Student Safety in Action: Webinar Recap

Three Key Takeaways

• Safety Intelligence Enables Prevention, Not Just Response: Early detection and human review turn overwhelming data into actionable alerts, allowing teams to intervene before crises escalate.
• Student Voice and Training Are Essential: Empowering students to report, and equipping staff to respond, creates a culture where safety is everyone’s responsibility—and where students feel seen and supported.
• Collaboration and Adaptation Make a Difference: Cross-departmental collaboration and staying alert to new digital trends ensure we’re not missing emerging risks. Anonymous reporting lowers the barrier for kids to get help—often before adults even realize there’s an issue.

Thank you to everyone who joined our recent “Student Safety in Action” webinar, and for leaning into this critical conversation. After 23 years in education, I know school safety isn’t optional, it’s essential, and it belongs to all of us. Our collective responsibility is to protect every student, every day.

I had the honor of hosting an insightful conversation with three amazing leaders:

• James Caldwell, Safe Schools Coordinator, Frisco ISD
• Michael Fink, Director of Instructional Technology, Freeport Public Schools
• Michael Giardina, IT Coordinator, Baldwin County Public Schools

To make this recap even more useful, I’ve organized it around the very questions I asked during our discussion. Let’s dive into your most pressing concerns, and the wisdom our panelists shared.

➡ Hvis du har lyst, kan duwatch the webinar on-demand now.

Why Does Student Safety Intelligence Matter?

Opening the session with some sobering data:

• Lightspeed Alert™ flagged over 1.7 million student safety signals last year; after human review, 82,000 were high risk, and nearly 4,000 were imminent—meaning a student in serious crisis was identified every four minutes.
• Lightspeed StopIt™, an anonymous reporting system, surfaced 66,000+ reports, med 4,800 imminent cases that may have otherwise gone unheard.

These numbers mirror national trends:

• Nearly 1 in 5 high school students considered suicide last year
• Students who are bullied are 9x more likely to contemplate suicide
• 32% percent of teens actively fear a school shooting.

Traditional tools aren’t designed to detect intent or emotional risk. Intent doesn’t start with a weapon—it starts with a journal entry, a late-night Google search, or a tip from a peer. If it’s predictable, it’s preventable.

Do any of you find this data surprising?

When I shared that Lightspeed Alert flagged over 1.7 million student safety signals last year (with a student in crisis identified every four minutes) the panelists were unanimous: the need is real and growing.

• Michael Fink noted,
• “That tracks for me, as far as what I’ve seen at Freeport. There’s a lot of information we get off the system, and a lot that’s actionable for us.”

• Michael Giardina added,
• “We’ve used Lightspeed for 5 or 6 years… It goes up, it further goes up every year.”

• James Caldwell summed it up well:
• “When kids feel comfortable around the adults in the building, they’re more likely to report. I liked your quote, Erika, ‘if it’s predictable, it’s preventable.’ I wrote that down.”

How does having expert triage through human review and clear categorization help your team respond without being overwhelmed?

Our panelists all agreed that human review is essential for both accuracy and staff sanity.

• Michael Fink explained,
• “There’s so much data, so many alerts… It’s very helpful to have [the human review team] so we’re not overwhelmed and constantly having to vet false positives, and the ones that require immediate attention are escalated to us.”

• Michael Giardina shared his journey:
• “For the first two years, I was managing it by myself… The amount of alerts per day is pretty high, and there’s little way for me to keep up with that workload. Now, the false positives are minimal, and I’ve built a lot of trust in the system.”

Have you seen overlap in your district between students dealing with emotional distress and potential aggression?

I was struck by how often our panelists see self-harm and violence signals in the same students.

• Michael Fink said,
• “If we get a violence alert or self-harm alert, a mental health professional checks in with the kid. There’s a lot more going on there… It’s always worth it.”

• Michael Giardina told a moving story about a second grader:
• “He was talking about wanting to kill himself… Early detection helped us do a deep dive and create a targeted intervention plan. He’s now getting help.”

• James Caldwell added,
• “Whatever it is, harm to self, harm to others, we don’t want either. It helps to get them to the right people, and these programs help do that.”

How does early detection help your team act before things escalate?

Early intervention truly saves lives.

• Michael Giardina described,
• “Once we get the early detection, we do a deep dive on the student… That allows the school to create their threat assessment team and gear it specifically towards what that child is experiencing.”

• James Caldwell put it simply:
• “The longer you wait, the harder it is to help. Early intervention leads to better outcomes. Connectedness is the greatest protective factor we have.”

How has your team adapted to help students who show persistent or escalating signals over time?

Our panelists emphasized teamwork and recognizing patterns.

• Michael Giardina said,
• “It’s made us want to collaborate more—not just with curriculum, but with safety and security… Now, if the anime a child is watching turns to something darker, we can intervene sooner.”

• Michael Fink explained,
• “If it’s a high alert and a kid has looked up self-harm seven times, there’s a pattern. Someone with mental health experience needs to address this thoroughly.”

How are you using seasonal patterns to enhance your threat assessment process?

• James Caldwell highlighted,
• “It gets back to training. Make your staff aware of certain holidays or anniversaries that might be triggers for particular students.”

• Michael Fink shared,
• “If we’re getting an alert, whether it’s at 2 a.m. or Friday night, we’re trying to get in contact with someone near that kid immediately. We do the same thing during breaks and holidays.”

Has high-risk content showing up on new platforms changed what you pay attention to or allow?

• Michael Giardina explained,
• “Alerts have changed what applications we allow. For example, we blocked Padlet because of unfiltered harmful content, and we’re working with Canva to restrict uploads. The alerts help us decide what apps to allow.”

How does having insight into online behavior and peer-submitted tips help you act sooner?

• James Caldwell stressed,
• “Most reports for bullying are not by the person who gets bullied, but by bystanders. Anything we can do to promote positive bystander behavior helps prevention and intervention.”

• Michael Fink added,
• “Anonymous reporting has helped us tremendously—not just with violence but with drugs and more. It’s the ease with which kids can let staff know something’s going on.”

Has Alert or StopIt ever helped you catch something no adult would have otherwise seen?

This question brought out some of the most powerful stories.

• Michael Fink shared,
• “Yes, all the time. There are a lot of things that come in that we didn’t have any idea about… Specifically with self-harm, it’s kids that were not on the radar until we got the information.”

• Michael Giardina told of a human trafficking incident averted,
• “We avoided a human trafficking incident because Alert caught a student corresponding with someone overseas… That’s how we caught it, and the person was prosecuted.”

• James Caldwell recalled,
• “We had a student fill out a StopIt report over a weekend. Our principal got it, contacted an SRO who knew the family, and we were able to intervene. Prevention works.”

What is one insight that’s changed the way your district approaches safety this year?

• Michael Fink closed with,
• “A phone call, a meeting with a kid. We’d rather do more than less. Every single time for a self-harm call, the family’s appreciated it.”

• Michael Giardina echoed,
• “We are so glad to have a way to be alerted before something happens. This year, our counselors are spending more time on these issues instead of just scheduling.”

• James Caldwell noted a practical change,
• “We have a new law in Texas banning phones during the school day. That’s changed how we promote StopIt, directing students to their Chromebooks instead.”

Afsluttende tanker

As we wrapped up, I felt a deep sense of gratitude for this community and for the real, life-saving work happening every day. As James Caldwell put it so poignantly:

“The majority of people don’t hurt people—the majority help people. Prevention works.”

Thank you again, Michael, Michael, and James, for your honesty, your leadership, and your heart. And thank you to everyone out there fighting for student safety. If you missed the live session, I hope this recap helps you feel equipped and inspired for the year ahead. Let’s keep showing up for our kids, together.

Stay safe and stay connected,
Erika Johnson