National School Safety and Security Services provides post-crisis/post-critical incident school safety consulting support to schools that have experienced high-profile school violence and school safety incidents.

We help school officials avoid knee-jerk reactions and overreaction by providing an independent, professional, and nationally-recognized expertise at a time when emotions are running high in a school-community.  We bring a candid, heart-felt concern of a parent blended with a professional expertise and extensive experience of more than 30 years with school and public safety officials from all 50 states addressing school safety, school security, and school emergency planning issues.  We focus on best practices, balance, and common-sense with the long-term best interests of the school, school district, and school-community in mind.

School-community emotions run high after a high-profile school violence incidents.  School-community politics can also come into play.  Media attention is front-page, top-story, and ongoing day after day.  Pressures are on school board members, superintendents, and principals to “improve” security.  Parents want “guarantees” that such an incident will never happen again.

School officials have historically engaged school psychologists, counselors, and mental health professionals to work with students, staff, and the school community after school violence crises.  This is a best practice and should be continued.  But today’s societal focus on “heightened security” require that school officials now also engage a focus not only on the mental health recovery, but also on revisiting and reviewing their school security and emergency preparedness plans after an incident.

Parents are equally, if not more emotionally concerned, about the immediate safety of their children at the school.  In addition to mental health support, parents want to know if it is safe to continue sending their children to school in the next days and weeks. Parents want to know if school officials have taken all possible steps to prevent the reoccurrence of such incidents and whether they are adequately prepared to effectively respond to incidents which cannot be prevented.

We have worked with school board members and administrators restore calm, focus, and community confidence following a number of high-profile incidents.  From an incident where a high school student brought an AK-47 to school, fired shots in the hallway, and committed suicide, to an incident where a student brought a tree-saw and machete to his first period class and violently attacked students, sending multiple students to the hospital with serious facial and body injuries from being struck with these weapons.

In addition to our expertise in school security and emergency planning, we bring a unique and unparalleled experience in working with the media and school-community relations aspects of such crisis.  Skilled in communicating effectively with local, national, and international media, our president, Ken Trump, works with school administrators to educate and communicate effectively with the media during such difficult times.

Ken and his colleagues also work with the school-community.  They engage parents in the post-crisis evaluation process.  They have had exceptional success in facilitating community meetings to educate parents, put situations into context and perspective, share national best practices, and most importantly, to obtain parent input and school-community feedback into their evaluation process.

Expected focal areas may include:

• Evaluation of district and building level emergency preparedness plans
• Examination of district and building level school crisis teams
• Assessment of current school security measures and areas for improvements
• Review of prevention, intervention, and support services, and how they integrate with security and emergency prepardness measures.
• Parent input and community feedback, such as a community meeting and parent interviews, in the assessment process
• Liaison with community public safety and emergency management agencies
• School safety and crisis communications issues
• Support with media and school-community communications during and after the process

and related assistance to help schools return their focus to education.

A final report is submitted with observations of positive security and existing emergency preparedness elements in place, and recommendations for building upon current efforts.

Reference letters from superintendents having used this service are available.

For more information on these services, contact Ken Trump.