Sandy Hook Elementary. Robb Elementary in Uvalde. Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Columbine. Evergreen. For many parents, those names carry a familiar chill.
The K-12 School Shooting Database tracks victims shot on K-12 school property nationwide. In 2024, it recorded 276 victims. (See the graphic above) Schools average around 180 days of teaching.
But school leaders on Colorado’s Western Slope say fear doesn’t have to end in helplessness. Their message to parents and loved one of school children is: school violence is not always random. And there are many chances to intervene — long before a student resorts to violence.
Threat assessment as prevention
Montrose County School District began exploring the Salem-Keizer threat assessment model in 2019. Director of safety and security Matt Smith, a former law enforcement officer himself, said the push came after Parkland, when staff realized kids were struggling and the systems around them were disconnected. James Pavlich, now the district's executive director of operations, was an assistant principal at the time in Montrose. He was also a veteran, having served in the Balkans and Iraq, where there was a lot of focus on interrupting the planning cycle of terrorist organizations. He reached out to the FBI and Secret Service to learn who was doing wholistic approaches to preventing violence in schools, and they steered him to a school district in Salem Oregon.
The threat assessment model called Salem-Keizer is built around diverse teams that share information, assess risk, and then manage it over time with supports — not just discipline. This typically involves, educators, mental health providers, social workers, and law enforcement. Smith said it is “future focused,” where schools “live with those risks” instead of treating a concern as a one-time event.
A low bar for speaking up
Student health and safety manager in Montrose Megan Farley said the heart of the model is prevention — and the threshold for raising a concern is intentionally low. Really, as low as possible.
“Our bar is very low,” Farley said. Staff don’t need proof. They just need that gut check — “the bird on your shoulder going, ‘huh?’”
From there, the district interviews the student, parents, and teachers, then holds a Safety Team meeting.
“When you go backwards from mass violence,” Farley said, “the person who’s perpetrated that violence has a history of not feeling like they belonged… And so we’re trying to find the moment in time where we can change that trajectory for that student.”
Caring for the whole child
Feelings of not belonging can stem from many different sources. Megan Farley, says they'll work to address anything that might be a root cause. "Just tell us who you’re worried about. I mean, the kids might need shoes. It could be that simple. Or they might need access to food, or they might need intensive mental health treatment, but we can figure that out. Just tell us who you’re worried about.”
Montrose Schools Superindentent, Dr. Carrie Stephenson, describes it this way.
"...then the safety team hears the concern and just gets to work. So it could be trauma related, it could be health related, it could be law related, legal issues, it could be homelessness, it could behaviorally, it doesn't matter what the concern is. We're getting to work on that.
We have so much anxiety and depression in our young people today that we have to make sure that we intervene super early. So that combined with our Safe2Tell system, combined with our Salem Kaiser model, it is incredible."
Montrose safety teams and the mental health gap
Beyong just using the Salem Kaiser threat assessment mode, Montrose has gone beyond to create “safety teams,” which can be activated even when there is no specific threat — just a concern that a student needs help. Superintendent Dr. Carrie Stephenson said each team includes an SRO (School Resource Officer - Law Enforcement), a nurse, a behavior coach, a social worker, and a school therapist.
These are a lot of resources to bring to bear on what are sometimes small issues. Stephenson said the district prioritizes it anyway: “Yeah, well, we prioritize it because unless our kids feel safe and supported, they cannot learn in the classroom. And so that has to be a priority. Otherwise we're just spinning our wheels on academics. ”
Montrose serves nearly 6,000 students. Farley said safety teams have had contact with about 1,100 of roughly 5,800 students over three school years — close to one out of five students. Many referrals are not about violence. They are about food, clothing, medical needs, or mental health support. Farley said partner agencies send therapists into schools, reducing barriers like cost, scheduling, and transportation. These are all common barriers to mental healthcare in rural communities.
Ridgway and Delta
Every school in Colorado is required to have a threat assessment process in place.
Ridgway School District also uses Salem-Keizer. Elementary principal Perri Gipner attended workshops said the model helps administrators think clearly in high-stress moments, and builds a shared plan with school, family, and community supports. When the situation warrants it, mental health, social work, medical, and law enforcement resources are all coordinated to address the needs of the whole child. Gipner was the representative for UnBOCES who coordinated with James Pavlich in Montrose to bring Salem Kaiser to UnBOCES, and the Ridgway School District.
In Delta County, assistant superintendent Kurt Clay said the district uses a structured threat assessment tool tied to Colorado’s School Safety Resource Center, that is very similar to Salem Kaiser. Clay said Delta also emphasizes relationship-building so every student has a trusted adult to go to with concerns, a program they call, "Capturing Kid's Hearts". Delta also has pre-defined teams that coordinate to address the needs of students raising concerns via Safe2Tell or via their "Capturing Kids Hearts" program.
The quiet work of prevention
Across districts, leaders said measuring success is hard because success is quiet. As Matt Smitth put it, “nobody can look into the future and say, boy, we saved this or stopped this.”
What they do know is that they have seen students that they had serious concerns about, get the help they needed and change trajectory. As Megan Farley says, "We know that they are out in the community and they're part of our community and they work in this community and they are doing well and they're thriving and they're happy."
By caring for the whole child and taking their physical, educational, mental, and emotional needs seriously, Western Colorado school districts are making their schools safer, an creating healthier communities for us all.
