CPS schools host Sandy Hook Promise program

The Cranston Herald ·

Last week, all seven Cranston Public Schools middle and high schools hosted speakers from the Sandy Hook Promise organization, presenting the Say Something violence prevention program to students there. In a collaboration initiated by Kevin Ascoli, social worker at Cranston High School who reached out to the Sandy Hook Promise organization on behalf of the school's SADD club, it was then decided that each secondary school in the district could benefit from the presentation and all seven schools were scheduled. Representatives from the organization spent two days presenting the hour-long event at Bain, Park View and Western Hills Middle Schools and to Cranston High School East and West and the New England Laborers Career and Construction charter high school on March 30 and 31.

At Cranston High School West, the presentation was done by Debra D'Angelo, a high school social worker for the past 25 years from Connecticut who volunteers with the Sandy Hook Promise organization, traveling from school to school to present the program. The event fit in well with the school's Diversity Week program of events.

D'Angelo began her presentation by asking for a show of hands as to how many had heard of Sandy Hook, a small section of Newtown, Connecticut that experienced a school shooting four years ago at the Sandy Hook Elementary School during which 20 students and six adults were killed by a 20 year-old Newtown man who also killed his mother first and himself afterwards. Many hands in the 700-student auditorium were raised as D'Angelo described the impact of the devastating even on the local community, the state and the entire nation.

"The parents of those children did not want anyone else to experience the pain and devastation that they had to experience from this tragedy and they made a promise to prevent violence, to reduce threats and to make the world a better place," said D'Angelo.

"From this promise, the Sandy Hook Promise organization came to be. When I heard about it, I knew I wanted in. As a high school social worker in a school of 1,000, I can only spread that message to 1,000 students. This program empowers other people not only to rely on adults, but also to help everyone stay safe and I wanted to be a part of spreading that message to as many more people as possible. It is our belief that every act of violence can be prevented."

D'Angelo played a short video clip showing newspaper clippings, video and audio clips showing real tragedies which have taken place, whether shootings, bullying or suicides, for a completely silent auditorium.

"Before they happened, each of these tragedies had clues. There were tweets, posts, or other warning signs," she said. "All of these were preventable. You can make a difference; you can save lives if you say something. We are going to be talking today about the things you've just seen. Tragedies such as these happen every day. They aren't prejudiced by state or age or locations. It happens every day, everywhere, and it happens too often. We have learned that these things don't happen out of the blue, and that a mass shooting has often been planned for six months before the person carries it out."

D'Angelo stated that after a tragedy it is often found out that there were people who knew that it was going to happen, but maybe didn't think it was really going to happen, or didn't know who to tell or how to tell.

Through the Say Something program, D'Angelo gave the students three steps to take if they suspect that someone is about to do something dangerous to themselves or others: 1.) Look for warning signs, signals and threats, 2.) Act immediately, take it seriously and 3.) Say something to a trusted adult.

Using statistics to illustrate the seriousness of not saying something and not acting immediately upon warning signs and signals, D'Angelo walked the students through each step, making sure to clarify for them what a warning sign might look like or sound like, what an example of a threat might be, and how to act immediately. She asked the students to think about who their trusted adult might be both at school and outside of school and she instructed them to put those adults into their contacts of their phones, noting that during the midst of a crisis, things that might now seem automatic and simple, do not come easily and need to be at their fingertips.

D'Angelo also reminded the students that they have the power of having a strong knowledge of the ins and outs of social media, of apps that adults may not have.

"You are growing up in a generation that uses these apps regularly and you are in a unique position with a skill set most of us do not have," she said. "You have access to information shared out that we do not have. We are not sitting with you in the bleachers, or with you in the bathrooms or locker rooms. You are the eyes and ears of this building and there are many more of you than there are of us. You have access to things that we adults do not."

D'Angelo also reminded the students that they are growing up, and that part of the benefits of growing up include things such as driving and later curfews, jobs and bank accounts, but that in growing up also comes added responsibilities.

"If you are old enough and responsible enough to take on those types of things, then you are absolutely old enough to handle these types of responsibilities which will help keep Cranston safe, help to make Cranston High School West a safer place," she said.

In finishing her presentation, D'Angleo asked the students to take the pledge with her to promise to look for the warning signs, to act immediately and to tell someone if they think a threat exists.

"Be an upstanding citizen. Don't be a bystander, don't expect someone else to take care of it," she said.

She ended with sharing a personal story of her own, one in which she and another sibling helped to save the life of their sister by alerting others to the fact that she might be in danger of harming herself. D'Angelo spoke of the immediate panic that set in when she realized that despite being a social worker herself, she didn't immediately know who to call or what to do. Relying on the advice of her colleague, the school's student resource officer who told her exactly what to do and say, D'Angelo was able to save her sister's life, which was in fact, at risk.

"She's angry with me now, I stopped her plan to take her own life," D'Angelo said. "Our relationship is strained, we don't speak often, but I'd much rather have her be angry and alive than to have kept her secret and have her be dead."