MSU School Safety Expert Weighs in on Climate at East Lansing High School

Following a series of violent and alarming incidents at East Lansing High School, district leadership has held several public meetings and rolled out a plan to address the issues. Now, a local expert is weighing in on the scene, saying the district has the tools to fix the problems, but to get there, leaders need to act, students need to be taken seriously, more adults need to provide mentorship and rules must be enforced.

Michigan State University Social Work Professor Glenn Stutzky has researched school violence, bullying and school safety. After being contacted by East Lansing community members, some of whom are his former students, about ongoing concerns in the district’s schools, he  attended Mayor Ron Bacon’s listening session Friday, Jan. 27, where ongoing concerns were addressed by ELHS students, parents and school staff. 

In an interview with ELi on Feb. 1, Stutzky shared his thoughts on the situation at ELHS and steps the school district can take going forward to address violence. 

Students need to lead the conversation.

Stutzky said he was impressed with the students who spoke at the public meeting and thinks they need to play a central role going forward. 

“In my opinion, the best information about what’s going on came from the students,” he said. “Also, the best ideas about what to do were also coming from the students. They need to be an integral part of moving forward.”

Stutzky said he’s seen situations where students are invited to meetings regarding school safety but they don’t get much of a say in how to proceed. Not giving students an important role is a common mistake schools make, in his view. 

“Students are the single biggest resource for school safety and they are the single biggest unused resource,” he said. 

Stutzky said it appears decision makers in the East Lansing Public Schools (ELPS) don’t have a good idea about what the climate is like in the high school. He said that is a knowledge gap students can help fill. 

In our interview, Stutzky noted the United States Secret Service recommends schools have threat assessment teams that assess the possibility that a school experiences a violent event. Stutzky said creating an assessment team that interacts with students can help the school better understand the school’s environment. 

“My concern with East Lansing is, it appears we have a series of events over a timeline and we have no idea where the next point is,” he said. “I don’t think we have an accurate assessment of what the threat is.”

According to the secret service guide, threat assessment teams define concerning behaviors, create a central reporting method, determine when to call law enforcement, establish assessment procedures, develop risk management options, promote a safe climate, and conduct safety training for staff, students, parents and law enforcement. 

Stutzky said it is “fundamental” that ELHS also sets up a safe school planning committee that continually works to address safety concerns, which is a committee separate from a threat assessment team. Without a group like this, the school will be stuck reacting to violent incidents, instead of preventing them from happening. Stutzky stressed the importance of students serving on this committee. 

“They need to be there in significant numbers and they need to have an equal seat with the adults,” he said. 

INSERT: At the Jan. 23, 2023, meeting, East Lansing High School students told the Board of Education why they feel unsafe at their school. (Dylan Lees for ELi)

Ten former East Lansing School Board members suggested formation of a school safety advisory committee to the current board at the Jan. 30 meeting, saying in a prepared statement they wanted to see something “similar to the Advisory Committee on Sex Education and the Advisory Committee on Mental Health, appointed by the board and consisting of parents, students, teachers, administrators, a board member and experts as partners in working toward recommendations for positive, lasting change in the culture of our district.”

The school needs to get to the root of the feud between the groups that are fighting.

Much of the violence that has occurred at ELHS has reportedly been between two groups of students. Stutzky said if the school hopes to stop these incidents from happening, they need to find out the root of the problem that is causing the students to fight. The administration has not publicly explained the root of the tensions between these two groups.

“Almost all violence basically comes back to relationship issues,” he said. 

Stutzky said even if the school is to remove the students, the issues will continue if they are not addressed and the violence may leak into the community. 

Mentorship for troubled children is essential. Stutzky referenced a study that examined boys who had been violent in school. The study looked at the boys’ rates of aggression over a time period. But it also revealed that, unexpectedly, some subjects’ levels of aggression dip over significant periods of time. Researchers found that during those time periods where the aggression was diminishing, the subjects had an adult who took an interest in them. 

“It wasn’t a formal mentoring program but it was just an adult within the school who took an interest in them,” he said. “Their behavior and aggression just fell off the chart.”

Stutzky said mentorship can come from teachers or other adults in the building. He pointed to the students who mentioned the relationship they had with the school resource officer, before the position was eliminated in 2020, as a potential lost mentor. 

“Having caring adults in the school, whether volunteer or professional, I think is one of the most effective forms of helping to reduce violence,” he said.

Stutzky also said diversity among adults in the building is “extremely important” and it is concerning that students said there are few teachers of color. He said the district needs to reexamine its hiring and recruiting practices to see if changes can be made to build a staff as diverse as the student body. 

“Having that diversity of adult appearance, of adult voices, that’s something that should be a priority,” Stutzky said. 

At the Jan. 27 listening session and the Jan. 30 board meeting, Pastor Tracy Edmond of Walk in Truth Ministries offered his services to the school district and said he believes he and his team of 20 volunteer men can provide mentorship to troubled students that will stop the violence. He said he had offered the help previously but had not yet received a response from the district.

The tools are there, Stutzy says, and now leaders need to act.

The good news, Stutzky said, is all the information is there for East Lansing to create safe schools. Leaders just need to act. 

That starts with being clear about what the rules are and enforcing them. He pointed to examples students gave like using drugs or fighting in the bathrooms. He said there surely arerules against those activities, but the problems’ persistence means the rules aren’t being enforced. 

“One of the things that we do know from the research is that to have a safe school and have a safe school climate, the rules have to be clear, they have to be enforced fairly and equally, and consistently,” he said. 

While Stutzky emphasized the need to get to the root of issues to address them, he said it is important that students face consequences for serious offenses. 

“If you hit another human being, that’s assault,” he said. “I think one of the mistakes we make is saying ‘Oh, it’s just kids.’ They need to know how serious some of these things are.”

Stutzky said the school needs to utilize existing research to keep the school safe. He shared a 2014 guide from the U.S. Department of Education that gives advice on how to create a safe school environment. 

The guide gives advice on how to create a positive school climate, balance supporting and disciplining students, and improve fairness and equity for students. It’s up to decision makers within ELHS to act with a sense of urgency and use guides like this, along with student input, to implement and enforce policies that foster a positive environment. 

“It’s not a matter of the knowledge,” Stutzky said. “It’s a matter of the heart.”

Disclosure: Lucas Day is a masters student in the MSU Social Work program. He has not taken classes under or conducted research with Prof. Stutzky and does not foresee doing so in the future.This interview with Stutzky occurred following the suggestions of ELPS parents.