By Adam Swift
Safety and security at the high school has improved since several violent incidents gained headlines across the state at the beginning of the school year, according to Revere school and public safety officials.
At a meeting of the school committee’s safety and security subcommittee last week, there was a review of school incident reports as well as the measures that were put in place to improve safety for students and staff. “Before we start, I would like to say that 2024 was very challenging for us,” said safety and security subcommittee Chair Anthony Caggianno. He noted that there were a number of new members on the committee dealing with new union contracts, among other issues. “One of the biggest issues that came before us when we were campaigning was student safety,” said Caggiano. In the wake of several large fights at or near the high school in the opening week of the school year, Caggiano said there was a full agreement that the schools needed to start enforcing disciplinary policies. More than a dozen of the students involved in those incidents were expelled from school and faced legal ramifications. “From there, we added a fourth school resource officer, and we have a security consultant that is going to be starting soon,” said Caggiano. “Even though I think we are going in the right direction, I think we still have a lot more work we need to do.” Superintendent of Schools Dr. Dianne Kelly praised the continued support from the city, especially the police and fire departments, for continuing to work well with the schools on safety and security issues. “It’s incredible that we have such great partnerships and are able to rely heavily on the other city agencies to help us make sure the schools are safe,” Kelly said.
Revere High School Principal Christopher Bowen presented several charts highlighting the disciplinary actions the school must report to the state. “The point In would like to highlight from this data is that we are only halfway through the school year, and even if we double that number (of suspensions and expulsions), in each of the categories, we will be below where we were at the end of the school year in the past two years,” said Bowen.
The most activity involving out-of-school discipline was at the beginning of the school year, when there were 17 students involved in the major incidents in late August and early September. In addition to removing those students from school, Bowen noted that it also allowed the school to redistribute resources to other students in the school who might have fallen through the cracks. “We are definitely on track to not be where we were in terms of student discipline at the end of the school year compared to the previous two, and I think that’s because of the response that we had at the beginning of the school year. While the number of exclusionary discipline incidents in the high school is down, Bowen said there is an increase in alternatives to suspension, such as restorative interventions for incidents that are not physically violent. “The climate in the building is very different than it was at the beginning of the school year,” Bowen said. Kelly added that the schools will also soon have results from a survey of students and staff from the schools that will provide more information about the atmosphere in the district compared to previous years. Police Chief David Callahan said he agreed that some of the safety measures and disciplinary actions taken at the beginning of the school year have been helpful.
“I don’t see the problems that we were having in the beginning of the school year,” said the chief. “I think a lot of that is the good collaborative relationship that the school department has with the police department as well as the fire department.”
Callahan said the police department will continue to be dedicated to providing four school resource officers to the schools, as well as training several officers who can fill in when the full-time resource officers are not available. With the improvements at the high school, both Callahan and Kelly stated that two of the school resource officers will soon go back to being stationed at other schools in the district. In addition to the current steps taken in the schools, Kelly said the security consultant Guidepost Solutions will soon begin an audit of the district’s safety and security systems. In addition to reviewing the safety systems and procedures at the current schools, Kelly said Guidepost will also be talking to the district when it is time to focus on the safety program at the new high school.
