Last night, a 14-year-old boy was killed in a school shooting as police were dispersing a crowd following a Chicago-area high school football game. Meanwhile, in Kansas City, Kansas, shots were fired during a high school football game and the school officer returned fire until the suspects fled. These are the latest in a spate […]
A lesson for superintendents, school boards, and principals on being wise school safety and security consumers: People don’t buy products. They buy solutions to their problems.
“People don’t buy products. They buy solutions to their problems.” This insightful observation, along with a humorous video to illustrate the point, is floating around social media. While some may focus on the video, marketing gurus are using it to impart a bit of wisdom that school leaders must consider when tackling school security challenges […]
School security consultants: For many a retirement job or new income stream, for a few of us a lifelong passion
There are many qualified school safety and security consultants around the U.S. today. But for a much smaller number of us, school safety has been a lifelong passion far before it became trendy to be a school security consultant. An inside look: My school safety journey began as a student in Cleveland junior and senior […]
Focus forward with a tactical pause: Recognize limitations of “single incident expert” school shooting and other school safety recommendations
We glean lessons from each school shooting, but the next may follow a different fact pattern. School leaders should exercise caution and restraint in making abrupt changes to safety policies and practices based upon the fact pattern of one (or even several) low-probability/high-impact incidents. A school central office administrator responsible for district school safety recently […]
Communicating school safety to parents: Superintendents and principals need strategic support on what to say, how to say it, and when to say it
If we don’t better support superintendents and principals in becoming strategic school safety leaders and communicators, they will lose the trust and confidence of parents, students, staff, and their school communities. They might also lose their jobs. Yesteryear’s school safety communications spin no longer works During the first couple of decades of my school security […]
Increased school gun confiscations and use on campus: 10 steps to strengthen school safety and security
*Updated February 11, 2023 Loaded gun confiscations and gun use spike on school campuses nationwide Many educators and school safety officials anticipated an increase in student aggression and violence as they returned to in-person learning following remote learning due to COVID. Unfortunately, schools are experiencing not only increased verbal and physical aggression, but also an […]
How Congress and the Biden Administration can restore meaningful programs to strengthen school safety, security, and emergency preparedness
Congress and the Biden Administration do not need to reinvent the wheel to improve safety in America’s PreK-12 schools. They need only do some homework to find multiple meaningful federal programs created in a bipartisan effort by Congress and the Clinton Administration following the 1999 school shooting attacks at Columbine High School that resulted in […]
School security expert witness says school safety civil lawsuits point to allegations of failures of human factors, not failures of security equipment and technology
Being retained as a school security expert witness in Pre-K12 school civil litigation cases ranging from the nation’s highest profile school active shooter cases and wrongful death cases (Sandy Hook, Parkland, San Bernardino, and others) to rapes and other sexual assaults, violent physical assaults, gang violence, crimes on school buses, and other lawsuits provides unique […]
Is remote learning the new crutch for school administrators when safety threats occur? School leaders are forcing students from in-person learning back to remote learning as fights, weapon confiscations, and other safety threats soar
As school violence surges across the nation following a return to in-person learning from pandemic school closures, educators are now forcing students back into remote learning as a knee-jerk response to escalating incidences of threats and violence. School safety experts are increasingly concerned that virtual learning is being misused by school administrators as a crutch […]
School administrators must revisit traditional school safety, security, and emergency crisis plans – not just COVID safety plans.
Students and teachers are back to in-person learning in most schools across the nation. Unfortunately, instances of school shootings, gun confiscations, stabbings, and other violence have also returned to our nation’s schools. In the past week alone, there have been at least four school shootings around the U.S., the most recent on Wednesday at a […]