Longview ISD to Track Students Tagged as Violent

LONGVIEW — The Longview school district will join a nationwide group that identifies students who could become violent and tracks them throughout their education — regardless of where they move. According to KETK and the Longview News-Journal, LISD officials said Wednesday the district will participate in the Student Safety National Alliance starting in the 2013-14 school year. “What we are offering and introducing to you today is the Walmart for student safety and security,” said interim district Superintendent James Wilcox.

About 70 school administrators and campus police officers from 25 school districts attended a school safety conference at the district’s education safety center to learn about the alliance. Profiler Dan Korem, author of “Rage of the Random Actor,” told school officials Wednesday, “We’re here because of what happened at Sandy Hook. If we weren’t having these catastrophic acts, we wouldn’t be here.” The database will not conflict with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act because the stored information will not be open to the public, officials said.

The school safety alliance is not without its critics, though. Branden Johnson, president of the local chapter of the NAACP, said although the database could have a positive effect on campus safety, there is a huge drawback to tagging students as troublemakers as early as kindergarten. Johnson added there is nothing stopping a principal from discussing a student’s profile in the system with his or her teacher, something he said will damage the teacher/student relationship in the classroom. “This will adversely affect minority children,” he said. “But hey, if the school district thinks this will help, OK. We are dealing with elected officials. If people don’t like this, they can vote those trustees right out of office.”