UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

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SAFE AND DRUG FREE SCHOOLS AND COMMUNITIES

ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING

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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 17, 2007

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The meeting was held in the Bernard Auditorium of 400 Maryland Avenue,
S.W., Washington, D.C., at 8:30 a.m., David Long, Chairman, presiding.

[PRESENT]{.underline}:

DAVID LONG, Chairman

DEBORAH PRICE

KIM DUDE

FREDERICK ELLIS

MIKE HERRMANN

RALPH HINGSON

MONTEAN JACKSON

RUSSELL JONES

SUSAN KEYS

TOMMY LEDBETTER

SETH NORMAN

DENNIS ROMERO

BELINDA SIMS

HOWELL WECHSLER

CATHERINE DAVIS, Executive Director and Designated Federal Officer

A-G-E-N-D-A

[PAGE]{.underline}

I. Opening Statement 3

II\. Public Comment 8

III\. Discussion of Advisory Committee 11

Members

IV\. Closing Comments 52

P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S

(8:46 a.m.)

CHAIRMAN LONG: Good morning, everyone. We will ‑‑ we have already had
one or two meetings, but we will go ahead and get started, if we could,
with the committee meeting.

How many of you, by the way, have airlines and ‑‑ where you would make a
change in Texas, anywhere in Texas? Anyone? Mike is not here, so just a
couple of us. Texas is pretty well shut down right now with the
airports. That\'s why I\'m asking that.

If you have ‑‑ so for those of you that live in the Washington area, if
Mike and I get hung up here for extended periods of time ‑‑

PARTICIPANT: I have extra bedrooms.

CHAIRMAN LONG: Okay. Okay.

(Laughter.)

PARTICIPANT: You can join me on my two-hour commute.

CHAIRMAN LONG: Okay. As we get started this morning, I would like to ask
a question. I\'ve talked with several members and I just talked with
Debbie, and I think that this would be the appropriate time to ask this.

Because of the timing of the budget, and the timing of reauthorization,
and the work of the Advisory Committee and the meetings and meeting
times, the question that I\'m asking is, putting all three of those
together ‑‑ those timelines ‑‑ as we get closer ‑‑ now here we are in
January, heading for a February meeting, and with the budget on the
table ‑‑ I mean, we all know how those work, budget on the table, many
of the reauthorization ideas on the table or maybe even black and white,
the question I\'m asking, Debbie, is how far along that process.

And then, keeping in mind what we\'re discussing here as a committee, is
the ‑‑ are those two things so far down the line that what we\'re saying
has no chance to get in? Or is the information and the things that
we\'re discussing still very pertinent to that timeline and of value to
that timeline?

MS. PRICE: Let me first say that the answer to I believe your first
question is ‑‑ is there value, basically, to what the committee is doing
regarding reauthorization and budget proposals that the Department has
been working on?

And I would say yes, clearly, you have had input, because that is why we
determined rather than doing just the report of the committee in June to
do the interim reports that bring forward the thoughts and thinking of
the Advisory Committee to those who are looking at issues of
reauthorization and the \'08 budget cycle.

And so in the two that we did, you all know one was on the state grants
program, which is a specifically large area both in ‑‑ that in No Child
Left Behind legislation and in the budget process. And then ‑‑ my mind
just totally drew a blank ‑‑ our second was on persistently dangerous,
because that is a big piece of it, unsafe school choice option, and ‑‑ I
have a bug flying around, I\'m sorry ‑‑ and, you know, those again are
pieces of the No Child Left Behind legislation that need to be looked
at.

And so your input on that clearly ‑‑ and school safety as a whole
clearly has been brought forward to the Secretary, she has your report.
You know, additionally, it is posted on the website. Anyone who wants to
look at it, including the Hill, if the Hill in thinking through
reauthorization wants to see your input, it\'s there. That was the
significance of those interim reports.

The President will be giving his State of the Union address on January
23rd. And that is, you know, a significant speech that gives a view for
the Federal Government, view from the past year, and then for the year
going forward. I don\'t know how ‑‑ I think the President ‑‑ and this is
my assumption, to tell you the truth, because State of the Union is held
very close to the chest.

But I\'m sure education will be mentioned and the significance of No
Child Left Behind reauthorization and moving forward with it. Whether he
gets into anything specific that would have to do with us specifically I
think would be ‑‑ I don\'t expect that. I think he\'ll mention No Child
Left Behind in the large, kind of big picture.

February 6th I believe, which is the first Tuesday in February, and I
may be a little off on the date, is the day when the \'08 budget
proposal goes forward. That, too ‑‑ those documents are held pretty
close to the chest, and we will see what we will see when that\'s
released.

In the middle, and this is not written in concrete, so ‑‑ but I\'m
giving you kind of the thought pattern here at the Department. The
Department would like to go forward with their proposal for
reauthorization, and it will be big principle approach rather than
getting into nuts and bolts about programs and funding and specifics in
that area. So it will give, you know, an overview, because the \'08
budget proposal will reflect some of that perspective in it, as my
understanding goes.

What I would like to do at that point is to set up a conference call, a
briefing, and have you all be briefed on what that is, what are the
inputs, have your opportunity to ask some questions and have some input.

Now, the meeting that we had yesterday on those three issues ‑‑ rural
and urban, non-profit ‑‑ I mean, non-public schools and trauma ‑‑ those
really get into more nuts and bolts levels. So the significance of
having an interim report on that is different than the other two
subjects, as would be our data issue ‑‑ gets more into the specifics of
‑‑ you know, of that.

So, you know, I don\'t see a reason for us to do another interim report
on either of these two subjects. I think we\'ll go forward in June. And
when we go forward in June, your voice about what you ‑‑ what this
committee sees as, you know, your understanding and your
recommendations, your advice, on these issues still will be part of that
process, because even if the President introduces ‑‑ the Secretary, I
should say, introduces the reauthorization proposals there is still a
lot of work that is done on that, and there will still be a lot of input
into that.

So, you know, it isn\'t like overnight, then they vote on it, and it\'s
passed or not passed. There is still thoughts, there is still process,
still need to hear from people, and your ‑‑ what you put in that report
in June will be heard and a part of that thinking process.

So hopefully that is helpful and ‑‑

CHAIRMAN LONG: What I was asking, without restating it, is that as a
committee are we still in sync with the timelines, or are we behind the
wave of the curve?

MS. PRICE: No. I think we\'re still in ‑‑ I think we moved ‑‑ we
addressed the timeline issue as we determined to do those interim
reports. And as I said, even the continued work of this committee, this
Advisory Committee, as ‑‑ once the reauthorization proposal goes
forward, still it\'s of value to have the insight and understanding of
this Advisory Committee in looking at that, because that\'s the
beginning of the reauthorization process. It\'s not the end result.

And your insight and input will be of value on multiple levels. Will it
be of value in just writing that reauthorization proposal? You know,
it\'s after, but you certainly have been valuable to date, and you will
continue to be. So if ‑‑ is that helpful?

And when we get a good understanding of that ‑‑ the date of the
reauthorization announcement and the budget, we\'ll work to get a
conference call set up, so that we can brief you all and answer your
questions.

MR. MODZELESKI: Dave, if I could just add to what Debbie is saying, and
she is 100 percent on. Just for ‑‑ to try to not clarify but to add to
what she is saying.

This is being done at several levels, what I call the macro level, and
that\'s what you\'re going to see February 8th or whenever it is, is a
macro level. And so I would say that the paint on that is ‑‑ if it\'s
not dry, it\'s almost dry. In other words, that\'s ready to go forward.
And as Debbie mentioned is that ‑‑ a decision has been made to tie
fiscal year \'08 budget policy to reauthorization.

So what you will see is in parallel a fiscal year \'08 budget proposal
request, whether it\'s for the Safe and Drug Free Schools, Title I,
whatever it is, which fits the request for reauthorization. So both of
them, too, will go in tandem, and they are not going to be ‑‑ you know,
they won\'t be one is here and one is there.

Now, that presents some problems as it gets to Congress, because
Congress has the option of ignoring everything and not doing hearings
for a year or two years and just extending, and then we\'ll have ‑‑
they\'ll have to deal with the reauthorization bill. So that\'s where we
are.

There is ‑‑ I think what you will see in early February, again, are
decisions at the macro level. For example, a decision regarding, you
know, what happens, where ‑‑ what shape or form does the state grants
program take? Generally speaking, without getting into the detail about
how do we deal with the non-public schools in the state grants program?
How do we deal with the data in the state grants program? How do we deal
with a whole lot of other things?

So none of that will be discussed, but what will be discussed is a
general ‑‑ I say general mix with some specificity, but nevertheless a
general direction of where the administration wants to take the program.
And as everybody knows, that\'s the first step, because then in the
legislative process both houses will have a shot at saying where they
want to take the program at the end of six months, a year, two years,
whatever the case may be, is we\'ll end up someplace.

And I think that if you look at this historically, and going back ‑‑
actually, this is the 20th year that we have been doing this for Title
IV, different titles ‑‑ one of the things I\'ve discovered in 20 years
is that regardless of where an administration starts ‑‑ Democratic,
Republican, this one, one 20 years ago ‑‑ it\'s going to end up in
someplace different as it goes through that sausage-making process.

I have never seen a bill start ‑‑ that can from any administration end
up exactly the same as it came out the other end. So that\'s in many
ways good news, because what happens is that there\'s other bites at the
apple, so to speak, as the process unfolds.

MS. PRICE: And this is just a fun exercise, but to highlight what Bill
said, if you look at last year, the Hill worked considerably on the
higher ed reauthorization proposal. If you just go in, you know, go to
the Library of Congress, pull up Thomas, you know, do a search for that
bill, and look at the difference from when it was introduced, and look
at the legislative history and the multiple numbers of amendments and
edits and, you know, tweaking that went on with that at the end, and
it\'s ‑‑ you know, there is a sense in which it is very similar to the
beginning but lots and lots of changes in the process.

So, you know, the legislative process is not a neat, tidy little
one-time shot, so ‑‑ and I do want to reiterate, even if the
reauthorization proposal is introduced tomorrow, which it won\'t be, but
your input in these next few months is significant, and your voice is
part of that process and to be considered as we move forward, you know,
working within those proposals. So ‑‑

CHAIRMAN LONG: Mike?

MR. HERRMANN: What will happen with the report that is generated in
June?

MS. PRICE: It goes to the Secretary. That is traditionally what happens
to an Advisory Committee report. It goes to the Secretary. They may ‑‑
some reports get distributed to, you know, a few entities of interest.
Others ‑‑ there is notification or acknowledgement that it has been
received and it is posted on the website for people to review and pull
up.

And it will certainly be posted on the website. There will certainly be
acknowledgement of it. What other level of public relation, that\'s
handled at a different office. But it will be a public document
available to anyone to review, including Congress, and here at ‑‑ you
know, within the Department it will be a work ‑‑ if that answers ‑‑

MR. HERRMANN: Thank you.

CHAIRMAN LONG: Yes, Russell?

MR. JONES: Yes. Two questions. One, just a history of the advisory
group. It was asked by whom to ‑‑ for the group to come about. And then,
secondly, to what extent has our input, our critiques, etcetera,
fostered/enhanced the likelihood of this being reauthorized?

MS. PRICE: The history of the Advisory Committee, it is a part of No
Child Left Behind legislation that identifies the Advisory Committee.
And as you all know, it took a while to be implemented because of
changes in Secretaries and whatever.

But it was implemented in ‑‑ I forget ‑‑ signed off, but it was at the
beginning of last year, in the early part of last year. Then, we did the
search for Advisory Committee members, you all were confirmed, and we
had our first meeting in June or July. And so it is in this statute, it
identifies it, and spells out some details of kind of what entities
should be on it, which is why we have our federal members, and kind of
the focus of who those non-federal members should represent.

MR. JONES: Yes. And again ‑‑

MR. MODZELESKI: Could I just add to that, because I think it\'s a good
example of what I said earlier about the legislative-making process,
because the Advisory Committee was not part of the original No Child
Left Behind legislation. So this is one of those things, if you go back
and look at the legislative proposals for NCLB, there was no Advisory
Committee for Title IV. So that came about as part of that
legislative-making process.

MR. JONES: And the impetus ‑‑ was it Congress that asked for the
Advisory ‑‑

MS. PRICE: Yes.

MR. JONES: Okay. Just ‑‑

MS. PRICE: And an advisory committee, in general, can be called upon by
Congress, can, say, have an advisory committee. We ‑‑ earlier I said on
the opportunities in athletics that looked like issues ‑‑ looked at
issues of Title IX. That was the Secretary\'s ‑‑ we called it a
commission, different terms for basically the same thing. That was at
the Secretary\'s initiative.

It can also be ‑‑ the President can say, \"I want to know more about
this. Have an Advisory Committee.\" So, you know, different entities can
initiate or, you know, request the Advisory Committee. So it isn\'t just
from Congress that they occur.

CHAIRMAN LONG: Thank you for that.

Now, if we could ‑‑ before I go on, are there any other comments or
questions? I don\'t want to ‑‑ okay. Thank you very much. Thank you,
Debbie.

If we could now move on to the public comment section, are there those
in the audience that wish to offer up public comment? If so, would you
please come forward, so that we ‑‑ this is being taped ‑‑ so that we can
get it recorded. And if you would give your name and where you are from
and the subject in the discussion.

Thank you.

MS. MANDLAWITZ: Thank you. I appreciate this opportunity. My name is
Myrna Mandlawitz, and I\'m an education consultant here in D.C. I
represent a number of groups that are very interested in the Advisory
Committee\'s work, but today I\'d like to concentrate on just one, and
I\'ll tell you at the end some of the other groups that I represent.

One of the groups that is actually just getting organized officially is
a group called the National Consortium of School Violence Prevention
Researchers and Practitioners. I can\'t imagine what the short version
of that is, but that\'s the long version.

This is a group of folks that got together officially after the series
of incidents that prompted the White House school safety conference last
fall. And the group that coalesced is a group, just as the name
indicates, who are school violence researchers and practitioners. Mostly
they are university faculty and researchers, schools of education,
schools of social work, and schools of psychology.

And their first activity was to issue a statement in response to all of
the unfortunate incidents that happened last fall, and they sent this
out and ‑‑ to a number of places, and it was signed onto by a very long
list of professionals, and I\'ve provided that to the ‑‑ I don\'t know
your title, so I don\'t know what to call you there ‑‑ to the staff,
excuse me, and also to a number of national organizations that signed
on, including groups like the American Psychological Association, the
National Association of School Psychologists, the School Social Work
Association, the National Association of School Social Workers, and
other groups such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American
Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatrists, the National Mental
Health Association, the National Secondary School Principals
Association, and a vast array of groups that are very interested and
very concerned about the situation in schools.

One thing I will mention is that the folks that are looking at these
issues are also interested, although they have called themselves ‑‑ and
I ‑‑ if they had asked my opinion, I would have asked them to change
their name from School Violence Prevention to School Safety
Practitioners. I\'m very concerned also about looking at positive
behavioral supports in schools and changing the school climate.

A lot of these folks originated I guess out of special education, and it
has bubbled up to the top now, and understanding that we are not just
looking at kids with labels of emotional and behavioral disorders, but a
general climate that ‑‑ where kids do not feel safe in schools.

And so these folks are looking at the ‑‑ doing the research and trying
to develop some recommendations, and I think that your Advisory
Committee ‑‑ and I know some of you obviously are involved in this as
well, and maybe even perhaps have signed on to this statement.

I\'m not going to spend a lot of time going into the statement. A lot of
the things that were mentioned actually yesterday in the panel that I
heard on non-public schools, one thing in particular about connectedness
and ensuring that students feel like they belong to a school community
is something that these practitioners are very interested in focusing
on, and looking at ways that we can develop better programs in schools
to enhance that feeling of connectedness.

I would just mention also that in addition to this group, I also
represent the School Social Work Association, which is a signer of this
statement, and the Council for Children with Behavioral Disorders, which
is a division of the Council for Exceptional Children.

Those folks, again, are faculty members in schools of education who are
training educators to work with children with emotional and behavioral
concerns, disorders, and so we have a wealth of experience in the groups
that I represent. And they would ‑‑ they asked me to let you know that
if they can in any way assist in your efforts, they would be very happy
to do so. I left my contact information and copies of the statement.

So, again, I appreciate the opportunity to be here with you today.

CHAIRMAN LONG: Thank you for your comments.

Is there anyone else in the audience that wishes to make public comment?

MR. MORRISON: Hello. My name is Robert Morrison. I am Director of Policy
at the National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors.
Thank you for the public comment period.

Our association represents the 56 state and territorial drug abuse
directors. Our folks manage the publicly-funded substance abuse
treatment and prevention system. We also have a subsidiary organization,
the National Prevention Network, which are the chief prevention folks
around the country.

We just wanted to make sure we said hello, that this program is
important to the state substance abuse prevention directors across the
country, and particularly the state grants portion.

And combined with the substance abuse prevention and treatment block
grant, which includes a required 20 percent set-aside for prevention,
these funds are vital to keep our youth drug free.

As an association, we\'re interested in working with the Council,
administration, Congress, and others, as the No Child Left Behind
reauthorization bill moves forward. In particular, we are interested in
increased partnership at the federal, state, and local level to ensure
continued collaboration, accountability, and effectiveness.

We also believe this partnership will help with data reporting and
improvement efforts that we have undertaken already in association with
the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

And, in particular, the Center for Substance Abuse and Prevention, we
want to acknowledge the work of Dennis Romero, the leadership of CSAP, a
valued partner, and he has taken a lot of time to work with us on
National Prevention Network, and the association in general, to ensure
that we\'re collaborating at the national level, and it\'s showing
across the country.

We just look forward to thinking through ideas, and our goal is to
provide comments to the Council and others as we think through
reauthorization. And we appreciate you allowing for us to provide some
comments here today.

Thank you.

CHAIRMAN LONG: Thank you for your comments, Robert.

Is there anyone else in the audience that wishes to offer public
comment?

(No response.)

If not, we\'ll consider the public comment section closed, and we\'ll
move on to ‑‑

MR. JONES: May I ask just a quick question? Is there a ‑‑

CHAIRMAN LONG: As a member of the committee or the public now, Russell?
No, I\'m sorry.

MR. JONES: No, the committee.

(Laughter.)

CHAIRMAN LONG: I\'m sorry.

MR. JONES: The committee.

CHAIRMAN LONG: I love giving you a bad time.

(Laughter.)

I hope you understand that.

MR. JONES: I\'ve noticed that. Is there a mechanism whereby the Advisory
Committee can embrace and take advantage of the expertise of the various
groups that are represented here to help us in our getting the train
down the track so to speak? And we\'re talking about thinking and
expertise of the American Psychological Association, NIMH, and any
number of groups. But is there a mechanism whereby we can take advantage
of those designs being ‑‑

CHAIRMAN LONG: That\'s a good comment. Let me address that, and then if
Debbie wishes, of course, to follow in. That\'s what I think we have the
advisory committees, and that is the expertise that we have around this
table representing all of the different entities and organizations
across the United States, knowing that we can\'t encompass all of those,
that we can then draw on information from these, but we represent and
many of us sitting here belong to many of the associations that were
just mentioned by these two people that offered up public comment.

So to answer your question, I would ‑‑ my answer would be that the
Advisory Committee would handle it as a committee. And then, if members
wish to draw upon them, to come back to the Advisory Committee to offer
up suggestions, that\'s how I think the process would work.

MS. PRICE: And also, another ‑‑ I mean, that\'s certainly true, and in
addition, you know, we have requested input from ‑‑ you know, because we
have our panelists here, and there are a limited number of panelists,
and I\'m sure that there are, just like in public comment, that there
are other people that would have input or insight into issues we\'re
looking at.

And we have asked in each of the Federal Register announcements, and
just let it be known, that anyone who wants to make comments, including,
you know, those folks that were represented here today, and the
different levels, can provide ‑‑ can send information which we will then
send to all the Advisory Committee members.

Now, in your own personal jobs that you have outside of the committee,
you may have connections in working and discussions and all of that
with, you know, a variety of organizations. But, you know, we do
encourage anyone who has insight and information to, you know, send us
the document, preferably by e-mail, and we can then forward it on to all
of you, or by hard copy, and we\'ll mail them out.

But, you know, we will distribute all of that information received to
the Advisory Committee members.

MR. JONES: So, then, it\'s incumbent upon these folks to send in
information ‑‑

MS. PRICE: Yes, we\'ve ‑‑

MR. JONES: ‑‑ recommendations, etcetera.

MS. PRICE: ‑‑ offered the invitation to anyone that ‑‑

MR. JONES: I see.

MS. PRICE: ‑‑ would like ‑‑

MR. JONES: I see.

MS. PRICE: And it doesn\'t necessarily need to be an association. It can
be a mom of somebody in school.

MR. JONES: Yes, sure. Exactly.

MS. PRICE: It can be, you know, whoever, any individual that would like
to send information for this Advisory Committee to read and review and
have insight into to do so.

MR. JONES: Okay, great. And so once that information is sent, for
example, by a group or an individual, does that information then come to
us?

MS. PRICE: It would come to you.

MR. JONES: Or is it then screened, or what? It comes to us and ‑‑

MS. PRICE: No, it would ‑‑

MR. JONES: ‑‑ then we ‑‑

MS. PRICE: ‑‑ it would get sent to you all.

MR. JONES: I see.

MS. PRICE: Yes. And I should tell you, be glad you\'re not on the
previous commission I was on, the one on Title IX, because we basically
sent a packet about so thick weekly, because we received so much from
the outside. Hopefully, people will use e-mail.

In the Federal Register notice, we do have a specific e-mail address for
the Advisory Committee, so it\'s easy to get to.

MR. JONES: Yes. The only reason I raised that ‑‑ in the time of
shrinking budgets, you know, when we have these kind of forced
multipliers that are interested ‑‑

MS. PRICE: Sure.

MR. JONES: ‑‑ in helping us move a number of very good initiatives, I
just think we should take advantage of it.

MS. PRICE: I think that\'s right. I think that\'s right.

CHAIRMAN LONG: I can recall we had someone that offered up public
comment, either at the last meeting or the one previous to that. If I do
remember correctly, she was a parent from the Washington, D.C. area, and
either handed out information or gave Catherine something and then it
was sent to us ‑‑ I don\'t recall which ‑‑ but to illustrate Debbie\'s
point, yes.

Now, if we could, then, move into the areas of discussion for the
committee, as Debbie indicated, we won\'t be compiling an interim report
based on the three panels from yesterday. However, there are some
inherent strands that would be important that could hang on to the three
areas that we\'re discussing.

So if we could go through each one of those to glean ideas and
suggestions. Bill is anxiously waiting over there with pen in hand to
get this down. So if we could take them in order.

And, again, to codify what I\'m talking about, just take ‑‑ like the
first one is going to be non-public schools, the one or two or three
ideas that you want to glean from that to hang on the strands of the
three large areas that we\'re putting forward. So, first of all, the
non-public. We\'ll go, of course, right in order ‑‑ non-public, and then
the trauma, to the trauma panel, and then the last one which was on
rural and urban schools.

So, first of all, non-public. Any ‑‑ yes, Susan?

MS. KEYS: I jotted a couple of things that I thought came across as
recommendations from the panel. It seemed that the application of the
consultation requirement is possibly uneven, and it seemed that maybe
one of the recommendations would be greater clarification in an
application, request for applications, about that requirement, as well
as clear guidelines for how that response to the grantee applicant is
going to satisfy that requirement, that there be clear guidelines for
the reviewers on what the requirements are that they need to meet.

I don\'t know if I\'m saying that clear enough, but sort of a two-prong
thing.

And then, the other thing that our panelists from the archdiocese
suggested that I thought was a good idea was some type of short,
informative policy implementation brief that could be an information
tool for the Department out to communities that may need to be better
informed at the local level about what they should expect from a local
education agency relative to what their rights are.

So those were a couple of things that I thought kind of cut across the
comments.

Thank you.

CHAIRMAN LONG: Other comments? Ideas that were heard from the first
panel? Non-public.

MR. JONES: Yes, I had that down also. I think that\'s very important.
And I was wondering if there is ‑‑ I mean, there seems to be a tension
with those groups in terms of being left out, in terms of the funding
process. And I don\'t know if there is any way to communicate to those
folks that. I don\'t know if it wasn\'t intentional or we still take you
very seriously or whatever, but just some wordage that might, you know,
lessen some of the maybe angst felt by these groups or representatives
of these groups.

They also talk about ‑‑ I thought it was interesting ‑‑ the narrowly
defined mission of learning, of No Child Left Behind. I think what the
individual was trying to get across is that there\'s more to it than
teaching the reading, the writing, and the arithmetic. But taking into
account this whole sense of needing to belong, children and families
needing to belong, needing to be a part of the system.

The terms that we used were cohesiveness and connection, and we know
that those are great protective factors against trauma and any number of
insults that children and families might experience. But if there is
some way to kind of integrate that thinking into our process, I think
that could be quite beneficial.

CHAIRMAN LONG: Other comments? Fred?

MR. ELLIS: Just real quick. I think she summarized the main issues very
well. My sense was that there was ‑‑ there are suitable requirements
already in place in terms of assessments being done, the consultation
process, the sharing of funding and services.

My sense from the ‑‑ I think it was Ms. Dowling, when she did her
briefing, was, wow, there\'s a lot of stuff already there. It just ‑‑
there\'s a disconnect between what is there in writing and reality of
implementation. And I think you summarized the salient points very well.

CHAIRMAN LONG: Susan?

MS. KEYS: There was just one other point that also got mentioned
relative to this, you know, concern about some type of large-scale
traumatic event, and, you know, a real plea for help on that. And I
thought that the suggestion of convening regional interdepartmental
summits to help schools prepare was a good one.

And the thought that it needed to not just be something that the
Department of Education did but that they did that through a partnership
with other federal departments that would be impacted and have some
responsibility for helping schools. So ‑‑

CHAIRMAN LONG: Belinda?

MS. SIMS: Okay. The other thing that was mentioned by one of the
panelists yesterday was filling that ‑‑ the non-public school
perspective was not included in the needs assessment, and that was a
very big gap, because how ‑‑ why would they, you know, agree to
participate in some of the state grants programming, for example, if
they didn\'t really think that those needs were the needs of their
students.

But I\'m sure that if they were included more in the process they would
realize that they have similar needs, but also that the positive aspects
of some of the other parts of the Safe and Drug Free Schools Program,
not just the school safety piece of it, would also be relevant to what
they do.

MR. HERRMANN: One last comment. I think it\'s important in terms of
communicating with private schools that you also back up the folks that
are having to implement at the local level, so that they understand that
they not only have rights but also responsibilities in terms of, you
know, participating in the needs assessment process and responding to
the District in a timely manner, and those sorts of things, because
it\'s kind of a two-way street there.

MS. KEYS: Sure.

MS. PRICE: And I do want to just reinforce or reaffirm the Office for
Non-Public Education here at the Department, because they really do try
to work very, very closely with those associations and entities,
because, you know, the real communication vehicle are the associations,
because there are so many ‑‑ such a large variety of non-public schools
that it\'s hard to be able to kind of know how to communicate with all
of them, because there are some that are as small as, you know, a small
church school that is independent and others.

And there are a lot of associations, and we do try to communicate with
them. Clearly, we can always do a better job, so I\'m not saying that
they\'re doing a perfect job. But I also ‑‑ just because ‑‑ from the
perspective of, as we go forward with the report, kind of understanding
what the ‑‑ this office is currently doing, so that we can ‑‑ can make
it better.

You know, Susan mentioned the regional meetings. Now, from the
Department of Homeland Security and HHS, they have partnered to go to
every state talking about emergency crisis, particularly pandemic, and
bringing in all levels of entities within that state.

So public schools, private schools, from our perspective, at all kinds
of other levels, and have some input there of drawing in those
communities, because as we\'ve talked a lot communities are the big
deal. More than an individual school, you want the community to have a
good understanding.

And there are those things, and also from within our office, you know,
we work very closely with the Office of Non-Public Schools to provide
the information for what grants we have available, and those processes,
so they make that information clear. And I don\'t think they just do it
for our office. I think they do it for most of the offices.

But to make, you know, that information available to them, so that they
can look and see, you know, what\'s going on and what\'s the
involvement, and ask their LEA, \"Are you applying for this grant?\"
because, you know, we would like to be part of it, or whatever.

We also, particularly on emergency crisis, you know, we have our
emergency crisis grant that you all know, and a piece of that grant is
setting aside some dollars for training and technical assistance. And
generally that is given to the grantees; that\'s traditional for any
grant.

But in our grant, we had two trainings last year. And two may not sound
like a lot, but it\'s a whole lot more than zero. And two trainings in
which we had 42 states represented for non-grantees, and in that
non-grantee pool there are many representatives of non-public schools.
And I do think those kind of tools are really very helpful.

Bill was the one who organized that. He can talk to you more about that.
But, you know, I think that there are some creative ideas. I think that
we\'ve been doing some things. I think we can always be better at
communication, and, you know ‑‑ and trying to reach out.

Sometimes I will say there\'s a frustration that there\'s ‑‑ you know,
LEAs will reach out to the non-private schools, and they\'ll say,
\"We\'re not interested.\" And that\'s ‑‑ you know, that\'s, in a sense,
almost disappointing, because there is a community of students out there
that need to be ‑‑ have some ‑‑ you know, receive some benefit from
that.

MR. MODZELESKI: I think that Mike is right. This is a two-way street.
And I think that as we look at it ‑‑ first of all, this is a historical
problem. This just didn\'t start yesterday. This is something that
we\'ve been battling with for years and years and years, and there has
been some shifting legal issues here also.

But there is a couple of things going on. One is that there are
responsibilities that the non-publics have that all ‑‑ that quite often
they don\'t realize their responsibilities. Two is that non-publics
comprise everything from a large parochial school of 1,000, 2,000 kids
in a high school down to a church school of 20 or 30 people. And
there\'s a growing number of those around.

So the responsibility for the LEA is to the large schools as well as to
the small schools, and it becomes exceedingly difficult, I\'m sure that
Mike will tell you, in an area where you have less and less dollars, and
this gets to not only dollars for programs but dollars for staffing, I
mean, the administrative side.

So if you have a quarter-time person and an LEA working on these issues,
and now say to that person, \"You also have the responsibility for going
out and identifying the non-public school students and giving them their
\$4 per person,\" or at least ‑‑ not giving them \$4, but giving the
services for \$4, it becomes exceedingly difficult.

So there is that tension that exists. We\'ve been trying to work through
the tension, but it\'s not easy.

MR. HERRMANN: And I think, you know, the U.S. Department has really made
a concerted effort to push on this. We were monitored this year and
private school participation was one of the key issues that was
addressed. We participated in numerous conference calls and, you know,
various training events around this, so, you know, I certainly think
it\'s an issue that has been in the forefront.

MR. ROMERO: Thank you. Debbie, just to comment on what you\'ve said, and
I think you\'re right on target there, but I kind of felt that I think
it was the archdiocese in yesterday\'s panel ‑‑ panelist who actually
gave us an example of where we could really be ‑‑ there could really be
a better line of communication and ways to really improve an already,
you know ‑‑ an already good system.

He used the example of how they ‑‑ how the parochial or Catholic schools
in this case really follow the lead of the public school systems with
regards to closings and stuff like that.

But he gave an example of how there needs to be more communication and
more collaboration, and the example that I believe he used was the ‑‑ in
the area of school safety and crisis planning, how the ‑‑ that there\'s
a separate and distinct nature in the school system security offices and
the Title IV offices.

And if that could be of more ‑‑ there could be more synergy and
cooperation that that would ‑‑ I think may lend for better and fruitful
communications between these two very distinct systems as well.

CHAIRMAN LONG: Okay. I think we\'re starting to hear some common strands
as we move on to the second panel, but that it be a two-way, inclusive,
continue to communicate, and the really good work that\'s going on. I
don\'t think that we gleaned from this panel that we need to remake the
wheel, and that\'s what we\'re hearing around this table.

By the way, during that particular just ‑‑ collaboration during that
panel was mentioned 17 times. And that\'s one recommendation that you
heard me, as I talked to the panel, that I think some of this might be a
little regional. Might be, not sure. And that ‑‑ go back to that two-way
street and two-way collaboration, and then I think ‑‑ but it is an
important issue. We are paying attention to it. But as we all said, I
don\'t think we have to ‑‑ on this one have to remake the wheel.

That second panel was on trauma, and if we could have the same thoughts
regarding the trauma panel. If no one is going to raise ‑‑ Russell, I\'d
like to call on you.

(Laughter.)

MR. JONES: How kind of you.

(Laughter.)

Well, I thought that ‑‑ you know, I think what I heard from the group
was just the impact of trauma, and that trauma hurts, and that it\'s one
of the factors that we\'re convinced prevents children from learning.
And the need for, first of all, recognizing that it is, indeed ‑‑
continuing to recognize that it is indeed a problem, and then taking the
steps to provide screening, assessment, and intervention, I think are
very good recommendations and steps that need to be taken.

And understanding that much of that has ‑‑ you know, there has been
several attempts to do that, but, again, giving the increase of, you
know, not only technological instances of design ‑‑ domestic violence,
fires, floods ‑‑ fires, etcetera, but also the good likelihood of the
increase in natural disasters ‑‑ Katrina, flood, hurricanes, etcetera,
and what we know about global warming and the potential impact of that
whole phenomenon on the increase of those types of events ‑‑ again, the
greater need for systemic ‑‑ systematic efforts to become aware of
children\'s level of trauma, and, again, to assess it, to screen it,
assess it, and treat it, I think kind of capsulizes my thoughts.

CHAIRMAN LONG: Susan?

MS. KEYS: I\'d just add to what Russell said, because I specifically
asked a question about whether our focus needs to be solely on treatment
after an event, and they really ‑‑ all of them spoke to the importance
of also thinking from a prevention perspective and building resilience,
and that there are a lot of interventions and things that we can do that
we know are effective in building strong children that can be resilient
against traumatic events.

CHAIRMAN LONG: I\'m sorry. Mike and then Ralph.

MR. HERRMANN: I think, number one, I want to acknowledge the excellent
leadership that the U.S. Department of Ed has provided in this area,
because this is one of those things where, you know, we talk about
appropriate roles, I think it\'s really important for the U.S.
Department of Ed to be out on front on this, and I think they have been,
because the nature of these events are such that, you know, they don\'t
occur every day in every state, but something that is clearly national
in scope I think the Department has done an excellent job in terms of
not only identifying resources but particularly making those available.

I know from experience in Tennessee when we\'ve had ‑‑ we had a major
school shooting last year. We really appreciated the support that we got
from the Department, particularly the Project SERVE grants, which I
think are very important.

The thing that I think came up that was really important ‑‑ and Fred
talked about this ‑‑ being able to document how those events impacted
learning, and then being able to communicate that to policymakers is
something that I think could still use a little bit of work.

MR. HINGSON: I thought that Susan raised a good point during the
discussion yesterday about the need to think not only in terms of sort
of secondary prevention, which is in essence what their presentation was
about is helping people after they\'ve encountered some kind of injury
or untoward event, be it domestic violence or child abuse or external
natural disasters.

But she called on us to think a bit about primary prevention, and I
wanted to bring to the committee\'s attention a book that has just been
published. CDC has played a major role in this. It\'s a handbook of
injury and violence prevention, and they have a number of chapters that
deal with childhood injury, that deal with adolescent injury.

I wrote a chapter on alcohol and its relationship to injury. Injury is
the leading cause of death in the United States, ages one through 44.
And there are many good chapters in here ‑‑ suicide prevention, gun
prevention ‑‑ that I think would well be worth our paying attention to.

And it seems to me this may lead a bit into the discussions of some of
the upcoming meetings, but there are things that we can do in our data
systems that I think will enhance our ability to engage in effective
prevention strategies. One of them I\'m very interested, and I\'m sure
Dennis is also, in the Stop Act that was recently passed to try to
address the issue of underage drinking.

And one of the really interesting provisions in that law was that there
should be testing for all injuries for alcohol under the age of 21. In
the United States, in the past 20 years, alcohol-related traffic deaths
per population had been cut in half, and one of the reasons they have
been cut in half is that most fatally injured drivers are tested for
alcohol.

So we can compare states that pass certain laws that raise the drinking
age or lower legal blood alcohol limits or pass administrative license
revocation to states that don\'t. And we have developed literature about
what types of interventions work in those areas.

We don\'t have the same kind of routine testing for homicides, for
suicides, for falls, drownings, burns, and so on. And I think although
that particular bill provided ‑‑ it was like an unfunded mandate, it
nonetheless is a step in the right direction. I think that there should
be efforts to try and coordinate medical examiner offices.

I\'d say the most conservative estimates are that among people under the
age of 21 there probably are 4- to 5,000 alcohol-related injury deaths.
So if we were testing, we could ‑‑ I think we could learn a great deal.
We don\'t know, for example, whether raising the drinking age ‑‑ how
much impact that had on suicide or on homicide or other types of
assaults. The literature is much more mixed in that area than it is in
the traffic safety area.

Another thing in our data collection that I think would be very helpful
in helping us to understand the impact or what generates a lot of the
trauma that they were talking about ‑‑ in the college area, Henry
Wechsler at the Harvard School of Public Health I think really did
colleges a service with his National College Alcohol Survey, where he
included questions about second-hand effects of college drinking,
whether or not people had been assaulted during the year of the survey
by another drinking college student.

It turns out that there probably are something like close to 700,000
college students every year who are assaulted by another drinking
college student. Or whether or not they had experienced a date rape that
had been perpetrated by another drinking college student. Close to
100,000 of those.

What\'s important about those data and the data from the traffic
situation as well, about half of the people under 21 who die in crashes
involving drinking drivers are people other than the drinking driver.

What\'s important about documenting the second-hand effects of these
behaviors is that it really provides political leverage to make sure
that communities and the schools in those communities recognize that
they have an obligation to protect innocent people from the behaviors of
other people to begin with. And it also can help us to measure whether
or not we\'re making progress in those areas.

So I think that there are things that can be done to get a better handle
on the magnitude of the trauma that young people are facing as a result
of alcohol and other drug use, as well as one could include in these
surveys questions about experiencing violence at home, different types
of punishments.

Now, again, there are issues that need to be worked through in terms of
informed consent and the like, to make sure that these kinds of
questions are acceptable to parents, and that they\'re willing to have
their children be queried in these ways. But if the surveys are done
anonymously, and so on, I think it can be done and would really help to
better inform our efforts to prevent a lot of this trauma to begin with.

MR. ELLIS: The message I took away from yesterday\'s panel on trauma was
I think similar to some of the other kind of issues that come up, and it
always strikes me is that they have a really good grasp of the obvious,
that ‑‑ you know, Russell always talks about trauma hurting. Of course
it hurts. It hurts when your home is destroyed and you have to move, or
you\'re subject to domestic violence in your home, or, you know, those
examples of the violence in the neighborhoods.

It just strikes me as these shouldn\'t be surprises to folks dealing
with kids, that these issues that occur in their community, in their
lives, affect their ability to learn. So having said that, what I took
away from that was that that is in itself an important message and one
that teachers and educators and counselors and psychologists that work
with kids need to know about. They need to know about trauma and its
effects to make the appropriate referrals.

But I\'ve got tell you, I\'m not for screening all kids, doing
assessments of all kids. I just don\'t see it. I\'m not there.

But I think it is a legitimate issue that those folks that work with
kids need to understand, they need to understand how those issues affect
their behavior and their ability to learn, and all those things that we
hear about. But, again, hopefully ‑‑ I mean, I never did any research on
trauma before, but if you would have asked me, do these things affect
kids\' ability to learn, would be like, \"Well, of course they do.\"

So, again, a good grasp of the obvious and one that I would hope that
the folks in the education community would recognize.

MS. JACKSON: Well, Fred, you took some of my thunder away. Definitely
the training and education piece is very important, and we\'ve heard
multiple times during our work here about early identification and
working with children.

One of the other pieces that I didn\'t hear I wanted to add was the
historical trauma that some of our indigenous populations face, as well
as the environmental traumas that some of our children face in certain
communities across the nation.

So, again, with No Child Left Behind, we wanted ‑‑ again, and some of
the things I heard presented was listening to the demographics of some
of the areas that were covered yesterday, and the environmental trauma
that some of our students face coming into school, starting as early as
kindergarten, being able to recognize those signs and to possibly make
helpful referrals and intervention for services early on is important,
as well as I would hope that we would see some effective methodology or
strategies in working with the ‑‑ with any particular population with
regard to differential learning and differential teaching strategies.

So I just kind of wanted to throw that out there as well. Thank you.

MR. JONES: Yes. I guess ‑‑ well, a number of thoughts going through my
mind. But, Fred, you made the ‑‑ you said that it was obvious. And since
it\'s obvious, you seem to intuit that the problem is taken care of, and
I don\'t think that was a point that the panel was making.

It\'s obvious that individuals who drink are at greater risk of death.
It\'s obvious that individuals involved in fires are more likely to get
burned, etcetera. It\'s obvious, but then the consequence of that. And
how does one go about assessing the impact of that trauma on children,
and then going about and treating it in an effective way? I think that
was the communication, and I guess I\'m not clear at all on your
interpretation of what was said.

MR. MODZELESKI: Dave, if I could ‑‑ and I\'ve worked with Lisa and
Marleen and Steve for many, many years on this, and I think that there
is some broad-based agreements.

First of all, you know, to ‑‑ Fred\'s point is that kids are resilient.
And I think we all know that kids are resilient, and, therefore, their
effect and how they\'re affected by incidents of child abuse, violence,
accidents, whatever, it differs from kids to kids.

Some are going to bounce back immediately. Some are going to bounce back
in a month. Some are going to bounce back; some of them may not. I mean,
but it\'s a small percentage. I mean, one of the things that we\'re
struggling with as we begin to look at SERVE grants, we begin to look at
suicides, we begin to look at homicides, is, who do you treat? I mean,
and who is affected by the trauma?

And what we\'ve realized is that when you have a population, whether
it\'s the school population or community population, they\'re not all
affected the same way, and that you have variances of how they\'re
impacted by that trauma, and that there is indeed a percentage, albeit a
small percentage, who need some significant care.

A majority of kids, I mean, from our experience has been don\'t really
need a whole lot of follow-up. I mean, they will ‑‑ they may have one
session, they may have two sessions, and a lot of what we have seen is
that you could reduce trauma through good educational practices. I mean,
this gets back to education and good educational practices ‑‑ teachers
who relate to kids. I mean, this whole connection. I mean, we go back to
these connections. We go back to good leadership. We go back to making
kids feel valued and worthwhile.

The point that I ‑‑ that Lisa especially alluded to, which befuddles us
because on the one hand we\'re still, whether it\'s Project SERVE or
whatever it is, we want to adhere to the overall tenant and philosophy
of No Child Left Behind, that we use research-based practices.

But when we get into this area of trauma and trauma recovery, very much
as Lisa said there\'s five programs out there that have some
significance, some scientific basis or significance. As we go around the
country, we see many more than five being used.

I mean, so the struggle that we have is trying to figure out what is it
that works on kids, and going back, resorting to that old medical
philosophy, do no harm, because I\'m not so certain that we\'re out
there in some cases maybe doing some harm to kids by doing things that
we shouldn\'t be doing.

So that\'s the struggle that we have in the office is trying to figure
out what is it that we should actually be doing. And, you know, it\'s a
struggle between where Fred is, between where you are. I mean, who do we
treat and, you know, should we screen everybody? And I think that those
questions are really ‑‑ first of all, they\'re local decisions, they\'re
not up to us. I mean, they\'re very much local decisions.

And, secondly, even after we get beyond the local decisions, I\'m not
certain that science has led us down that road to make some very
definitive decisions on a lot of those things.

CHAIRMAN LONG: We\'re going to ‑‑ before we get ‑‑ the order is Belinda,
and then Kim, but if ‑‑ Fred, since you were involved, if you wish to
make a response first.

MR. ELLIS: Just real quick. Yes, Russell, it certainly wasn\'t my intent
to diminish the importance of the issue of trauma and the reality that
it does affect kids, nor to suggest that recognition is in itself
treatment. Of course it\'s not.

But my point is I\'ve heard several times now people suggesting that we
somehow screen or assess all children for every historical traumatic
event that they\'ve ever experienced. And, sorry, I reject that. I
absolutely, unequivocally reject that concept.

And I think Bill is right. You know, in terms of, you know, how do you
identify the kids that need it ‑‑ I mean, I think after ‑‑ after events,
you know, certainly there is worth in bringing those services about, and
I think the concept of trauma that the educators and the school
psychologists and the social workers need to be aware of that, need to
know how to do the treatment or how to refer them to people like you,
who will deal with those kids that are struggling with ‑‑ recovering
from trauma.

But I\'m just not there. I can\'t buy into the concept that every child
needs to have a screening at some point in their educational career for
their traumatic events that they\'ve had in their life. And I also,
again, would like to see more of the empirical evidence of the
treatment\'s abilities to ‑‑ you know, which programs work?

Like Bill said, which programs work? You know, show me the meat on that.
And I think that\'s where dollars should be spent. So those were my
points.

CHAIRMAN LONG: I\'d like to hear ‑‑ I don\'t want to put off the ‑‑ I
understand where you\'re coming from, Russell, but if we could also hear
from Belinda, and then I think Tommy, and then if ‑‑ so that we can have
some other interaction.

Thank you.

MS. SIMS: Well, I wanted to find out or make a recommendation. It seems
like one thing that would be useful from the panels we heard yesterday
and the panels we\'ve heard previously would be some fact sheets.

And maybe these things already exist, and maybe they need to be updated
or retooled, sort of based on some of the discussions we\'ve had as part
of this committee, but some fact sheets that would really serve the
purposes of educating the folks out there in the communities who are
trying to do this work on some of these key issues, but also to
integrate the information in a way that can be more useful, so that
it\'s not just silos of information ‑‑ school safety, mental health,
substance use ‑‑ but that we can really do these things to draw the
links across all of these areas, and keep them brief and include some
specific examples of things that work, either programs that work or
communities that seem to be doing a really good job of implementing
across multiple levels, that seem to really have a handle on how you
coordinate across all these different types of programs, to really get
the job done.

It seems like the report that we give back to the Secretary will be one
thing, but to actually have some tangible tools that could, you know,
help people who are out there really trying to do this work to sort of
understand how substance use, trauma, and, you know, academic
achievement go together. And prevention programs that might be able to
address those issues.

MS. DUDE: Well, one recommendation I have is it seems to me ‑‑ the thing
that bothered me the most yesterday was when Dr. Wong showed that
picture of ‑‑ in Los Angeles of how many unsolved murders were within,
you know, a certain distance from the schools. I was just so shocked by
that, and it made me realize, it also made me think of my own school
system, that students when they become most at risk, probably in middle
school, junior high, and high school, is when they\'re off ‑‑ they get
off of school at 3:00, and they either have to walk through this
neighborhood or they go home to an unsafe place and are there for
several hours before their parents come home.

And I would like to encourage that we have sufficient funding through
grants for after school programs, so that the schools are the safe place
‑‑ a place for them to get tutoring, a place for them to get support,
the connectedness that we\'re talking about. All of that ‑‑ all of those
things would be wonderful, but they can\'t happen unless there is some
funding to pay staff to be there to help make that happen.

And so I would like to encourage that kind of thing. I think it could
have an impact on underage drinking, it could have an impact on
violence, it could have an impact on learning, because they could get
the help that they need academically. It could create the connectedness,
the support. All of those things I think need to happen, but can\'t
happen without sufficient funding.

MR. LEDBETTER: I felt that ‑‑ I tried not to say anything about trauma.
I tried to not address it in any way. I wanted to just sit here and
listen, but it\'s very difficult for me to do that.

I think that, Russell, I understand where you\'re coming from. But I
think speaking from my perspective there is seldom that a year goes by
that I have a class that graduates from high school that hasn\'t
experienced a lot of trauma as a class.

Somewhere during that time from the time they enter high school to the
time they leave, they\'ve lost classmates. Some of them automobile
accidents, you know, some of them suicides, some of them other things,
you know.

I believe that I agree with Fred that educators in the field have to
deal with trauma all the time. It\'s part of the normal atmosphere of a
school. It\'s one of those things. But screening students, I\'m opposed
to that. I do not believe that that was the task of this committee. I
think that dealing with trauma is one of those things that affects
students\' achievement. You\'re right on the money; it does.

It affects their entire life. That\'s almost like a part of their life.
In some parts of the country, it\'s a bigger part of their life than it
is in other parts of their life, as illustrated by the Powerpoint
yesterday on Los Angeles.

I think that, you know, No Child Left Behind, if we like it or if we do
not like it makes no difference. But the schools cannot be everything
for everybody. They can\'t do it. At best we\'re walking a tightrope,
and we have to be very careful we don\'t fall off one way or the other.

As a local school administrator, I\'m being held accountable for student
test scores. Then, we bring trauma in, and I\'m having to deal with that
because that affects student test scores. How much time do you deal with
that before you go on with your primary mission, whatever the \"primary
mission\" is, okay?

I think that there is a bad misconception on the part of the public that
the schools are the cure all for all of today\'s ills, and I think that
we\'re doing a remarkable job of dealing with things. But I don\'t think
that screening students to determine what types of trauma are in their
life, and then us trying to deal with that along with everything else, I
think that\'s loading the camel down to the point that he can hardly
walk.

And, you know, I do believe that identifying the best practices, because
every school has to deal with trauma. And being able to identify the
best practices that are out there ‑‑ if the Department could do that,
and share that information with the LEAs and let it filter back down to
the schools, and so forth, I think that that would be very beneficial to
the daily operation of our schools. I think it would, because, you know,
every school has to deal with trauma.

But, you know, for us to try to take the place of the home, to try to
take the place of the medical profession, and so forth, and for us to be
out there and try to do all of those things, I think it\'s just more
than we can accomplish.

MR. JONES: Yes, but ‑‑ oh, am I next?

CHAIRMAN LONG: No.

MR. JONES: Oh, I\'m not.

CHAIRMAN LONG: Debbie, then Russell, then Susan.

MS. PRICE: Just a couple of comments. Referring back to Belinda,
following Katrina and Rita, and the work that the Department did going
down to help and, you know, provide ‑‑ Russell, you were part of that ‑‑
Bill and I worked to develop, with some experts in the field, a booklet
called Tips for Parents and Teachers ‑‑ and the exact title ‑‑ for
Children Responding to Trauma. And it is sort of a summary of those tips
that are pretty straightforward.

We, you know, ran it through different sources. We have references at
the back of associations and organizations that can be beneficial.
American Psychological Association and several of the ones that you
mentioned are in there. And while it is not the end-all for this, it is
a good tool.

And, you know, we\'ve tried to make that known to the general public and
the education community, but that really is a helpful document, and, as
people have said, should probably be read and looked at before anything
is occurring, so that, you know, you have this, you have this
understanding.

And, you know, from what we know, as Bill said, you know, children are
fairly resilient, need some care, but kind of get back, but then there
is that community of children that aren\'t as resilient and that go
through.

I will say to just reflect some thoughts about screening that weren\'t
given yesterday, but that we have to deal with, when I worked on the
Hill we had to deal with considerably, is there is a lot of parental
concern about screening.

Whether they were done properly or improperly parents feel like people
do screening, and then you tell me that this is wrong with my kid, and
my kid is not wrong, or because my kid, you know, had some experience
you\'re now telling me that they ‑‑ and whether it\'s in trauma or other
areas, we actually had some researchers wanting to do screening for
autism and saying, \"Well, we\'ll be the one who determines if the child
is autistic or not, and we\'ll tell the parent that you have an autistic
child.\"

That is terrifying to a parent, and so there needs to be that
understanding of that parental view in dealing with screening, and not,
you know, just offering that perspective.

And one thing ‑‑ you know, it was a common little phrase that we would
say now and then when we were kind of dealing with appropriations, and
everybody in the world would come and talk to you about programs and
stuff on the Hill and the value of it.

And most all of them had really significant value, were really good
things, under multiple perspectives. And we had to say, you know, a
government that gives you everything you want will cost you everything
you have.

And there is always the issue of trying to weigh the limited amount of
dollars with the programs and the focuses that you give. And, you know,
my mother uses the phrase \"rob Peter to pay Paul.\" It\'s not exactly
that, but, you know, something is going to be missing, some dollars,
because there is just conflicting priorities. One better than the other?
Not necessarily true, but one will get funded and one won\'t. That\'s
sort of the nature of the beast.

But I do think that just reflecting on what Bill said earlier, we do see
trauma as affecting students, and trying to work it out and trying to
determine best practices and trying to communicate that to the education
community I think is a real important role for the office.

CHAIRMAN LONG: Russell, Susan, Ralph.

MR. JONES: Well, a couple of things. One, I think there\'s a
misperception in terms ‑‑ I did not hear anyone saying that all kids
should be screened, and all kids should be assessed for trauma. I think
what folks are saying is that those children most at risk are those that
need to be screened and getting further evaluation.

And then, Tommy, you made the point of this is going to be the
responsibility of the schools. I did not hear anyone say that, and I\'m
certainly not advocating that. But what I\'ve said consistently is
gimbling, working with these other organizations ‑‑ psychology
departments, social services, mental health, etcetera, making sure that
those kind of referrals, once those at-risk children are screened, and
determine that in fact there is some level of negative outcome, those
individuals be referred to those groups where a systematic assessment at
that point and treatment then be carried out, because, again, those
children taking those exams are not going to do as well if, in fact,
there is trauma, there is undetected trauma, and there is untreated
trauma.

So I don\'t hear anyone saying that it\'s the responsibility of the
school. And I think that\'s one of the reasons that people have backed
off of that is because they feel that the school has to do the
screening, the assessment of that needs to be done, and the treatment,
and that\'s not the case at all.

MS. KEYS: Just a couple of points. I think it might be helpful if the
committee clarifies the definition of trauma. And our ‑‑ and I\'m a
little confused. Are we considering trauma as events that impact on a
large scale, such as a school shooting? Or are we considering trauma
that affects just an individual because of an individual\'s life
experience?

And maybe we\'re considering both, but I think the recommendations for
one versus the other might be different, although there could be some
crossover. So I ask for clarification on that.

The second point was I also did not hear the committee or the panelists
call for any type of universal screening. And what I heard that I
thought was important is that we educate people in schools to be able to
recognize the manifestations that could suggest someone has had trauma
in their lives, so that they can receive appropriate services.

So that the emphasis as far as the school is concerned is really helping
people, so that if they ‑‑ you see someone ‑‑ I mean, one of the
manifestations of depression in an adolescent male is acting out and
behavior disorders. So that you have some way of thinking about what
you\'re seeing other than responding purely punitively.

And the third thing that I think is critical, that this panel comes
through with a recommendation that the role of schools are changing, and
that their primary mission is education, but they can\'t do that job in
isolation from the resources available in the broader community, and
that the role of a school is to facilitate leading collaborations and
partnerships that can provide the broader support systems and structures
that students that are having difficulty learning because of emotional
or behavioral problems may need.

CHAIRMAN LONG: Ralph?

MR. HINGSON: In public health, we often make a distinction between
what\'s called screening and case finding. Screening, if one does
screening, particularly mandatory screening, there is an obligation to
have some sort of remedy or treatment available that can help people,
because you\'re making a promise to them that if they come in you\'re
going to identify something that you can help them with.

Different situation is case finding where if somebody comes to a
physician\'s office or to a counselor\'s office in a school setting, and
is exhibiting some behavioral difficulties, then the counselor or the
physician or the social worker has an obligation to try and do the best
workup they can to find out why is this person experiencing this
problem, and render the best services that they find are ‑‑ that they
think are available.

I happen to agree with the notion that mandatory screening at this point
would be premature. I think our panelists even said we don\'t have the
resources, even if we found all these people, to ‑‑ who are experiencing
this to help them out, and the numbers of studies that have been done
that show efficacy ‑‑ you know, experimental studies are ‑‑ there is
only a handful.

However, that\'s not to say that there aren\'t areas where the
literature is emerging. And one of the areas has to do with alcohol
problems. We have probably 15 experimental studies that have been done
in adolescent and college situations that show that if one does
screening and brief interventions for these types of problems that we
can reduce the problems.

Now, the issue is that, particularly in a college situation ‑‑ I know
that I\'m speaking a lot about that, because I\'m quite familiar with
it, that most college students who have alcohol use disorders don\'t
think they have a problem, and so they\'re not going to screening
programs, and there is not screening programs available.

Even the most successful college interventions have only reached about
less than half of the potentially at-risk students, and there are
barriers to this. In 28 states, there are laws on the books that allow
insurance companies to withhold reimbursement for treatment of injuries
that have occurred under the influence of alcohol.

So if you think about it, it\'s a terrible disincentive for providers.
There are eight million alcohol-related emergency department visits
every year in the United States. About a million and a half of them are
under the age of 21.

But providers are ‑‑ if they\'re not being paid for trying to find out,
why are these people washing up on their shores to begin with, they\'re
not going to look at it. So an important area of research, it seems to
me, is to find out ‑‑ there are a half a dozen states that have recently
repealed those laws. Are the proportions of people in emergency
department settings who are being screened, is that increasing, and are
there population level reductions?

There are some studies that are beginning in pediatric emergency
department settings to look at screening for people who have been ‑‑
young people who have been injured under the influence of alcohol. And I
think that as these studies come in, then the question about whether or
not screening should be mandatory in all emergency departments may
change.

A very interesting development in trauma centers is that research that
has been done about screening people for alcohol problems in trauma
centers, experimental studies providing brief interventions in those
settings, have such a profound impact in reducing subsequent injuries
that the accreditation bodies for trauma centers are now saying,
\"We\'re not going to accredit trauma centers unless they screen for
alcohol problems every person who comes in.\"

Over 40 percent of people who are treated in trauma centers in the
United States were injured under the influence of alcohol. So that\'s a
major huge development, and I think, you know, we should pay attention
to the research as it emerges. As it becomes stronger and stronger, then
the positions that we take may change over time.

But I happen to be in agreement right now that it would be premature to
do universal screening within the school settings ‑‑ I think in the
medical settings where we ought to be moving, and particularly in the
emergency department setting.

MR. MODZELESKI: Two things. I\'m going to pass out the booklet that
Debbie talked about ‑‑ Tips for Helping Students Recovering from
Traumatic Events. We happen to think it\'s a pretty good publication.

And it has been vetted through the Department, so if you want to know
where the Department is in helping kids, I think you can take a look at
this and say this is where we are. And I ‑‑ you know, again, take a look
at it and comment.

Let me just ‑‑ one final word on the screening. As a Department, we
don\'t have a position by saying requiring or not requiring. I will tell
you that there is a few very prominent organizations out there that are
pushing for universal screening in schools. And so I think that\'s where
the issue comes up is that you have one or two very prominent
organizations that after an incident has come they will visit a school,
they\'ll go to the school and say, \"We recommend universal screening
for everybody that\'s in your junior high school or high school.\"

And they\'ve been doing this now for several years, and what has
happened ‑‑ I think that Debbie mentioned this earlier ‑‑ is that
you\'re always going to have one percent, two percent, five percent of
somebody who disagrees with what is going on, and that they elevate this
and they raise this, and so we have significant disagreement about that.

But that group is still out there. They\'re still pushing for universal
screening. And, Russell, to your point is that I would argue is that
even though, if it\'s done in a school, it\'s viewed as the school\'s
responsibility. I mean, that\'s the bottom line. And so you could say,
\"Well, we\'ll do the screening at the school; that\'s where the kids
are.\" Then, we want the community to provide the services. It doesn\'t
work that way.

Once the school becomes involved, and once the school does the
screening, then the people view the school as the one who has the
responsibility. And what we\'ve seen, and we\'ve dealt with several of
these in regards to our SERVE grants, is that they have done screening,
whether the screenings are effective or have any science behind them or
the don\'t have science behind them, what they turn up is a number of
kids who need services, and then you\'re back to where Ralph said ‑‑
okay, you have a need, but there\'s no services, I mean, because we
don\'t provide the dollars for services.

So it\'s thinking backwards and sort of saying is ‑‑ a) how do we
identify those kids who truly have some needs for services, whether
it\'s trauma or whatever it is, those kids who need services. Two is,
once we identify them, where are those dollars going to come from?

And my colleague sitting to my left has just informed me that she is
going to go back to SAMHSA and ask for another \$100 million for Safe
Schools/Healthy Students. So we can provide mental health service.

PARTICIPANT: That\'s great.

MR. MODZELESKI: Thank you, Susan.

MS. KEYS: And Dennis is going to partner with ‑‑

PARTICIPANT: And Dennis is going to partner.

PARTICIPANT: That\'s even better.

(Laughter.)

MS. DUDE: Well, I\'m sitting here thinking that I know that most of ‑‑
that my understanding is that most schools are either required or
encouraged to do some sort of survey of their students every other year
or something like that. I know in Missouri that public schools have a
survey about every other year, and maybe that\'s not from the U.S.
Department of Education, maybe that\'s from just the State of Missouri.

But it would seem like it would be interesting, because several meetings
ago we were talking about students\' usage patterns and all of that from
alcohol and drug point of view. It seems like there could be some
questions on a survey that would just ask students questions about
trauma but in a very basic like do you ‑‑ or just do you feel safe in
this school?

Do you feel a connection to the school along with alcohol and drug usage
patterns that could then inform the school administration and the
counselors and ultimately, then, the teachers on what are the areas we
need ‑‑ you know, kind of like a needs assessment. What are the areas we
need to address?

And, you know, those responses are going to be different depending on if
it\'s in the middle of Nebraska or in intercity Los Angeles. But what
that will tell us, then, is what kind of interventions may be a good
idea to do.

And one of the panel members yesterday also made reference to social
norming, and I\'ve actually talked about that in here before, but any
sort of survey could also ask students questions about what they think
of other people who partake in particular behavior.

And so you can use more of an injunctive norm kind of thing, and do a
good educational media campaign on, this is the number of students who
feel safe in this school, this is the number of students who can
identify with this school, feel pride to this school, who have friends
in this school, or this is the number of students who think that ‑‑ that
don\'t think it\'s cool to drink or don\'t think it\'s cool to smoke.

And so I\'m just in favor of finding out data, not a screening, but
finding out general information to kind of give you a picture of the
climate of your school and the behaviors of your students, and then you
turn around and use that information to either guide your trainings or
to guide your prevention efforts or to guide a media campaign that could
promote positive behavior.

MS. JACKSON: As a matter of fact, that is part of the grant ‑‑ state
grants application. That\'s YRBS and climate surveys, and it asks for
other tools that use ‑‑ besides discipline data in making your decision
about the programs that you are implementing.

And then, something I heard yesterday and that has been spoken about
several times at our face-to-face meetings, one of the affected programs
that is in place at many of our LEAs is the student assistance program.
So that\'s a great ‑‑ also referral component to many of our LEAs for
students that exhibit certain behavior problems, substance use issues,
other types of discipline problems, violence, etcetera, and those
individuals, in fact, work with students and then refer external.

And also, track data with regard to where the referrals are coming from,
the types of referrals, and all kinds of other issues that are going on.
And there is a National Student Assistance Program Association, and I
don\'t know ‑‑ I think we had the president of the National Student
Assistance Program at one of our meetings.

I don\'t think that person had an opportunity to speak about the
organization and the data collection that is being maintained by the
organization, but just wanted to bring that to the forefront.

CHAIRMAN LONG: To summarize as we head for our break, and close on the
second panel, and I trust again that, Bill, you got all of this down
back there.

I heard a ‑‑ and I\'m just going to say this to illustrate what we\'re
talking about here, and many have said it. I heard a speaker not too
long ago saying that ‑‑ and it was tongue and cheek, but it will
illustrate the point ‑‑ that 90 percent of us are from dysfunctional
families, but not to worry, because when you get married you can then
take it to the 100 percent number.

(Laughter.)

And therein is the point. And Seth also illustrated this. I\'ll just
tack on, I though that was ‑‑ I was talking with Seth last night, and he
said ‑‑ Seth, why don\'t you mention what you ‑‑ about the panel, what
‑‑ do you remember what ‑‑

MR. NORMAN: Just that I discovered I was traumatized by intellect,
probably what my situation is.

(Laughter.)

CHAIRMAN LONG: That Seth was traumatized by the intellect. And my point
with those two things is that we all agree ‑‑ with the youngsters that
we work with, wherever they come from, that ‑‑ and I think that was a
point that I was hearing to my right from a couple of folks, and I think
everyone would agree that almost 100 percent of our youngsters have
suffered some degree of trauma in their lifetime.

And that doesn\'t negate the fact that it has a tremendous effect on
achievement in the things that we\'re attempting to do, but I was just
sitting there thinking ‑‑ looking around at the panel as I was hearing
this discussion, thinking in the different states and the different
counties, that I would imagine you have tens of thousands of youngsters
from the homeless, tens of thousands of youngsters where grandparents
are raising their grandchildren.

And then, the various ‑‑ we talked about culture yesterday. I was
thinking about the Hispanic group, and I was thinking about the Hmong,
and where they have come from and some of the trauma they have gone
through. So that\'s why I said that with the 90 percent marrying into ‑‑
to make it the 100 percent, and also what Bill said about the fact that
recognizing this and the negative impact that it all has on education
and paying attention ‑‑ close attention to it, and the gathering of
information, whatever way that is.

But also bearing in mind, going back to you, Tommy, that for those
educators that are really where the rubber hits the road, it is ‑‑ with
No Child Left Behind they are constantly thinking of meeting and getting
over that absolute bar in achievement, so that they do not become a
program improvement site or a program improvement district.

So that is right square in front of them, and at the same time they\'re
trying to balance a comprehensive education and pay attention to all of
these other things and the \"baggage\" that youngsters come with and the
things that they have to deal with every day.

So I think this was a very rich discussion, and I think it was very
beneficial. And another thing that was mentioned by several, the fact
that there are a lot of best practices out there and we pull those
together and help others across this country.

And with that, if we could take a break.

(Whereupon, the proceedings in the foregoing matter went off the record
at 10:22 a.m. and went back on the record at 10:33 a.m.)

CHAIRMAN LONG: The third panel yesterday was on rural and urban schools,
and if we could take the same approach, so that we have comments,
anything that you gleaned from the committee regarding recommendations.

So the floor is open. Yes, Kim?

MS. DUDE: One thing that I noticed was the gentleman from Nebraska
helped make the point that I tried to make a couple of meetings ago when
we were ‑‑ there was a lot of discussion about how we should partner
with our local businesses to try to get them to help underwrite what
we\'re doing.

And he made reference to the kind of towns that I\'m used to, because
I\'m from Missouri, where there may not even be a Wal-mart in that town,
and so I think we have to be sensitive to the fact that there are going
to be many, many communities out there who have no businesses to partner
with.

I mean, he was talking about that rec center or whatever that was that
they were trying to come up with, and they were very, very low on their
thermometer of getting up to where they needed that money to build that
facility.

I mean, we just have to be sensitive to the fact that not all schools
are in communities that have that as an option.

CHAIRMAN LONG: Other comments? Russell?

MR. JONES: Yes. I was very impressed with that panel, and just in terms
of what they\'re doing and the process in terms of how they are doing
it. The question was asked if funding were to stop today, or whatever. I
was so pleased to hear that infrastructure had been developed as a
result of relatively limited amount of monies given to those groups, and
for them to be able to build capacity, you know, as a result of getting
those funds was very much encouraging.

I guess one thing that I think that might be done, you know, we were
just talking about the turnover and some of the difficulties in terms of
relating, you know, with certain groups of kids, etcetera, the whole
notion of cultural competence and the importance of continuing to see to
it that those kind of trainings are carried out, and that they be done
on a more long-term basis.

I think to become culturally competent, it\'s not kind of an event,
it\'s something you learn, but it\'s more of a process ongoing. But,
again, to just encourage those kind of workshops for administrators,
teachers, etcetera, would be very beneficial.

CHAIRMAN LONG: Fred?

MR. ELLIS: Yes. I thought the panel was fascinating. I really found
remarkable some of the rural ‑‑ particularly the Nebraska presentation
was really surprising. For someone who has grown up in the Washington,
D.C. area, it is almost unfathomable some of the lack of resources and
what not.

One of the things I was kind of hoping to hear more of that I didn\'t
hear from the urban school presentations was, you know, we\'ve heard
from ‑‑ I think we had a public speaker from Baltimore last time, and in
other venues I\'ve heard folks talk about the perception of urban
schools, maybe not receiving all that they should in terms of violence
prevention programs, drug treatment, you know, just the myriad issues
that we see oftentimes in many of the very densely-populated urban
schools.

And I just think of the Washington, D.C. public school system, when you
‑‑ you know, anyone from here knows what troubles, what unbelievable
levels of violence and disruption, and how that has to affect the
learning environment in those school systems.

I would have liked to have heard more of that ‑‑ you know, whether it\'s
an issue, whether or not they think they\'re getting what they need in
those urban schools, because, you know, anecdotally, you know, I think
that\'s the feeling of some, and it\'s almost a state overwhelming for
some of them.

You know, with Theodore Tuckson, our Security Director down in D.C.
public schools, he has told the stories of the countless number of
fights, and, you know, they could have 20 or 30 security officers and
policemen in a single school, and fights would break out right in front
of them ‑‑ they don\'t care ‑‑ and an everyday occurrence, weapons, and
just really ‑‑ it\'s almost hard to get your head around some of the
tremendous challenges they face.

I still feel like I haven\'t heard from some of those kind of troubled
urban schools.

MR. MODZELESKI: If I could just for ‑‑ to make sure everybody
understands is that a number of the panelists yesterday were Safe
Schools/Healthy Students grantees. What that essentially means is that
they had the benefit of resources for the past three years, actually
quite a bit of resources, \$3 million over three years, if they were a
rural setting, and \$9 million over three years if they were an urban
setting.

So in many respects it\'s an example of what can be done with good
leadership, adequate funding, good planning, training, technical
assistance. I mean, and because they were not in these same places three
years ago. They were in quite a different place. But with a lot of
support ‑‑ and this is where Susan and I partner, and Justice, and
hopefully CSAP ‑‑

PARTICIPANT: CSAP has just assigned some staff to this ‑‑

MR. MODZELESKI: Great. Great. But it\'s a good example, Fred, is that
they\'re ‑‑ I don\'t want to say resource-rich, because everybody
complains they\'re not, but they have the resources, but even with the
resources I think that you heard from ‑‑ is that you still have
difficulties of, even if you have the money, getting people who want to
come to these areas, especially in the rural areas.

You know, money is one ‑‑ solves one problem, but it doesn\'t solve all
of the problems.

CHAIRMAN LONG: I\'m sorry. I didn\'t see who was ‑‑ Montean and Mike.
Thank you.

MS. JACKSON: Also, I wanted to make a case for, especially when we get
into our data collection, and we\'re looking at safe ‑‑ the safe part of
Safe and Drug Free Schools, and even the drug part, the homeless
collecting the data on the number of students that are homeless and then
return to school, the number of schools that ‑‑ number of students that
are transitional students that tend to drop out after maybe a policy
violation for a behavior infraction, a violence infraction, and/or drug
use, and then resurface, as well as students that are just reentering
our school system after just being gone for a year or so.

So I wanted us to think about that. I think it was Russell that asked
some of the panelists about turnover with regard to students. And,
again, in some of our LEAs we have high student turnovers for a variety
of reasons, and homeless students that then resurface that we\'re
expected to provide educational opportunities for those students. So
that\'s another area we need to focus on.

CHAIRMAN LONG: Mike?

MR. HERRMANN: Just to follow up on Bill\'s comment, I think the other
thing that we saw in the panelists was how a spark plug, kind of the
Eveready bunny that keeps on beating, in terms of, you know, Liz\'s work
over the last 20 years in McNairy County with a small amount of money
can be the springboard for lots of other programs to come in and provide
kind of that long-term base. So I thought that was an important piece.

CHAIRMAN LONG: Howell?

MR. WECHSLER: I think the last panel yesterday really brought us back to
what I thought was the central focus, the central charge of this
committee. We have on one hand Safe Schools/Healthy Students, where a
very small number of communities across the country are getting large
amounts of resources, and we heard very impressive testimony about what
they\'re being able to accomplish and some real hope of having actual
impact on outcomes.

And then, on the other hand, we have Safe and Drug Free Schools, which
gives a very, very, very small amount of resources to an incredibly
large number of districts across the country, and, perhaps as a result
of how it was set up, has been getting failing grades.

And I think the central challenge we have to face is, first of all, do
we challenge the grading system? Do we say that either the grading
system is unfair or it shouldn\'t apply to this case because there are
benefits to the nation that accrue from the strategy taken, regardless
of the measurable impact that we can attribute to this specific program?

Or, if we accept reality that this is the grading system that we have to
deal with, how do we redesign a program so that it can have more
measurable impact, given that it no longer has the resources it once had
to reach out to every school district in the country? To me, that is the
central challenge, and I\'d be very encouraged if we started talking
about that more directly.

CHAIRMAN LONG: Seth?

MR. NORMAN: I think I agree with what was just said, if what I\'m
hearing is correct. If you go back to the last panel and trauma, in
McNairy County if a child was traumatized, I dare say that everybody in
the county would know about it within a week.

In Nashville, if a person were traumatized, I doubt that everybody on
his block would ever know about it. It\'s the reporting system, as was
just mentioned, and I don\'t know how you fashion one set of rules that
can apply to every school district in this country.

I have a perception, and I might be wrong, that things are very
different in McNairy County than they are in Chicago or Nashville or
Memphis or Dallas, and you just don\'t do things the same way in all
locations.

I don\'t know how you fashion these guidelines, but I believe that
something is going to have to happen out of this committee that will
differentiate between the different districts and the way the different
districts are run.

MR. JONES: Yes. You know, I think that gets back at something that a
good friend and colleague, Shep, brings up quite often, that whole
notion of information systems and how to integrate, you know, that
methodology into the types of things that ‑‑ you know, that folks are
doing around the country.

You know, how we substantiate, you know, outcomes? And how do we
determine the extent to which, you know, the need and then the extent to
which various programs are seeing to it that those needs are met? But,
again, just revisiting that whole notion of information systems, the
need to document what\'s being done.

And I agree that one shoe doesn\'t fit all, and that those systems need
to be integrated into various communities in a sensitive, culturally
competent, fashion.

CHAIRMAN LONG: Other comments? Ralph?

MR. HINGSON: Yes, I think I\'m glad that Howell raised the issue, and it
may not be that this committee can really come to the best conclusion on
it, if we think about monies that are funded solely through the
Department of Education.

It strikes me that when one looks at interventions that change the
entire climate of safety in a community that it takes more than just a
school system to do it, that it takes the police department, the school
department, the health department, the social services, private
citizens, all working together.

And maybe the question here is: should we be thinking about programs
that seek to create that type of synergy and involvement rather than
sort of categorical funding and what happens only with the monies that
go through the Department of Education.

Maybe those monies have to ‑‑ if they are spent, need to be linked with
parallel programs through other ‑‑ one of the things that struck me as I
listened to ‑‑ and as I\'ve listened to our conversations the last day
or so is that a lot of times maybe you can get the different federal
officials to sit around the same table, but what happens at the local
community level? Is the criminal justice system working with the ‑‑
closely with the school system or with the Health Department, and so on?

So I think that\'s an issue that we ought to be thinking about as we go
forward.

MR. ROMERO: I\'d like to respond to Ralph and say that it\'s true, you
know, we cannot afford to work in silos. And I think ‑‑ and, Dave, your
point about collaboration being a major sentiment throughout the
conversations the last day and a half speak well to that.

And, again, I recall maybe two or three ‑‑ maybe two hearings ago I had
brought to this committee an effort that, through the Center for
Substance Abuse Prevention, that we\'re collaborating with the states,
and that\'s the Strategic Prevention Framework.

And today we have 42 strategic prevention framework state incentive
grants, and it ‑‑ and the focus of these grants are just what Ralph just
spoke about. And I kind of like the way you said it, actually, because
it honed in more.

It is really to galvanize, bring the key stakeholders in a community,
and that may include the library, the school, the grocery store at the
corner, and to really identify, what are the issues that we are facing,
and how can we collectively, with our wisdom and our experience and our
presence in the community, how can we work to better our community?

And then, with this understanding, these incentive grants are now
available to help communities. So it really is a collaborative effort,
and I am happy to say that this year we\'re funding five tribal
organizations as well and three jurisdictions.

So that really speaks to a collaborative effort, and I just don\'t want
the committee to lose sight that there are other ways in which we can
really collaborate. And I would encourage the committee to ‑‑ once again
to get back to thinking about the Title IV charge that is really sitting
before us, and not get too far away from that. I think that that really
needs to happen.

Thank you.

CHAIRMAN LONG: Susan?

MS. KEYS: Our Safe Schools/Healthy Students initiative does at the local
level what Ralph just described. And also, through the connection that
Dennis and I have made in his hearing about Safe Schools/Healthy
Students, Dennis has now assigned staff to work with us ‑‑ Department of
Justice, Department of Education, and the Center for Mental Health
Services ‑‑ in order to help us better connect with the initiative of
his center that works on these state incentive grants, prevention
grants, so that we\'re now looking at taking what is happening locally,
which we fund through Safe Schools/Healthy Students, and connecting it
to this excellent effort that is going on at the state level through
Dennis\' center, and the assignment of staff from his center to our
initiative.

And I would love to welcome Ralph to also think how he might want to
partner with us and contribute to this initiative, because it really is
an excellent demonstration of exactly what you\'ve described. It not
only has collaboration at the federal level, but it requires the same
collaboration at the local level.

And you heard testimony yesterday from three of our grantees who have
really actualized what it is we have funded them to do, so ‑‑

CHAIRMAN LONG: Susan, you\'re very good. Did you want Ralph to give an
answer right into the mike on ‑‑

MS. KEYS: No, no, no.

(Laughter.)

I mean, that\'s okay. Well, unless he wants to.

(Laughter.)

CHAIRMAN LONG: Mike?

MR. HERRMANN: Yes, I mean, I guess after this morning and, you know, the
talk about the reauthorization and all of that, I guess I think it\'s
time that the Council really sort of get back to basics, and, you know,
what are we about, and what do we need to be addressing, and, you know,
I kind of feel like we\'re running out of time.

I think there are some fundamental questions, and we have an excellent
opportunity here, you know, what does the mental health world think,
what does the A&D world think, in terms of what are the basic things
that you would like to see in place in every school as a foundation for,
you know, moving further.

I think, you know, you can sort of look at ‑‑ I think the Safe
Schools/Healthy Students are an example of what is possible when you
have a relatively rich resource base. I think, though, the state grants
thing is an opportunity to look at what can be done with a ‑‑ sort of a
base of support.

And I think the key is to sort of figure out how to take advantage of
both of those approaches, so that you provide a foundation everywhere,
but then in some places you really give people the opportunity to take
off and fly.

One of the things that we\'ve been spending a lot of time in Tennessee
doing is really looking at how prepared are schools in terms of, you
know, crisis management plans, basic security procedures, those sorts of
things that are really just fundamental that I believe ought to be in
place in every school, and that don\'t necessarily require a lot of
funding, but that do require somebody to do something.

And in my mind, those are the sorts of things that ought to be ‑‑ if
we\'re going to, you know, use categorical funding, categorical funding
ought to address those sort of foundation issues. You know, a basic
structure for the community to collaborate, those sorts of things.

So I just really think it\'s important that we start to have some
dialogue around, you know, what are the basic things that really every
school, every child is entitled to, and then, you know, what are ways
that then we can collaborate and make these other things happen.

MS. JACKSON: One thing I wanted to kind of go back and say, too, as well
about the application process and the state grants ‑‑ many of the
activities are already in place. We\'ve talked a lot and had some
wonderful presentations about some of the creative ways people have
added additional components and additional funding.

But, again, it is going to go back to LEAs, and we\'ve talked about the
communication and the collaboration that needs to happen with our public
and our non-public schools and other individuals that should possibly be
invited to the table or that are already being brought to the table and
have been in the past. But the priorities are going to be set by that
particular LEA and what the needs are.

So, again, as Mike was just talking about from crisis planning, I think
it will be important, as we go through that brief screening, the brief
guidelines, if things are covered, activities are covered by other
funding, or ‑‑ yes, by other funding that it\'s clearly identified in
that particular brief screening as you\'re applying for the funding that
you\'re receiving, and, again, the process that was taken in place with
regard to the activities that you will be covering with the funding.

So, again, I think as we move into our data collection component, that
there may be some core data objectives that possibly every LEA will be
able to check off and say, \"We have this number of members at this
table,\" and deciding what activities would be covered by this
component, by this portion of funds that are received, and these are
other things that are important but are secondary items, but are covered
with other types of funding.

And whether we have leverage for the funding, whether it\'s hard dollar
funding by the LEA, whatever, so I think we\'re probably going to come
out with some things that are measurable. And I heard this said
yesterday, and I think I\'ve heard it said in the past, and some things
that are not measurable at all.

Some of the prevention activities ‑‑ if you\'re doing a K through 12,
how many students benefitted from it? You may never know. But did we
provide some sort of prevention activities for all of our students in
our school district? Yes. And being able to check those things off.

But, again, something with regard ‑‑ a screening instrument or
guidelines ‑‑and I think Susan spoke to this ‑‑ at the beginning of the
application process that you\'ve included all of the key stakeholders
that need to be invited to the table. And I think that would be very
helpful.

CHAIRMAN LONG: Howell?

MR. WECHSLER: I want to follow the money for a little bit. Mike or Bill,
could you tell me what ‑‑ of the Safe and Drug Free Schools dollars,
what actually stays at the State Department of Education to build the
agency\'s capacity to provide technical assistance and professional
development to enable the districts to have the capacity to do what we
want them to do?

MR. HERRMANN: Bill, help me with the exact percentage. Four percent
stays at the state education agency, which enables you to provide
statewide training programs, to monitor the grantees, to ensure that
they follow through on the requirements that Montean was talking about.

MR. MODZELESKI: Mike could retain ‑‑ I\'m sorry, he could retain a total
of nine percent, four percent for his staff. In other words, so that\'s
the staff ‑‑ you know, Mike and ‑‑ four percent of state ‑‑ Mike and
Mike probably.

MR. HERRMANN: Actually, it\'s not Mike, it\'s ‑‑

MR. MODZELESKI: It\'s a small number. And, actually, it\'s an
interesting point ‑‑ is that it\'s a very small number of staff. I mean,
Mike and his colleagues around the country, you know, they don\'t ‑‑
we\'re not talking about staff of 10, 15 people. We\'re talking about
very small staffs in all of the states.

Another five percent of the total state allocation can be retained for
statewide activities ‑‑ evaluations and stuff like that. So it is a
relatively small number, small ‑‑ relatively small amount of funds that
can be retained.

MR. HERRMANN: And the five percent in our case this year is under
\$200,000, which we use to provide statewide training and crisis
management, life skills training. So, I mean, basically we provide all
of the ‑‑ we made all of the out-of-pocket costs on implementing life
skills training.

The Alvayas Bullying Prevention Program ‑‑ what we try and do with that
five percent is absorb sort of all of the out-of-pocket costs, so that a
district can implement a research-proven program without having to dip
into their small amount of money that they have.

MR. WECHSLER: I want to do some very simple math, round it off. If the
average now, let\'s say that a given districts gets ‑‑ as we saw
yesterday it was about \$20,000. And just to say ‑‑ keep the numbers
round, what we currently have perhaps is maybe \$20,000 going to 10,000
school districts across the country. That\'s the current model, which is
not being graded well.

We have at the high end, the Cadillac, gold standard model of Safe
Schools/Healthy Students, where maybe you are funding 100 school
districts to get \$2 million a year. Same pot of money. Either you fund
10,000 school districts \$20,000 each, or 100 school districts \$2
million each. I mean, that\'s the stark contrast of what could be done
with a certain pot of dollars.

And we don\'t want to go all ‑‑ you know, we need to look at whether
that status quo of \$20,000 for 10,000 school districts is where we want
to be, whether we prefer putting it all in Safe Schools/Healthy
Students, or what in between, what modifications in between should be
considered.

And one of them might be sort of the approach that CDC takes, which is
to really build the capacity of the state agency, because we recognize
that we simply do not have the resources to reach out to every county
health department or every local education agency, and so we try to put
as much as we can into the state agencies, so that they have very strong
programmatic capacity and can really do that monitoring and staff
development and education and marketing role that they can play.

It\'s not ideal. We wish we could get to every county and every
district, but that\'s the alternative that we\'ve settled on. So,
ideally, we aim to give about a million dollars each year to each state
health department for the different programs that we run.

MS. JACKSON: I\'ve got one quick follow-up. One is I think the
evaluation component that is going to possibly be added to Title IV will
change the number of applicants that actually apply. I think some LEAs
will find challenges and difficulty with applying.

And the other piece ‑‑ the one thing I embrace is that over 50 percent
of my state actually applies currently for the funding, has allowed for
some creative grass-roots type of creative thinking to take place in
some of our very, very rural remote sites, where, you know, show
machines and sled dogs are still used.

But it has allowed for some very creative thinking for even a little
bitty smidgeon of money to provide some sort of prevention, education,
and awareness and under ‑‑ you know, and education to whether it\'s
staff members, students, parents, tribal entities, sometimes meet at the
tribal halls and do potlatches, etcetera.

So, again, I am, you know, advocating for the continued shared
resources, as much as possible, and I do think, again, the evaluation
will change the shape of how many individuals are eligible, or will, you
know, apply just because of the sheer nature of funding for evaluation.

CHAIRMAN LONG: Anyone else?

MR. HERRMANN: Well, I ‑‑ just to follow up on Dennis, because I think
it\'s frustrating because we ‑‑ every silo has ‑‑ kind of has their own
sort of relationship or infrastructure with the state.

In Tennessee, you know, we were just awarded the SPFSIG grant. I think
we\'re in the second year now, so, you know, we\'re active participants
in this process. And I do think ultimately we\'re going to come out of
that with a much more ‑‑ much stronger ability to collaborate.

You know, we\'ve got kind of a different way that we work with the CDC
programs, but, you know, also that\'s a part of that whole collaboration
process.

I just hope that, you know, because everybody is sitting at the table it
seems like this is a real opportunity to try and sort of get past the
silos that we\'re in, to really develop something. It feels like we
always get to the most important part in the Council meeting, and then
we\'re kind of worn out, and, you know, everybody is ready to go home.

I\'d like to throw out a suggestion that we really sort of make that
collaboration part a stronger part of the overall meeting, so that, you
know, we do have the time to ‑‑ or some sort of an infrastructure to
make that collaboration happen.

CHAIRMAN LONG: Well, let me just throw this out. We have another meeting
coming up here in 25 or 30 days. And that ‑‑ is it necessary ‑‑ I\'m
just going to ask this as a follow-up for what you just said, Mike. Is
it necessary to follow the exact format we have had with the panels with
data, data, data, or could we do that in one or two and then leave a
time just for the discussion that we\'re talking about.

I agree with you. I think that we\'re at ‑‑ we\'ve got to get some meat
on the bones.

MR. HERRMANN: I mean, if we don\'t get some meat on the bones, really,
the data question is almost insignificant, because if there\'s nobody to
collect data, then, you know, we\'re kind of spinning our wheels on the
data issue.

MR. MODZELESKI: I was just going to ‑‑ Howell raises some good points
here. I mean, I think that listening ‑‑ I\'m trying to jump ahead to the
February ‑‑ what\'s the date, Catherine?

MS. DAVIS: Of the meeting?

MR. MODZELESKI: Yes.

MS. DAVIS: 20th and 21st.

MR. MODZELESKI: The 20th and the 21st. So we look at Mike\'s comments,
we look at what Debbie said earlier regarding budget. By the 21st of
February we will have the President\'s fiscal year \'08 budget proposal.
By that date we should also have further guidance on the \'07 budget.

I mean, one of the things is that we are currently operating under a
continuing resolution. And while we think we know the rules of the game,
they are not ‑‑ the ink isn\'t dry on that yet. So there still could be
some changes.

But we would like to report back to you on both where we are in \'07,
because I think that continuing resolution runs out in about ‑‑ in the
beginning of February that runs out, so we assume that once that runs
out there will be a final determination made about what we\'re going to
do the rest of the year for fiscal year \'07.

So we could report to you on what programs we\'re going to fund, and
what programs we\'re not going to fund, what\'s continuations, what\'s
going down the slate, and so forth and so on. We could also talk to you
about where we are with the \'08 budget.

But I was listening to Howell, and I think that that is an issue that is
a very real issue. It\'s a dollar issue about, where do you have the
most impact and effect? In our world, it\'s actually worse than Howell
portrayed, because it is over 50 percent of the school districts, over
50 percent of the school districts receive less than \$10,000.

So there is this sort of inconsistency on the one hand, having a piece
of legislation which we support wholeheartedly, we support the
research-based programming, but then at the same time saying is that
less than 50 percent of our districts receive any dollars that they
could effectively implement a research-based program.

And so part of what ‑‑ the weighing that goes in in any decision is
that, where do you put your resources, and how do you have the most
effect? And, you know, we carefully looked a the CDC model, as well as
other models, and I think it\'s something that we need to discuss,
because it\'s a very real ‑‑ as times change, and they are changing ‑‑ I
think that Dave pointed this out right along ‑‑ is that we are in
changed times.

I mean, and as we look not only backward but forward, they are going to
change even more. So I strongly encourage us to begin to think about not
the program as it has been but the program as it should be in the
future, because the program as it should be is quite different ‑‑ quite
different than the program that it has been. And that\'s ‑‑ I mean,
it\'s obvious.

We can\'t go backwards, we can\'t ‑‑ we can\'t basically continue to
promote those same things that have brought us this far, because
they\'re not ‑‑ they may have worked in the past. They\'re not going to
work in the future.

MR. ROMERO: Bill, you\'re absolutely right, and I think that\'s how I
understand Mike\'s recommendation, that we really have the opportunity
to really have more of a dialogue as an expert group here, to really put
our heads together and see, well, what does it need to look like moving
forward?

Debbie, this is more of a procedural question, and I think you\'re the
best one to answer this. Or maybe someone else in the Federal
Government, actually, because I\'m not good at this stuff yet.

But if one part of the Federal Government provides funding for a
particular effort, that is for the public in general, can another part
of the federal ‑‑ another part of the community or the public community
also take advantage that even though it\'s going to impact another ‑‑
ultimately another part of the Federal Government.

MS. PRICE: Okay. I\'m not sure ‑‑

MR. ROMERO: Okay.

MS. PRICE: So let me just ‑‑ so if we fund an LEA for a program, are you
saying, can another part of that ‑‑

MR. ROMERO: It\'s the other way around. We fund an effort to ‑‑ now we
fund ‑‑ every state has an epidemiological workgroup to help the state
identify, from a data standpoint, what are the real issues, the needs in
that community, what\'s the ‑‑ what are the trends, begin to monitor the
trends.

Couldn\'t that be opened up ‑‑ and it can, I don\'t see why not ‑‑ to
the school districts so that the schools can begin to identify, well,
what is ‑‑ what is the climate in my community?

MS. PRICE: Well, that\'s actually your department\'s call. I mean, you
‑‑

MR. ROMERO: I mean, that\'s my ‑‑

MS. PRICE: There is no prohibition from you all keeping your hands off
of school districts. You can ‑‑ you know, you can open grant
competitions up to school districts, you can open them up to state
education associations. That\'s your call, how you design your programs.

MR. MODZELESKI: We can\'t ‑‑ I think the pick up on that is that we
can\'t ‑‑ if it\'s not in the legislation, if the ‑‑ if Congress
doesn\'t want ‑‑ you know, it\'s sort of like the Army, if they don\'t
give it to you, you know, they don\'t want you to have it, and here
it\'s the same way. If it\'s not ‑‑ if it\'s not legislated, we can\'t
require it.

MS. PRICE: Right.

MR. MODZELESKI: So we could tell them ‑‑ and matter of fact, subtly push
states into saying, \"Listen, link up with CSAP. I mean, they\'re doing
some good work. And let\'s develop these partnerships.\" I mean, and we
should be doing that. I mean, without any doubt, we should be doing
that.

But we can\'t require them to do it. We can recommend that they do it.
We could work with Susan and others and saying, \"Here are resources out
there.\" We should be. I mean, I think that we\'ve been doing a pretty
good job at that.

MR. ROMERO: So my ‑‑ I\'m glad to hear that. So my recommendation is if
we could begin to have more of a dialogue as to how to really turn this
around to what we really see it needing to be as opposed to looking at
what has not worked, and looking at where we can collaborate, where we
can share resources.

I don\'t know whether there are schools in states that have SPFSIGs now,
whether or not they are utilizing the SEOWs. And, incredibly ‑‑

PARTICIPANT: What is that?

MR. ROMERO: I\'m sorry. State Epidemiological Outcome Workgroup. And
it\'s ‑‑ basically, we\'re funding epidemiologists. Currently, we have
an epidemiologist workgroup in every state in the nation.

They are there to provide ‑‑ to paint a picture of the issues that are
impacting a community. And it comes down to a community level.

And so I am wondering ‑‑ and this is ‑‑ these are I think the
opportunities here in this kind of a setting to talk about where we can
‑‑ what we have at our disposal, our resources, and how we can maybe
leverage them in a way to really enhance and rebuild or make
recommendations how to improve the systems that we\'re addressing.

Something that was said yesterday just hit home for me very clearly. In
one of the rural panelist\'s members, they talked about how they ‑‑ you
know, they are going to be giving their floor plans to the local police
and fire department. That does not cost money.

But what an incredibly proactive thing to do. And I would like to
recommend that that be one of our recommendations as part of a ‑‑ an
intervention. For every prevention, as it was said yesterday, there has
to be an intervention effort in place.

And so could we also make some recommendations that every school put
that in place? And just go down the list of things that we can ‑‑ that
does not cost money. All it is is thinking proactively from a prevention
standpoint.

CHAIRMAN LONG: Yes, I\'d just echo that. I mean, that\'s right on. A lot
of these things don\'t cost money. It\'s just a matter of restructuring
what you do.

MR. HERRMANN: And that\'s the point I tried to make, and I guess I
failed. I think around the table everybody has things that they think
are fundamental things that need to be done at the school level that
really don\'t cost anything.

And I think we lay that list out, and that becomes kind of the
foundation, if you will, you know, this is what we expect everybody to
do. And then, from that, you know, we build to the things we would like
to see, but there is sort of a foundation that we expect of everybody.

MR. MODZELESKI: That\'s, you know, the emergency crisis that is being
done. I mean, we\'ve been saying that right along, is that, you know,
anybody who has attended any of the training, anybody who has received a
grant, ERCM, those that ‑‑ the sharing of plans, the conducting of
training, the meeting with first responders, I mean, this is what we
call low hanging fruit.

And, you know, you want to pick that low hanging fruit and get it out,
and we\'ve been very successful at that. I mean, there is some ‑‑ some
of the best things and some of the best models cost very little dollars,
I think, and so ‑‑ and I totally agree with you.

CHAIRMAN LONG: Just as a general ‑‑ yes, Belinda?

MS. SIMS: I just wanted to say that one of the things to keep in mind as
we talk about beginning a discussion of how we think the program should
be, or what it should become, is that there have been some really good
models presented here across the different panels, and we shouldn\'t
lose sight of that.

The one yesterday on one of the rural programs that talked about taking
their small amount of money and the Safe and Drug Free Schools money and
using that for four different programs, one of which was a life skills
training.

But then, they did marry that with all of the other kinds of resources
they could garner, they leveraged, they did whatever. But they also
carried what they implemented all the way through to the academic
achievement outcomes to demonstrate that over the past few years they
have seen an increase in how their county is performing compared to the
state level and what the state targets are.

And that\'s a model that we should be recommending, you know, for all of
the different communities involved in this program. And we even had this
kind of presentation presented back at the first panel from the State of
Washington.

So there are some really good models out there of how at the local level
they are using small resources, leveraging those with other monies that
the other members around this table are providing, to implement
evidence-based programs that lead to the kinds of outcomes that school
districts want to see.

CHAIRMAN LONG: Could we do the what ‑‑ try to put this together now?
Perhaps at that next meeting ‑‑ and I\'m not going to talk about
specificity. We don\'t need to set the agenda right now, just ‑‑ and
then we can have a discussion about it, either on a conference call or
by e-mail, however we set up the agenda, but that we ‑‑ instead of
having three panels, which would go from 9:00 to 5:00, what we have done
in the past, what if we had one and then have the panel and then have
the discussion of this group regarding that panel and be all complete
with that by 11:45 ‑‑ I said not specificity, I guess that\'s ‑‑ by
11:45 on that Tuesday.

That will leave us all afternoon of Tuesday and all morning of Wednesday
to get into these important areas that you\'re talking about, how would
the various specifics, the specific aspects of funding, and the ideas,
so that this group can really throw it out on the table, discuss it,
come up with some final recommendations, instead of just discussing.

There is going to be a clear-cut recommendation regarding that, and then
we can get into the ‑‑ just another idea that I was hearing, the
collaborative effort from a couple of angles, from the angle of the
large governmental agencies and entities working together to leverage,
and also taking that leverage down to a correlation with the funding
model on the local level for things that can be done, and incorporate at
the same time ‑‑ getting back to your point, Belinda ‑‑ incorporating
all of those models that we have heard, plus the very important part
that has been mentioned three or four times in the last 10 minutes, the
expertise sitting around this table.

You will be able to come up with many of these models that can just be
put into a final recommendation. Then, we can get some one, two, threes,
black and white. Does that make sense?

MR. WECHSLER: I think that sounds great, but my experience has been that
those kinds of discussions stall ‑‑ either stall or go around in circles
unless we\'re working from something that is on paper.

And I would strongly suggest that someone take the time to throw out a
couple of models, recognizing that by the end of the day we can
completely change everything that is down there, but unless we see in
front of us five or six different things that could be done with
something like the current pot of funding that comes to Safe and Drug
Free Schools. I think it would be hard to effectively use the time.

CHAIRMAN LONG: Excellent point. And could we ‑‑ to that point, is that
something that could be laid out with some scenarios?

MS. PRICE: I believe so.

CHAIRMAN LONG: Okay.

MS. PRICE: Bill?

MR. MODZELESKI: Well, I was ‑‑ I mean, I\'m not in a good position here.
But from my perspective ‑‑ and I\'m going to say this as a staff person
sitting here ‑‑ is that I mentioned earlier about change. And I think
that basically we are about change.

And having said that, and trying to utilize your time to the best
possible way, I would strongly encourage ‑‑ and I\'m not speaking for
Debbie, I\'m speaking for myself ‑‑ is that before we get into issues
that we should basically take a look at where we are as an
administration in regard to reauthorization, where we are in regard to
budget, where we are in regards to issues like that, which are going to
have an impact and effect on these areas that you\'re talking about.

And so in many ways it\'s placing the cart before the horse. Before we
begin to talk about what do we do with federal agencies, and what do we
do with further programming, and what about the ‑‑ what about the data,
what about the state grants program, about all of these other things, is
that we should have some idea and understanding as to where ‑‑ what is
the administration, and what is ‑‑ what is the administration\'s
proposal, and what does that mean for everything that we\'re doing, and
use that as the basis for then saying, okay, now that we have a better
idea of where this is, have some discussion about what does that mean
for where do we take these ideas.

But if you do these ideas first, and then you have ‑‑ you layer the
administration proposal on top of it, is you may have ‑‑ it may change,
and so your better basis I think is to come in at the next meeting and
have Debbie and I, Catherine, and others, explain to you in detail about
where we are in regard to what that reauthorization proposal is and what
‑‑ where we are in regard to where the fiscal year \'08 budget proposal
is.

And then, take that and use that as a basis for making some decisions
about where does the advisory group go in regards to making the same
decisions you\'re talking about today but based upon a direction that
you ‑‑ you know, you now have an understanding of.

CHAIRMAN LONG: And I think that\'s good clarification, and I think we\'d
all subscribe to that. I was smiling as you started to talk, because I
think that\'s really a clarification, and the rest of the answer from
the very first question that we had at 9:00 a.m. this morning.

Yes? You know, so I think that\'s right. Tommy, did you have ‑‑ I\'m
sorry.

MR. LEDBETTER: I feel almost like we have made a big circle, you know.
If we go back to ‑‑ because I told Fred a moment ago, I said, you know,
this goes back to what we were talking about in our first meeting, I
mean, about changes. And then, our second meeting we talked about the
state grants program, and we did the same thing.

We talked about not having enough money, and we talked about different
ways of utilizing that money, and so forth. But we never made any
decision, we never made any recommendation, I mean, as a committee.

And now we\'re right back at that same position, talking about how we
can take the money and best utilize the money. Is \$10,000 going to be
the best way to do it per school system, or is it better to put it
together and not try to go to every school system, and so forth?

We have had this discussion before, but we just moved on and left it,
and we never ‑‑ we never settled anything with it. And what I\'d like to
see is that ‑‑ I think if we could lay that issue to rest, I think
everything else would fall in place.

But that\'s an issue that just keeps raising its ugly head, you know,
and that\'s something we\'re going to have to deal with, I believe. And
maybe that\'s not our job. Maybe we\'re not supposed to do that. I
don\'t know.

But if we are supposed to do that, I think that\'s something that we
need to do before we go much further.

MR. MODZELESKI: Well, I think that\'s what Debbie and I are saying is
that ‑‑ not to say that we\'re going to lay that issue to rest, but at
least we will present to you the administration proposal for Title VI at
the next meeting, because that\'s what is going to be ‑‑ so you\'ll have
an idea, based upon your input and the first couple of hearings and
input from other groups and organizations, and just the overall
decision-making process.

So it\'s not that we\'re going ‑‑ to use an old phrase ‑‑ beat the dead
horse to death. I mean, I think that decisions will be able to be put on
the table at the next meeting, at least where the administration is, and
then we can move from there.

So this is not about debating over whether we should go down this road
or that road ‑‑ is that those decisions by the next meeting will have
been made.

MR. HERRMANN: Well, I guess, though, what I\'m struggling with, Bill, is
I thought the role of this Advisory Council was to provide
recommendations, and independent recommendations. And are you saying
that these should not be independent recommendations, that they should
be ‑‑ you know, I\'m kind of struggling with that.

MR. MODZELESKI: No, not at all. I mean, I think that basically there
were hearings. I mean, well, I don\'t want to call them hearings, but, I
mean, there were meetings, right, presentations, and there was ‑‑ so
there was input provided, and I ‑‑ you know, to ‑‑ well, the first
meeting was, what ‑‑ the first meeting was on the state grants program.
The second meeting was on persistently dangerous.

So, I mean, there has been input provided on those two issues. And as
Debbie mentioned earlier, is that come February, whatever date that is,
that the administration will move forward with its proposal for the
reauthorization of NCLB at the macro level.

I mean, again, this is basically at the macro level. But, nevertheless,
the recommendations will be made in the beginning of February.

MS. PRICE: And I do want to emphasize that the Advisory Committee is a
committee to give insight, recommendations, to the Secretary. Because I
‑‑ within the statute it is identified that I be a member of the
committee, but I am a member of the committee just as equal as every
other member of the committee.

I don\'t want to, you know, say everything the Advisory Committee
funnels through me or my office. You know, I give insight into what the
office does and how it works and, you know, things that have worked and
things that haven\'t, but certainly not directing the Advisory
Committee.

But I do think that having ‑‑ you know, having in black and white the
budget proposal and the reauthorization proposal, it gives some solid
basis for the Advisory Committee to say, you know, in light of this we
think X, Y, and Z, we recommend X, Y, and Z.

And because, you know, as Tommy said, you know, we have ‑‑ you know, we
have acknowledged the issues related to the variety of topics that we
have talked about without really ‑‑ you know, we have given some
perspective on it, but not really identifying solid recommendations,
because we\'ll do that in June.

We have given insight and our perspectives in those interim reports.
But, you know, this is the opportunity for us to in concrete see what
those administration proposals are for reauthorization and for the
budget, and for us to continue to do our work and then give our findings
and recommendations with the overall picture.

And it might be easy to be specific knowing what the administration has
presented. But I am not in any way more than a member of this committee.
It is an Advisory Committee to give advice to the Secretary as a whole.

CHAIRMAN LONG: We are at the witching hour, and I want to bring it ‑‑
because I\'ve had two people give me a high sign that they will be
leaving for the airport, so I just want to say that in advance of our
next one or two speakers.

MS. PRICE: And nothing to do with the subject matter of the meeting, but
speaking about the Advisory Committee meeting, Mary Ann Solberg, who has
represented the Office of ‑‑ ONDCP, Office of National Drug Control
Policy, has retired ‑‑ bless her heart. She is going to be enjoying life
a little bit.

So there will be a change in representation from ONDCP coming up at the
next meeting, and that will be made. But you can all congratulate Mary
Ann on retirement, and, you know, live vicariously through her relaxed
life now. So, anyway, I just thought I\'d let you know that.

MR. ELLIS: I think there is some value in what Bill suggests in terms of
us getting the administration\'s budget proposal. But I also think there
is some legitimacy to Mike\'s point about the independence, and, you
know, the need for us to provide our own opinions.

And, obviously, that was the intent of Congress when they put this
Advisory Committee in the legislation, to provide the public\'s honest
comments and opinion back to the Secretary that, of course, the Congress
then can read if they want to.

So I think it ‑‑ but I think Bill\'s point is very good. I think it will
be very interesting to see what the administration\'s budget proposal
will look like. I am anxious to see that.

Whether it\'s larger or smaller, I think that will provide us an
opportunity to do what Deborah says in terms of if they say, hey, this
is what we\'re going to submit, and it will do A, B, C ‑‑ you know,
whether or not we want to specify or recommend that, yes, we agree this
A, B, C, should be included, or this is what we should do with that
amount of money, or, you know, we\'ll also have an opportunity to say
not only should we do A, B, C, but we ought to be doing D, E, and F. And
this is ridiculous, it\'s a shame.

You know, we can word that however strongly we think we need to. So I
will ‑‑ am anxious to see that administration budget piece. I think it
is an important thing, and I don\'t think the two are mutually
exclusive, and I think it was set up that way.

MR. HINGSON: I think one thing that would be helpful ‑‑ and maybe
because this is my first meeting actually here ‑‑ I\'m more in need of
this than other people are. But it struck me at this meeting that there
were things that were talked about that I never thought were really the
charge of this program that may have emerged over time, when we talk
about avian flu and dirty bombs and all these sorts of things.

You know, I think that just as important as finding out what amount of
money the administration feels will be available for some kind of
program, the specific targets of the program and what they really want
the program to accomplish is very important for us to have some sort of
consensus on.

You know, it\'s one thing, for example, to be concerned about some
schools where there has been unprecedented gun violence ‑‑ you know, the
Columbine kind of situation ‑‑ versus the day-to-day violence and drug
use and alcohol-related problems that make it more difficult for young
people to learn day in and day out in communities across the country.

And I think that where ‑‑ one thing this committee can do or should do
is to say, really, what are the priorities, and what\'s most important,
and how do we rank order things? And then, how ‑‑ given the limited
resources, how does the Department of Education, with this particular
Title IV, or whatever, work with the other agencies that have similar ‑‑
that have charges that may overlap with what you\'re trying to
accomplish?

And how can we come up with recommendations, not just to Department of
Education but to these partnering agencies, about how they can combine
their scarce resources in the most effective way to achieve our overall
objectives.

CHAIRMAN LONG: See what you did, Howell? Good boy. That\'s good.

We are going to bring this to a close. Again, appreciate the ‑‑ I think
that ‑‑ not I think, I know it was a very rich discussion again this
morning, and I think especially the last 45 minutes.

So if we can ‑‑ we\'ll work to not dilute but to cut down the time
allotment for the data piece dramatically, which will then allow an
extended number of hours, both on the ‑‑ all Tuesday afternoon and all
Wednesday morning for the work of the committee in those areas that
we\'ve talked about. And those will be put down in bullet points.

Also, Bill\'s point taken with we do need to know, even as we go
forward, what the lay of the land is that morning as we head into that.
Having said that, then getting back to what Fred just said, and what
Mike was saying ‑‑ I\'ve seen a lot of heads nodding ‑‑ our charge is
also, no matter what that is, that we are to come forward with some
recommendations so that the administration, the public, understands
where we\'re coming from. So then I think it\'s a balance.

MR. MODZELESKI: One final thing. I gave everybody a copy of an
interactive CD. This is a companion copy to the Threat Assessment Guide
and the Safe Schools Initiative study that we\'ve done with the Secret
Service.

This is an interactive video which hopefully you go back and play. It\'s
interactive, a couple scenarios as well as the findings from the threat
assessment, plus a lot of resources. If you need extra copies, let me
know.

MS. DAVIS: And we can send those out to superintendents, school security
chiefs, and some of the larger education associations.

MR. MODZELESKI: Okay.

CHAIRMAN LONG: Again, thank you very much. We\'ll see each other in just
actually about 30 days, and everyone be safe with all that weather out
there.

(Whereupon, at 11:36 a.m., the proceedings in the foregoing matter were
adjourned.)