MADISON, Wis. – As back-to-school season returns in many Wisconsin households, Attorney General Josh Kaul reminds students, parents, and school administrators of the resources available through the Office of School Safety (OSS). Since 2018, OSS has developed crucial materials for educational communities that prevent school violence. “DOJ’s Office of School Safety works diligently to help keep our schools safe, and its services will be available throughout the 2024-25 school year,” said Attorney General Kaul. “We are committed to working to secure long-term funding for the Office of School Safety so it can continue helping to keep schools safe far beyond this school year.” One of these services, titled “Foundations of Targeted Violence Prevention” is an eLearning module made available to the public in 2023 by OSS in partnership with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Intelligence and Analysis, National Threat Evaluation and Reporting (NTER) Office. This eLearning course aims to educate the public on the prevention of acts of targeted violence. In these acts, rather than behaving impulsively, perpetrators undertake a process of planning and preparation. With this course, community members can determine how to identify the behaviors that occur in this planning stage, learn where to report concerning information, and understand how the information they report keeps Wisconsin communities safe. There is a national and state of Wisconsin version of this course, both developed based on research from federal homeland security partners. The Wisconsin version contains resources for reporting threatening or potentially concerning behavior specifically in Wisconsin. The national version can be found on the DHS website. These courses are available to anyone at any time, they are one of the ways in which OSS empowers individuals to participate in keeping their communities safe. Additionally, the Office of School Safety provides programs that are crucial for protecting educational staff and students. In 2020, OSS launched Speak Up, Speak Out (SUSO), a 24/7 statewide confidential reporting system free to all Wisconsin schools. It provides a single point of contact for reporting concerns before violence can occur. Learn more at speakup.widoj.gov. The Office of School Safety also offers a variety of free trainings concerning violence prevention, protection, mitigation, crisis response, and recovery. These include trainings for Behavioral Threat Assessment and Management (BTAM), Standard Response Protocol (SRP), and the Standard Reunification Method (SRM). OSS offers regional trainings to communities that request it. OSS also has twelve trained Critical Incident Response Teams (CIRTs) around the state. These teams provide all Wisconsin K-12 public, private, charter, and tribal schools access to a regional team to support them if crisis events occur. CIRTs are made up of multi-disciplinary volunteers including law enforcement officials, psychologists, social workers, nurses, and school administrators. They provide resources to help aid the recovery process for school communities impacted by critical incidents, including long-term mental health services for those who require them.
About Office of School Safety Funding
Earlier this year, Gov. Tony Evers signed Assembly Bill 1050 into law, which provides bridge funding for the Office of School Safety to continue its school safety initiatives in Wisconsin through September 2025. This bridge funding will allow the state to potentially provide stable funding for the OSS as part of the 2025-2027 biennial budget. While this bridge funding has allowed OSS to continue its success in keeping students and teachers safe, long-term funding is still needed.
