Over 130 area educators, counselors, administrators, school resource officers, and law enforcement personnel gathered in Oneonta on Tuesday for the Regional School Safety Summit. Delaware-Chenango-Madison-Otsego BOCES partners with Otsego Northern Catskills BOCES to present this annual event, which this year was held at the Oneonta High School. This year’s event was also co-sponsored by the Delaware County Opiate Settlement Committee.
ONC BOCES District Superintendent Catherine Huber welcomed attendees, and Joshua Reiss, Safety Risk Management Coordinator at ONC BOCES, introduced the first speaker, Kim Hopkins-Betts, a clinical social worker, Director of Innovation & Planning at Centerboard and Director of Outreach & CPS Trainer at Lives in the Balance, a non-profit organization founded by Dr. Ross Greene, developer of the CPS intervention model. Her presentation focused on interactions with “problem” or “difficult” children and adolescents, promoting strategies of collaboration and problem-solving rather than relying simply on the traditional methods of power and control.
The afternoon presenter, Molly Hudgens, joined the summit virtually after her airline flights were delayed and cancelled. Hudgens, a Congressional Medal of Honor - Citizens Honors Single Act of Heroism Award recipient, is the author of Saving Sycamore: The School Shooting That Never Happened, about her experience preventing a school shooting by speaking to a 14-year old armed student in her office for 90 minutes. She is a school counselor and part of the Crisis Management and Leadership Team at Sycamore Middle School in Cheatham County, Tennessee. Her presentation, “Recognizing the Red Flags,” encouraged attendees to be vigilant in recognizing and paying attention to situations and behaviors so that they can provide support and intervention before it reaches a crisis point.
This is the third School Safety Summit the two area BOCES have collaborated on, according to Jason Lawrence, Health and Safety Coordinator for DCMO BOCES. The summit began because “we saw the need for a regional approach to help staff, students, and administrators deal with health and safety issues that we know we have in our rural area, and to collaborate with local and state law enforcement and emergency responders,” he said. “We see this as an opportunity to give them tools to adapt to the changing situation.” Lawrence says that the summits have been well-received. “We had around 50 the first year, 80 the second, and this year over 130 attendees. With the support of our two BOCES district superintendents, it’s just taken off.”
