Blog Archives

School Security Versus the CSI Effect & TSA Effect

Posted by on September 2, 2010

Surveillance cameras and metal detectors are used to varying extents in a number of our nation’s school districts.  Cameras are in place in many urban, suburban, and rural districts.  Metal detectors tend to be used regularly in a smaller number of districts, often larger districts with a chronic history of weapons incidents. Parents, the media, […]

School Safety: Why Parents Don’t Know What They Don’t Know

Posted by on September 1, 2010

Utah school crime data is riddled with inaccuracies, according to a recent Salt Lake Tribune newspaper story.   The bottom line:  Parents don’t know what they don’t know about school safety — and nobody is rushing to tell them! The problem is not limited to Utah.  It is a national problem I have documented for years on […]

Gunman at TN School: Do You Want Police or a Climate Survey?

Posted by on August 31, 2010

A 62-year-old gunman pointed a .380 semi-automatic gun in a Tennessee Principal’s face yesterday. The School Resource Officer (SRO) drew her gun and shielded the Principal’s body with her own.  The principal, Melanie Riden, was able to flee the area. The SRO, Sheriff’s Deputy Carolyn Gudger, lured the gunman into the  empty high school cafeteria — a more contained […]

Fear mongering article? America’s real school-safety problem

Posted by on August 30, 2010

Good theory, perhaps, but clueless in understanding School Resource Officers (SROs), school security, and so-called “zero tolerance.” This is my take on America’s real school-safety problem, an article posted Sunday on salon.com.  The article is mostly a Q&A with Aaron Kupchick, author of “Homeroom Security: School Discipline in an Age of Fear.”  He spent two years researching “zero […]

Pipe Bombs & Shooting Threats: Violence or Incivil Behavior?

Posted by on August 29, 2010

High-profile school security incidents this week included: A pipe bomb disabled at a Los Angeles school. A teen arrested for a mass schooting plot at a school.  Texas schools on the Mexican border preparing for stray bullets from Mexican drug cartel wars. Is this violence?  Or is it a manifestation of bullying, harassment, and “incivil” […]

Schools Are Under-Funded & Under-Prepared for Disasters, Feds Say

Posted by on August 26, 2010

Schools and communities are neglecting children due to a lack of funding and lack of a national strategy to address the needs of children in disaster planning, according to a report by The National Commission on Children and Disasters, a commission created in 2007 by the President and Congress. “Children are 25 percent of our […]

REMS School Emergency Planning Grant Lessons Learned

Posted by on August 23, 2010

Good school safety consultants learn from every project and client school district.  If not, they’re not very good consultants. My colleagues and I have consistently received positive feedback from our work with school districts receiving federal Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools (REMS) grants.  We have provided training for crisis teams and administrators, emergency planning assessments, […]

Gangs and Drugs in More Than 25% of Public Schools, Survey Says

Posted by on August 22, 2010

Twenty-seven percent of public school students ages 12 to 17 say that their school has both gangs and drugs (drugs are used, kept or sold on school grounds), according to the National Survey of American Attitudes on Substance Abuse XV: Teens and Parents, the 15th annual back-to-school survey conducted by The National Center on Addiction […]

Detroit Public Schools: Doing School Security “On-the-Cheap”?

Posted by on August 21, 2010

Privatizing school safety officers may save money, but does it also increase safety risks? This debate is unfolding in Detroit, where the Detroit Public Schools recently fired all of its 226 school security officers and replaced them with $10-per-hour contracted private security staff.   The district says doing so will save the district $4.5 million a […]

Engaging Support Staff in School Emergency Planning

Posted by on August 20, 2010

School bus drivers, secretaries, food service staff, and custodians are on the front-lines in schools. But are they on the front lines in school emergency preparedness training and planning? School bus drivers are the first and last school employees to see many students each school day, and face the challenges of managing the behavior and […]