seen that educators and parents

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should be looking out for with mental health and students? Well, great question. And I'm reminded of

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a Parkland parent not too long ago that said, "how do I know my teenage daughter is depressed?" I mean,

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she's a teenager, right? They're moody, they're irritable. She may be preparing me for she's going

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off to Florida State next year. Well, dad, let me ask you a couple of questions. Is this persistent?

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Has this gone on for several weeks in a row or more? Yes. Is it pervasive? Is it affecting homeschool

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peers pretty much all aspect of her life? Yes. Did she drop out of something that was previously

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pleasurable? As a matter of fact, she did. She was on the dance team for years. This year, she said,

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I don't care about it. Very likely, dad, you have a depressed teenager. And there are some very

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specific ones with regards to suicide, researching suicide, of course, giving away prized possessions,

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making out of will, in addition to those dramatic changes in behavior that I mentioned. And the

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scope of this problem, it's really unbelievable. But one of my friends said he was cleaning out

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his closet. He found a 1985 copy of Time Magazine with the cover story, teen suicide is an epidemic.

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It's done nothing but go up for the last 39 years. Second leading cause of death for middle

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schoolers, third leading cause of death for high school students, more and more upper elementary

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students threatening suicide. And in my career, I've responded to the suicides of two kids that

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were only nine years old. So and maybe to quote our surgeon general, we got to talk about suicide

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prevention more at our homes, our schools, in the workplace, and the places of worship. If you were

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to ask me the one thing holding suicide prevention back, it's the fact that we don't want to talk

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about it. But it's on the minds of a lot of young people. And the second thing that is so critically

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important is remove the lethal means. And in America, that means a gun. More than 50% of the

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suicides in America were the result of a gunshot. But guns were actually only used in 5% of attempts.

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They're just incredibly lethal. And I remember a Houston teenagers goodbye note to her parents. It

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said, why did you make this so easy? Why did you leave this gun available to me? And a frustration

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throughout my career is I'm telling the parents the extensive intervention their kid needs,

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and that they need to suicide proof their home. And that involves locking up the gun,

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medications, and they don't do it. And a tragedy results. That is so frustrating.

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So for places like schools where it is still seemingly taboo to approach that conversation, how can it be done?

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Well, unfortunately, our state has no mandates for suicide prevention in schools.

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About 25 states do. Florida does not. Florida does have a certification program

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that actually helped develop a decade ago. Building principals could decide to have their

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school become suicide prevention certified. It would involve basically two hours of training

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for all the staff. So in 10 years, how many Florida schools have gotten certified?

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The last figure I had was a total of 66. My estimate is we have more than 5,000

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public schools in Florida. So I'm being very frank today, it's school administrators and

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superintendents that are holding back suicide prevention in the schools. They really don't

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know much about it. They're afraid of the topic. And having been at this for 40 years,

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if there's any choice of the training session, they're not going to come into mine.

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They're going to go to anything else. But I do believe that if they come into my session

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on suicide prevention, I will hold their attention. The problem is getting them into the room.

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Because those figures seem quite disturbing. So which leads me to ask,

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one of the challenges in addressing youth suicide being just breaking through that isolation in

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terms of talking about it and for those who are experiencing it as well. What can schools,

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teachers, and community members also do alongside their administration to ensure that at-risk youth

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can feel seen, heard, and supported before tragedy happens? Great question. And I am not a fan of our

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massive schools. I mean, I believe we have a middle school in the area with more than 2000.

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We have a high school with more than 5,500. It's about building relationships. And I love this

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quote that I got from a teacher. "I want to be armed, all right. I want to be armed with smaller

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classes so I can build relationships with my students. I want to be armed with the social

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worker and a psychologist". So I believe we're doing a great disservice to our young people

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to have these massive high schools. I went to a high school with 320 kids. And what that meant,

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Joey, was I was needed. You want to play football, you bet. You want to march in the band at the

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halftime, do that too. You want to be in the junior play, here's your part. That's just not

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the way it is for the majority of the students right here in Broward County. It's like a kid is

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lucky if they are gifted enough to be able to do one thing, whether that's dance, soccer, whatever,

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or be on the debate team. It's just competition and pressure definitely is connecting to youth

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suicide. And these massive high schools just really breed anonymity and pressure. Obviously,

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good public education is not solely about money, but pretty much every state in the south

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underfunds their school. If you were a dad and your kids were going to school in Massachusetts,

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on average, the school district would be spending twice as much money to educate your kid. So it's

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just like, really? How can we be satisfied with Florida being near the bottom of school funding?

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And I am not a fan of taking the money away from the public schools and giving it to private schools.

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It's like, let's fund these schools. These students represent the most important part of the

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schools. These students represent the future of our country. Let's prioritize children.

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That's a great point, especially to prioritize children and the needs that they would

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require in order to be successful, like the mental health counselors and social workers,

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that they can continue connecting to with continuity in order to make sure that they

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have visibility that they need in order to thrive. So I wanted to also ask in terms of stretching

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beyond the Parkland tragedy, going back to our initial conversation here on mass violences and

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mass casualties, having assisted several different communities through many different tragedies,

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including over 16 school shootings and about 30 years worth of work, 40 years, right?

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What would you see to be the most effective strategy that schools can implement in order

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to prevent violence and foster a culture of resilience? Well, we've already touched on some

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of it, which would be relationship building, smaller classes, dramatically increase the number

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of school mental health professionals. Then, you know, maybe a really great frustration

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is that most school shootings should have been prevented. The Secret Service Study, 81% of school

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shooters told at least one person what they were going to do. And how do we end what I like to call

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the conspiracy of silence that allows suicidal, homicidal statements to go unreported to adults?

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I had one simple wish. It would be that every student in a classroom in America today

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would be asked to identify their go-to trusted adult. And then there'd be a discussion about

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why is it Coach Pinkle that you would go to? And then a discussion about what would be

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the scenario where you shouldn't hesitate. And I think we would unfortunately identify

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that a lot of students don't have that go-to trusted adult at school. And that takes us back to

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that fourth R, which is relationships. And kids connected to school. That is so positive for their

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mental health. And if we were to start looking closely at most of our school shooters, they weren't

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playing on a basketball team. They weren't in the band. You know, they were disconnected and

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disillusioned. And every school has those. I love this quote that I got from Craig Scott, who survived

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being under the library table at Columbine. And he lost his sister, Rachel. He said,

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"in our schools, we must reach the unreachable". And I want to give you an example of something that

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I did to try to reach more students. In my previous school job in Houston, Texas, I raised the money

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and I built and ran four ropes courses, basically adventure-based counseling and getting kids out,

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working on problem solving and trust and communication. And I had more than 100,000 students

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participate in 14 years. We got a new administrator, Joey. He closed the program, never even visited.

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Didn't even know what he closed. That has a lot to do with why I'm sitting here at NSU. But there's

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nothing stopping schools from getting a lot more creative and adding programs and figuring out a

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way to reach more students. I think those schools that we built should basically be used the majority

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of the day and evening in some way to serve the students and the community. I also think we send

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kids home from school way too early. We send them home to empty houses and there's a lot of potential

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to get in trouble. It's like we should lengthen that day and have a wide choice of after school

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activities for everybody. Agreed. And so what would you say could be one takeaway that our listeners

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could walk away, especially our listeners who are in positions of leadership or power, what could be

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one takeaway that they could walk away with from our conversation today? Well, one of my main

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recommendations about school safety is to have a task force. And first, the most basic thing,

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let's survey our staff and students. Let's find out about connections, about safety, about bullying.

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And I'm going to quote my previous superintendent. You know what he said to me, Joey? He said,

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"Scott, if we were to survey these students and teachers and if there was a problem,

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well, we'd be held accountable to do something about it. Permission to survey them is denied."

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So I like to say school safety is an inside job. And when my wife was a high school principal,

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she had every homeroom elect a school safety representative and she met with them every week.

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And she had a script for the homeroom teachers at least two days a week to talk about

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contemporary issues and safety. And here's a really basic question.

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If a parent were to call the Broward superintendent's office today and say,

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hey, I have some ideas about school safety, would those ideas be welcomed or would they just

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immediately be turned away? So that task force should involve school staff, students and parents.

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And I am pretty doubtful that a task force recommended walk through metal detectors

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because that's not what the research supports. But that's what we're doing now. And all the Broward

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high school walk through metal detectors. I'm concerned that we give kids the message that

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they are unsafe in possibly the safest place they possibly go. Joey, most kids in America

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get murdered at home or on the streets. And of course, one school shooting is one too many.

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But we need to be careful with some of the messages we are giving and too much of the

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too much of the money, in my opinion, is going to hardware measures, hardware measures, our school

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resource officer, a surveillance camera, a metal detector. Where is the focus on more mental health

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personnel, more anger management, conflict resolution, learning to basically manage

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emotions? Where is all of that? So we need a balance between hardware measures and software measures.

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But you almost seems to echo this idea of proactive strategies versus reactive strategies.

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It sounds like the metal detector is more of a reactive strategy or a reaction to a crisis

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when there could have been other steps to have implemented before the crisis as a way to be

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proactive. So what does the research support? Now that you mentioned it in terms of being proactive

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with those types of measures. Well, I'm a fairly big fan of the violence project. They've done

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a lot of research and basically the research does not support active shooter drills. Basically,

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you're running students through a drill and the most likely school shooter is one of your own

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students. So you're basically teaching them exactly what you're doing. So the research

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supports some things like identify a hard corner in the classroom and keep that free of stored

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materials. It's the corner furthest away from the doors and windows. The research supports

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safety audits with local police, locking all but the front door, maybe even having

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two sets of doors. So somebody comes in the first door, then they're being interacted with before

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they're allowed to go in another door. And the research supports the anonymous tip lines. Here

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in our state, I always like to ask students, what's Fortify Florida? And sometimes they're a little

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disappointed that they don't know what it is or how it works. And we need Fortify Florida posters

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up on the hallways. And the bottom line, in my opinion, Florida was really behind the times

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with School Safety Center. Texas has had one, a very well-funded one for 30 years. Florida created

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its first Office of School Safety only after Parkland. And admittedly, they have done great

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things, but that should have been in place decades ago, as it was in Texas and in a lot of other

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locations. And you mentioned Fortify Florida. That's a great resource for our guests to know

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about. So tell our listeners a little bit about what Fortify is and what they can do with it.

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Well, it's anonymous reporting system. And you put the app on your phone and something not quite

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right. Somebody's made threatening statements. Maybe there's supposed to be a big fight after

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six period today in a parking lot. That tip goes right in. And it's, of course, monitored 24 hours

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a day. And school officials and school resource officers are immediately alerted. And many

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tragedies could be prevented. And here's something I'd like to say to your listeners. It's pretty

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simple. It's like, you got to talk to your children. You got to let them know that you cannot even make

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a joke about a school shooting. It doesn't matter that you don't have a weapon. You aren't trying to

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get a weapon. You don't even have grudge or motivation. If you say something stupid and

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impulsively about a school shooting, you're going to be hampered. And by the way, kicking students

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out of school is not the answer. Effectively, Parkland got rid of Nicholas Cruz, but he came back.

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So it's like, where's the next level of intervention? And at the simplest level,

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couldn't we all agree that school students do not need access to guns unless supervised by their

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parents? Why? Why is that so hard? That's not saying parents, you can't own a gun. That's

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saying parents, you can't own a gun. It's saying to you, you must be responsible. Secure this gun

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in your home. Now, Michigan passed a law. If you have a kid under 16 in your home, you must lock

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up your guns. That should be a national movement. And I'm actually glad that a few parents are

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starting to face charges and jail time. If a kid doesn't have access to a gun, they can't shoot

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anybody at school. It's that simple. And that has not been part of the national mantra about any of

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this. The mantra has always been more police, more hardware measures. And I love this quote from

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Nicole Hockley, one of the founders of Sandy Hook Promise. Here's what she said.

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"Too much of the focus on school shootings is on the moment of the shooting. Instead of stopping it

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in the first place". If your readers were your listeners, rather, would Google safest high

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school in America. They'll find a principal in Indiana who proudly says, "bad guys in the hallway.

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I just push a button. The smoke cannon fills the hallway with smoke. They won't be able to see

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where they're going!" Do you think that's a good use of our tax dollars? To fill the hallway with

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smoke? That's the moment of the shooting. Where are all the primary prevention, the mental health,

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securing weapons, getting kids to understand their important role in school safety, and coming

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forward? Those are the foundations of all of this.

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Well, I definitely want to share more about Fortify in our show notes. So I encourage our viewers to

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go visit that link that will be available for more information about what the Fortify app can do,

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especially for those of us local here at Broward County, Florida, where we are filming today.

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Scott, for our last question, I wanted to talk about how, again, some of our local listeners

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are out of Florida here. What can you tell us about the Suicide and Prevention Office at

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Nova Southeastern University? For those that might be struggling, where can they find help and support?

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Thank you for letting me talk about our office. I want to applaud Nova. I think if you started

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searching in other universities and you were trying to find who's in charge of suicide

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prevention, I think you'd be pretty frustrated. So here we do have an office. It's a small part of my

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job. I am the director of it. I do have an assistant, but we have done hundreds and hundreds of

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presentations on campus and in the community on suicide prevention, what to look for and what to

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do. And now for about a year and a half, we've had 9-8-8. And it is critical that everybody

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understand all you have to do is punch 9-8-8 and you're connected 24 hours a day with a trained

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crisis responder to help you get through those difficult moments. And I've also become a really

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big fan of what's called a written safety plan, where we're asking someone, what can you do

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when you have those thoughts if you're all alone? So we're trying to identify internal coping

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strategies. Who can you call on for the X-Term? And that needs to be written. And there's actually,

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there's a safety app, for example, and our mental health professionals need to be following up and

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making sure that young people still remember that plan. They took a picture of it on their phone.

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They are using the safety or there's another one called the Calm app. They're using those

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to help them get through just a few difficult moments. And we all need to be very alert for

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what are called the precipitating events to use suicide. So what do I mean by that?

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We have a lot of young people that think about suicide, but what causes them to actually take

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action? Severe argument with the parent, breakup of a romance, severe discipline problem,

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severe humiliation. So something might happen today that causes someone to take action on these

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previous suicidal thoughts. And I'm sorry to report that adolescents are the most susceptible

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to imitating suicidal behavior. I've actually gone now to 17 communities that experience what's

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called a suicide cluster. And what's it take to stop the suicide cluster? It takes the entire

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village, which would be students themselves, parents, school leaders, civic leaders,

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local law enforcement, mental health, physicians, survivor groups, clergy, takes everyone coming

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together to promote suicide prevention awareness and promote resources.

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Well, Dr. Poland, thank you so much again for joining us today as part of the podcast

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conversation, because I would like to echo that the work being done in suicide and violence

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through Nova Southeastern University has been nothing short of inspiring. And I'm hopeful that

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our audiences will continue to engage and reflect on today's dialogue here in order to make us a

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suicide safer community. Thank you for joining us on the Classroom Narratives Healing and Education

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podcast. If today's episode inspired you or made you think differently, I'd love to hear from you.

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Drop a comment or review wherever you listen to podcasts and stay connected with us on the

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at Classroom Narratives podcast over Instagram and Facebook. Remember, together we can transform

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our scars into stars in education, one conversation at a time.