How Can Our Community Work Together to Promote Safer Schools?

We want to hear from you!

Round 1: The first round of input sessions in April are designed to promote
community understanding of the key issues related to child and school safety and to
identify possible change objectives given these findings.

Thursday, April 13, 2023 (in person)
Monday, April 17 (in person)
6-8 PM
Location: Traverse City Central High School Cafeteria

Wednesday, April 19 (Zoom virtual)
6-8 PM

Please RSVP to: sksstc2022@gmail.com

Round 2: The second round will engage participants in Design Workshops around
the top three strategy approaches prioritized in Round 1. The goal of these
workshops is to create feasible action plans for moving these strategies forward.

Tuesday, May 16, 2023 (in person)
Thursday, May 18, 2023 (in person)
6-8 PM
Location: Traverse City Central High School Cafeteria

Monday, May 22 (Zoom virtual)
6-8 PM

Please RSVP to: sksstc2022@gmail.com

In addition, we will have a Youth Advisory Group with details to be announced.

○ How can we avoid school shootings in our community?
○ How can we ensure that all children, youth, and young adults feel safe, valued, and valuable?
○ How can we leverage the many assets in our community to foster a sense of belonging and safety?

Background

A group of concerned citizens spoke at the June 2022 Traverse City Area Public Schools
(TCAPS) Board meeting to ask, “Are we doing everything we can to protect our kids and
educators from school shootings? Their safety is a community responsibility. The best way
to support TCAPS, other area school districts, and our community was to form a grassroots
task force to become better informed about how to make our schools safer and bring
urgent focus to the issue. This group, the Safer Kids, Safer Schools Task Force (SKSS) was
formed in October 2022.

The 30 SKSS members represent a variety of ages, backgrounds, professions, and
perspectives ranging from students and educators, parents and grandparents, alumni,
business owners, community non-profits, law enforcement, counselors, and health
professionals. Now it is time to share the Task Force’s findings and get additional input
from the community. Please see the attached SKSS draft report.

Community Input Sessions are sponsored by the Safer Kids, Safer Schools Task Force and underwritten by Rotary Charities of Traverse City.