A database that identifies at-risk students and federal cybersecurity and infrastructure implementation are among technology considerations the Arkansas School Safety Commission is looking at in an effort improve school security.
Hope Worsham, Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief program director for the Arkansas Department of Education, spoke to the committee Tuesday about THRIVE Arkansas and SmartData dashboards potentially being used to help find and assist students who are at risk of falling through the cracks.
"We want to make sure we are using data to make the best decisions about our students," Worsham said.
The SmartData Dashboard is an automated data dashboard with an early warning and early intervention system for school districts to focus on student achievement. The fact that the database also includes a discipline and safety component to it caught the attention of some commission members.
Worsham said Division of Elementary and Secondary Education uses ESSER funds to provide access to SmartData to all districts and charter schools for up to three years. She said the program is in its second year, and the original goal of the dashboard was to identify at-risk students during covid closures.
In the past, Worsham said, data on students usually wasn't accessible or was siloed, leaving teachers and school leaders in a "wait to fail" model when it came to identifying at-risk students. The automated data dashboard allows for one login and quick access to student information, learning management systems, intervention plans and assessment management systems.
Worsham told commissioners that SmartData's automated tools can benefit school districts with proactive intervention when it comes to mental and behavioral health, as well as with dropout prevention and academic interventions.
"We feel like some of our school leaders are drowning in data," Worsham said. "Before SmartData there would be 15 different sites people would have to get information from. ... This program takes all that data and makes sense of it. It allows educators to be more proactive. The data is already out there, but this just allows our district to easily extract and visualize our data."
Worsham said SmartData includes an administrator, students at risk, equity in discipline and equity in instruction dashboards. She said district administrators, building principals, counselors and interventionists can have access to the SmartData.
Worsham said the student at-risk element allows officials to search students by groups, categories and norms. She said the profile dashboard allows searches for student and teacher profiles.
"This examines the attendance, behavior and core grades as early warning signs that someone might be at risk of not achieving," she said.
Dr. Cheryl May, commission chair and director of the Criminal Justice Institute, said having this ability is important because federal research has shown that dropping grades, increased behavioral problems and low attendance are potential signs of students moving toward a path of violence.
"In the first commission meeting we had focused on the characteristics of kids at risk of a path of violence, and a lot of these data points are found in this database," May said.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson reinstated the Arkansas School Safety Commission on June 10 in the aftermath of several mass shootings across the nation, including the May 24 school shooting that left 19 children and two adults dead in Uvalde, Texas.
The state's original school safety commission, created in March 2018, submitted 30 recommendations in its original 124-page report. The recommendations are just that -- recommendations -- and schools are not mandated to follow them, but some have implemented portions of the original recommendations.
Under the governor's executive order, the current commission is charged with reviewing the previous commission's final report published in November 2018 and providing an update on the current status of school safety across Arkansas.
Worsham said the SmartData dashboard is also a good program to monitor all students.
"This is not used to label kids, but just used as a first touchpoint to see what is causing concern," she said.
Worsham said usage of SmartData is not required of school districts, but leaders are encouraged to give it a chance.
"The usage is not where we want it to be, but the districts that are using it find it useful to identify and prevent issues," she said.
Advisers with Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security, an operational component of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, also addressed the commission about physical and cybersecurity assessments that can be done for no cost to the school districts.
"These assessments are funded by taxpayer money, meaning there is no cost," said Chad Johnston, protective security adviser for CISA.
Johnston said the agency's voluntary status means it can avoid some of the barriers associated with a regulatory agency and can protect data collected from assessments.
"We are not a regulatory agency, but instead a volunteer agency," he told commissioners. "We are voluntary because we want good information flow. We want to make sure we have good information sharing and analysis."
Johnston said an assessment can range from a simplistic 15-page report to 45-page reports that detail the risk.
"We want to figure out ways these assessments can assist what you are doing," he said.
The assessments include links to resources that can be used to upgrade security at a facility, play out certain scenarios and provide comparisons to similar buildings across the country.
"Success for us is not to just hand out CISA programs," Johnston said. "Our success is to have you know all the resources out there. If we can't provide it, then I might know something that some other federal agency might be able to provide."
Mark Kirby, cybersecurity adviser for CISA, said the agency also provides cybersecurity assessments that are crucial in this day and age.
I come from a [Department of Defense] bubble which is counterproductive in education, where you try to have an open learning environment," he said. "Unfortunately, this makes it easier for threat actors to get into your system."
Kirby noted that several organizations in Arkansas have been victims of ransomware attacks, and schools aren't immune to such attacks.
"These attacks will sometimes hit you multiple times," he said. "They will ask you to pay to unlock the data they have taken, then they have taken the data they wanted in the meantime, and sometimes will ask you to buy the data back or they will sell it."
Johnston said that is why meeting with groups such as the Arkansas School Safety Commission is important.
"We want to build partnerships," he said. "There are a lot of different resources out there. It's just about picking the ones that are best for your organization."
Dr. David Hopkins, superintendent at the Clarksville School District, said information provided during the sessions is valuable, but for it to be effective, educators have to know such information is easily accessible.
"I was wondering if the Criminal Justice Institute might be able to put together a presentation to superintendents with all this information we have gathered, or create something on the website they can click," he said. "Because last time, we had a lot of good things come out of these meetings, and it all ended up on the shelf collecting dust until Uvalde happened."
May said she is looking into providing information during a meeting with superintendents, and that officials need to look into how such information can be put into a easily accessible location.