WASHINGTON, DC — Newtown resident Scarlett Lewis, whose son, Jesse, was among the 20 children who died six years ago at Sandy Hook Elementary School, was among the six family members of victims of mass shootings to attend a White House meeting Tuesday, December 18, with President Donald Trump.

Trump established the Federal Commission on School Safety after the February 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., to study and recommend ways to make schools more secure.

At Tuesday’s discussion, President Trump held a copy of the recently released and controversial Federal Commission on School Safety report.

Ms Lewis was accompanied by her son and Jesse’s brother, JT Lewis. Several of the Parkland survivors also attended the meeting.

During the gathering, Ms Lewis, founder of the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement, praised the president for his “courage.”

“You really listened,” she said.

Ms Lewis told The Newtown Bee that it was “exciting” to be invited to participate in the round table event at the White House.

“My mission has been providing every child with social and emotional learning (SEL) as a part of school safety,” Ms Lewis said. “The fact that they included this in the first part of the report and cited it as my recommendation is forward-thinking and fantastic.”

She said her suggestions in the report, “cultivate safety from the inside out of every child.”

During the round table discussion, JT Lewis was seated across from his mother in the Roosevelt Room, two seats away from the president. Since shortly after the tragedy at Sandy Hook School, Ms Lewis has worked to introduce or strengthen SEL curricula in schools, as well as introduce its concepts to individual households and entire communities.

In a lengthy December 15 interview to be published in The Bee next week, Ms Lewis announced that the State of New Hampshire will be including social emotional learning (SEL) “as part of their statewide school safety initiative and used our program as the backbone of support.”

“I’m hoping other states follow suit,” she said.

The federal school safety report incorporated some of her suggestions to make mental health assistance and SEL more commonplace in schools. The long-awaited report contained recommendations for non-controversial ideas such as Risk Prevention orders, which Connecticut has had on the books since 1999.

The controversial proposal that Trump himself suggested months ago drew criticism from Connecticut Senators Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal, who complained that the 177-page report offered little in the way of serious recommendations to protect children from gun violence.

It includes arming teachers as one of 93 “best practices and policy recommendations.”

‘No Single Solution’

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who headed the commission, said there is no single solution to making schools safe, so the report “provides a wide-ranging menu of best practices and resources that all state, community, and school leaders should consider while developing school safety plans and procedures that will work for their students and teachers.”

Among the key proposals in the report, DeVos said:

*It encourages better access to mental health services so people can receive the treatment they need;

*Endorses states’ adoption of extreme risk protection orders, which temporarily restrict access to firearms by individuals found to be a danger to themselves or others;

*Calls on journalists to “be more responsible in their coverage of school shootings” by focusing on the facts and victims without mentioning the names or publishing photographs of the perpetrators;

*Urges schools, districts, and states to seriously consider the option of partnering with local law enforcement in the training and arming of school personnel and to consider ways to encourage more veterans and retired law enforcement officers to pursue careers in education.

Sen Murphy was particularly enraged that the report includes a recommendation to arm teachers in response to the school shooting in Parkland.

“Teachers don’t want this. Parents don’t want this. Only Betsy DeVos, President Trump, and the gun industry think the best way to stop a school shooting is to load schools up with guns. Arming teachers and rolling back school discipline reforms won’t make our kids any safer. It’s nonsensical and dangerous,” Sen Murphy said.

Rather than use taxpayer funds to purchase weapons for teachers, Sen Murphy said schools should be given resources to support teachers and provide meaningful help to struggling students. He also said that federal gun laws need to be tightened to ensure that a “weapon of war” cannot be carried into a school.

Sen Murphy supports a prohibition on assault-style weapons, stricter limits on how many bullets can be loaded in a magazine or clip, and stricter background checks for gun purchases.

Sen Blumenthal called the report a “low grade scam” that offers no meaningful gun violence reform measures but instead recommends arming school personnel and rescinding Obama-era civil rights guidance as ways to improve school safety.

“While student survivors of gun violence were marching in the streets to call for change, Secretary DeVos and the Trump administration closed their ears and produced a report that focuses on anything but meaningful reform,” he said. “Civil rights guidelines that protect children of color from discrimination don’t cause school shootings. Guns do. Forcing educators to carry firearms won’t save lives. Keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous people will.”

‘Red Flag’ Expansion

The report did call for expanding extreme risk protection orders such as the “red flag” law in Connecticut. Sen Blumenthal has proposed legislation with Sen Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) for a federal law that has yet to pass Congress.

Sen Blumenthal said that with the Trump administration supporting the proposal, there should be no impediment to getting a law on the federal books.

Connecticut Congresswoman Elizabeth Esty (D-5th District) added that the report caters to the National Rifle Association and its opposition to any restrictions on guns.

“The long-awaited Trump Administration School Safety Commission Report does the bidding of the NRA and scapegoats civil rights protections as a cause of mass shootings,” she said on Twitter.

Connecticut Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-3rd District) said the report failed to deliver on President Trump’s pledge to survivors of the Parkland shooting that he would take action to reduce gun violence in schools.

“Instead, his commission — chaired by Secretary DeVos — sidesteps the issue of guns, fails to advance real solutions to keep our students safe, blames the media, and serves as a Trojan horse for rollbacks that would hurt students,” she said.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar said that improving mental health is an “urgent challenge” and a priority for the Trump administration.

“We know that rates of mental illness continue to be of great concern, and the Commission’s findings show an urgent need to identify youth at risk for mental illness and connect them with needed treatment and services. Making these connections to treatment within schools can be an important step toward improved mental health for our children and increased safety in our schools,” he said.

Content by Associated Press reporter Peter Urban is included in this article.