Fast food restaurants and shopping centers for years have had better security than many schools. Yet there are still people questioning security measures, such as cameras and police officers, being placed in our schools. In most fast food restaurants, you can only enter through a limited number of open doors. When you step inside, you are […]
Blog Archives
Does Your School Safety Consultant Cry on Command?
Tightening education and school safety budgets demand that school safety consultants and trainers solve problems, not provide theatrics. A school dean drove home this point when he said to me in a teleconference last week: “I was impressed with your presentation above all of the other presenters because you are down-to-Earth, had practical advice, and did […]
How to Make Schools Safer During Tight Budget Times
Tight budgets are no excuse for failing to be proactive with school safety. Parents will forgive educators if their school’s test scores go down. Parents will be much less forgiving if their children are hurt in an incident which could have been prevented or better managed. Attorneys and the media will be equally unforgiving. So […]
Why Parents Believe Educators Are Ignoring Bullying
Does your child stop a negative behavior after the first and only time you tell him or her not to do something? Or do you need to revisit certain misbehavior, address issues more than once, etc.? For most parents, at some point they have to discuss a particular misbehavior more than once over a period of time. This […]
Why School Safety Initiatives Fail
New York Times writer, Crystal Yednak, and I spoke at length for her article published this past Sunday entitled, “Seeking to Assure Students’ Safety Outside School.” The article highlights stimulus-funded efforts in Chicago to create safer streets for students walking to and from school following a shocking number of kids killed and injured in recent […]
Who Will Bail Out School Safety?
Education budget cuts are in the headlines every day: Teachers being laid off in mass numbers. Local levy and bond issues failing left and right. Major cuts from school operating budgets. Buried deeper in these stories are the cuts to school safety. As of July, if things move forward as planned, the state grant component […]
Finding a Gun In a School Is Good News
Educators, parents, and the media often look upon a gun or drug confiscation in a school as bad news and a negative mark on a school’s reputation. In fact many historically believed, and some still believe, the presence of a police car parked outside of a school implies an out-of-control school and an incompetent principal exists […]
Law Enforcement and Educators Partner to Sustain S.C. School Safety
Yesterday I shared how the South Carolina U.S. Attorney’s Office has taken a leadership role in promoting school safety annually for the past 19 years. Kevin McDonald, the Acting U.S. Attorney and First Assistant U.S. Attorney in that office, shares his perspective on the importance of federal, state, and local partnerships not only in putting together statewide training each […]
Justice Dept Takes on School Safety in South Carolina
When you think of the United States Attorney’s Office, you think of serious crimes, indictments, and big-time jail sentences. You certainly don’t think of school safety. Not so in South Carolina. For the past 19 years, the South Carolina U.S. Attorney’s Office has taken a strong leadership role in promoting safe schools, school violence prevention, and school crisis […]
The NY City Terror Plot Connection to School Security
There is a direct connection between the New York City Times Square terror bomb plot and the security of your child’s school. I talked about schools as terror targets in my April 28th post entitled, “Is Your Child’s School a Soft Target for Terrorism?,” Ironically, that post was published just a few days before the New York City […]