School violence is a growing concern, here’s some ways to resolve it

• Aniya Faulcon
  BioRecent Stories

  

  Aniya Faulcon is The Spark Host/Producer for WITF. She has a passion for shining a light on unique people, experiences, and perspectives within the community.
  
  Previously she worked as the People and Social Trends Reporter/Video Anchor for LancasterOnline | LNPNews. During her time there, she created video packages, provided Facebook Live coverage at community events, and wrote data-driven stories with census data and feature stories on local leaders, non-profit organizations, events, and people with unique talents and experiences within Lancaster County.
  
  Aniya also worked at WMAR ABC 2 News as a Sales Assistant and at the AFRO American Newspapers as an Executive Assistant and Media correspondent. Aniya interned at WEAA Gospel Grace 88.9 and worked at her alma mater’s radio station, WWPJ at Point Park University, where she gained skills and a passion for radio.
  
  Aniya grew up in Baltimore, Maryland and attended the Baltimore School for the arts for high school with a concentration in acting. She continued to hone her skills and passion for storytelling and later graduated from Point Park University in 2018 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting and Broadcast Reporting. Aniya is eager to continue her journey with storytelling in her role with WITF, as she aims to shed a light on real people and real stories within Pennsylvania in a variety of mediums.

two young men beating up on a teenage boy being bullies

Airdate: Wednesday, October 19, 2022

According to a pew research survey, 32% of parents of children in K-12 schools say they are very or extremely worried about a shooting ever happening at their children’s school.

Recent data shows over 150 million students report having experienced peer violence in and around school and live in conflict-affected areas where classrooms are often no safer than their communities.

Within the state school violence of all kinds has become a growing concern.

Tuesday Harrisburg School District held a public forum to address the increase in violent incidents at its schools, as there have been 69 incidents this year and an increase in suspensions.

Joey Melvin, Director of Center for Safe Schools, said school violence is everything from an assault to a school shooting, serious injury, or death that was caused by someone or multiple people.

He also said, that the high impact school violence events are extremely low frequency but may be taking place because of what’s happening in the school’s community, peer pressure, mental health issues, and more.

“As we deploy resources to respond to these these low frequency but highly impactful events, one of the biggest and most proactive methods for that is behavioral threat assessment,” Melvin said.

He said his organization is an advocate for training school staff and safety teams to identify students that may end up on the pathway to violence.

School violence takes place in urban, rural and suburban areas within the state and Melvin said these incidents have a major impact on school staff and students.

“I’ve lost students to suicide. I’ve lost them to a car accident. Especially knowing them and seeing them every day and having that relationship, you take it very personal and you want to protect them all,” Melvin said. “And I think that is shared not just with me in my personal experience, but I guarantee you, every educator that’s out there and every staff member that works in school; they all generally have this love for their children. They want the best for them.”

The Associated Press and WITF’s democracy reporter Jordan Wilkie are partnering to tell stories about how Pennsylvania elections work, and to debunk misinformation surrounding elections. 

Read the stories here