Parents, administrators take steps to reduce violence as Delaware school year begins
Officials say last year, Delaware schools had eight gun incidents, which was more than double any year over the past five years.
DELAWARE (WPVI) -- As school begins, parents and administrators are concerned about violence after a significant uptick in crime in Delaware schools last year.
The violence has led to a recently implemented task force in one Delaware school district.
Jen Parrish is a mother of five. When a gun discharged during a fight outside a basketball game at Appoquinamink High School earlier this year, fear set in.
"So this was a shock when the incidents occurred here at home," said Parrish.
That incident came just a few months after one person shot following a football game at the school.
"Right after an act of violence occurs, there is a high-end feeling of threat to everyone, especially parents and students," she said.
Parrish took action by forming and leading a new school safety task force for the Appoquinimink School District.
It recommended weapons detectors for large school events at its three high schools.
READ | Delaware school district installs weapon detector at stadiums after 2 gun-related incidents
In March, the district voted to approve spending nearly $500,000 to lease the mobile devices for four years.
"It's not foolproof but it does reduce risk," said Brian Moore.
Moore was the School Climate Program Manager for the Delaware Department of Education.
Until his retirement this summer, he was responsible for disciplinary issues and school safety.
"What we've seen is behaviors that we're not used to, on a level we're not used to," he said.
Moore said last year, Delaware schools had eight gun incidents, which was more than double any year over the past five years. There were nearly 800 school crimes, which was the most since 2017.
"Whether that involves the fact that we had two years of a pandemic and students became dysregulated," he said. "So you kind of think of it as everybody came back to a mental health crisis."
Kids from troubled homes often can be troubled students, officials say. Moore said many of those kids didn't have an outlet during the pandemic while learning from home.
"We know that there are kids who were trapped in their homes with a physical, mental, or sexual abuser," he said.
Moore also blamed social media for an uptick in violence and said it is fuel for violent incidents in schools.
He said his former department is continuing to invest in armed school resource officers and constables to address the violence. Currently, two-thirds of the schools in the state have them.
"A lot of times they're there to defuse those situations," he said. "When a kid is, you know, having a breakdown, they're able to come in and do crisis de-escalation."
