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District reports low confirmed HIBs, few violent incidents in SSDS review
Summary
Doctor O'Keefe presented the district's twice-annual SSDS (student safety) report, saying the most recent six-month window showed few incidents: 3 instances of violence, 0 weapons, 4 substance incidents, 3 confirmed HIBs and 6 restraints/seclusions; staff stressed small-numbers privacy limits and building-level prevention work.
Doctor O'Keefe, the district's student safety lead, told the board the most recent Student Safety Data System report — covering the second-most-recent six months of the last school year — shows low overall incident counts. The presentation listed three instances of violence, zero weapons and vandalism incidents, four substance-abuse incidents, three confirmed harassment/intentional bias (HIB) findings and six uses of restraint or seclusion.
The presentation emphasized definitions and reporting practices. O'Keefe said the SSDS data exclude nicotine and that only confirmed HIBs are reported in this dataset; alleged HIBs are recorded elsewhere. He cautioned that some categories are intentionally omitted from SSDS and that, because removals and restraints involve very small numbers of students, the graphs can be sensitive to single cases and privacy concerns.
Board members and special-education staff asked for clarification about what counts as a restraint during transportation and whether some of the six recorded incidents reflected transports rather than in-class restraints. Director Helena Bronco Gonzalez and other staff said district practice is to document any time hands are used to move a student for safety (including transporting between locations), and they are evaluating programmatic changes — such as mats and staff training — designed to reduce physical interventions.
O'Keefe credited consistent classroom-level programming and school-based counseling for much of the decline and said district-level training typically occurs at the start of the school year while many building-level programs happen throughout the year. He offered to follow up privately on building-level specifics when board members or parents requested student- or school-specific detail.
The board did not take formal action during the presentation; staff said they will continue to refine reporting categories and training to reduce incidents while protecting student privacy.
The board is expected to receive the presentation slide deck on the district website.
