Like many Minnesota districts, St. Paul Public School leaders sent an email last week letting parents know they had plans in place to keep students safe.

“School security is not only one of our district’s top priorities, but one of my personal priorities as well,” superintendent Stacie Stanley wrote.

Stanley detailed St. Paul’s emergency operations plan, its tools for reporting safety concerns and its long-established relationship with the St. Paul Police Department.

For the past several years, the state’s second largest district has been working on an innovative approach to prevent violence, one that is more complex than a quick, reassuring email could describe.

“We have to have a layered approach to this,” violence prevention expert James Densley said.

Densley and his colleague Jill

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