Best Practices for School Security and Emergency Preparedness Planning
School security and emergency preparedness require much more than cameras, doors, panic buttons, templated emergency plans, and periodic mandated drills.
Effective school safety is a continuous leadership and management process. It combines trained and alert people, sound policies and procedures, behavioral threat assessment, appropriate physical security, emergency planning, communications, student supports, and strong partnerships with first responders.
School leaders should regularly evaluate whether their safety strategies reflect current risks, the characteristics of each school, lessons learned from exercises and actual incidents, and recognized school security and emergency preparedness best practices.
The goal is not to create schools that look or feel like prisons. The goal is to create safe, secure, welcoming, and well-managed learning environments in which students and staff are prepared without being unnecessarily frightened.
What Are Important School Security and Emergency Preparedness Best Practices?
Important school security and emergency preparedness best practices are:
- Build school safety leadership and accountability.
- Train all employees, not only administrators and security personnel.
- Conduct comprehensive security, risk, threat, and vulnerability assessments.
- Strengthen behavioral threat assessment and early intervention.
- Use physical security as part of a broader safety system.
- Develop building-specific emergency operations plans.
- Train school crisis teams and define individual responsibilities.
- Conduct age-appropriate drills and discussion-based exercises.
- Plan evacuation, family reunification, and continuity of operations.
- Strengthen partnerships with police, fire, emergency medical services, and emergency management agencies.
- Develop crisis communication and social media strategies.
- Review, test, and continuously improve safety practices.
These strategies work together. No single product, program, drill, policy, or employee can provide comprehensive school safety.