Is the parent volunteer in your child’s school a convicted sex offender or drug dealer? School officials struggle balancing parental involvement and protecting students from adults with criminal backgrounds who want to volunteer at their child’s school. The tension was highlighted in Wednesday’s Associated Press article entitled Would-be School Volunteers Thwarted By Their Past. Parent […]
Category Archive: Parents and School Safety
Why Florida Father of Bus Bullying Victim Was Wrong
The frustrated father whose daughter was bullied on a Florida school bus was justifiably upset, but wrong in how he approached the issue. Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Right James Willie Jones made national news this past week when a school bus video captured him yelling at students and the bus driver, and gesturing in anger […]
Pop Quiz on School Safety: Could Your School Leaders Pass The Test?
If a parent unexpectedly asked your school’s principal, superintendent, or school board member the following two questions, could they immediately answer each one with specific responses? Will you name 10 specific strategies your schools are using to prevent crime and violence in your schools? Will you list 10 specific measures your schools have taken to prepare for, […]
More of What Parents Want to Know About School Safety
Prevention and preparedness. Parents want to know about both of these school safety components. Could you and your school leaders answer these two questions with specific examples if asked unexpectedly? What specific steps have you taken to prevent incidents of violence and crime in your school(s)? How well prepared are your school staff to respond to and […]
“Getting to School Safely” Video Tackles Widespread Elementary Safety Concerns
School shootings get a lot of attention, but traffic and adult behavior at student drop-off and pick-up poses major safety concerns at many schools across the nation. Some of the great challenges occur at elementary schools. In our school safety assessments across the nation, we repeatedly find elementary principals frustrated with juggling school buses, massive parent […]
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 […]