Governor: Expanding mental health services won't be last in school violence solutions

"The next step in my mind is how do we bring to bear or put into the equation all the ways to recognize these early warning signals and act on them before they get to the school front door or inside," Holcomb said

In May, Noblesville West Middle School student Ella Whistler and teacher Jason Seaman were shot by a 13-year-old male student. On Thursday, a 14-year-old Richmond boy shot out a door to enter Dennis Intermediate School. After reportedly exchanging gunfire with police, he killed himself with a gunshot. 

"Unfortunately, we see these cases that exhibited a certain common denominator," Holcomb said. "I am optimistic that there are some changes we can make on our end, our being the state, local community and the school corporations, et cetera. But it's not an either-or, it's more of an all of the above including now addressing these issues that there's a lot of consensus around. How do we address mental health at an earlier and earlier and earlier age?"

This year, Holcomb set up a committee to develop school safety recommendations. Staying away from the sometimes contentious issue of gun safety, the panel looked at mental health as tethered to violence.

Among recommendations: Direct the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration to provide schools with a universal mental health screening tool to evaluate students individually and allow schools to take action. A school safety hub has also been launched to provide a one-stop shop for resources.

At the time of its fall report, more than $100 million had been spent for Indiana school safety including state, federal and matching funds. The money has been used for building security, school resource officers and conducting threat assessments.

The committee also urged that children not be labeled at-risk or showing signs of mental health problems in a manner that could stigmatize them in life.

"The mental health component is huge," said Madison County Sheriff Scott Mellinger, who served on the committee. "It's probably the most important element of the whole subject.

"The mental health component has so many hurdles involved because you have all types of privacy issues whether it's any type of medical even if it's mental," Mellinger said. "There's privacy issues. There's a lack of qualified therapists statewide. There's a lot of denial involved in terms of parents."

And then there's the stigma of being labeled as a child at risk.

"And it's real the stigma of what happens when a child is labeled even if it's appropriate," Mellinger added.

The question, Holcomb said, is how to intervene and when.

"There will be more emphasis on that, and it's about getting the help that a student needs sooner and then hopefully preventing that eruption from occurring at school, in a parking lot or somewhere else," he said.

Among recommendations, the committee suggested that Indiana consider using Maryland's Safe to Learn program, passed on the last day of that state's legislative session this year as a way to develop mental health staff and team with families and schools in providing resources.

"Most of our schools have had school resource officers for a long time, but over last few years we've put in new ways of keeping schools secure and yet balancing that with maintaining accessibility for parents and for people who deserve to be in schools when they want to," said Bill Reinhard, director of communications for the Maryland State Department of Education. "So there's a lot of feeling out to find out which is the proper way to balance safety and accessibility."

The program has been in operation about four months. About $10.6 million has been distributed to school systems and a safety hub as part of the Safe to Learn Act.

'I think they're onto something, though," Holcomb said. "We won't shy away from addressing the stigma or anything else just because it's difficult or new."