Host: David Riedman, founder of K-12 School Shooting Database
Guest: Dr. Ken Trump is the President of National School Safety and Security Services, a Cleveland-based national consulting firm specializing in school security and emergency preparedness training
In this episode we discussed:
Evolution of school security during the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s—all time periods that Dr. Trump has been working inside k-12 schools.
Landscape of school safety is not just deliberate school shootings. School safety includes fires, natural disasters, riots, fights, gangs, drugs, weapons, rapes, sexual assaults, and kidnappings.
The 1989 attack at Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton, CA was the most legislatively impactful school shooting in history because it drove California’s state assault weapons ban, the federal assault weapons ban, Gun Free School Zones Act of 1990, Safe School Act of 1994, and the COPS program to use federal funding to pay for local police officers in schools.
Deliberate pre-planned school shootings primarily happen in small, rural communities where the schools have the least resources to prevent, respond, and recover from these attacks.
School safety can’t depend on federal grant funding because the grants eventually dry up and local school budgets don’t have enough money to sustain police officers, guards, maintain equipment, and subscriptions for security tech.
David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen to my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Journal of Medicine, and my article on CNN about AI and school security.
Ep 9: "School Safety is a $hitshow right now" compared to the 1970s, 80s, and 90s with Dr. Ken Trump