Educators generally do a great job in preparing for the mental health recovery of students following a crisis. They typically do not prepare enough for their own recovery. In the past five years, I worked with educators after a high-profile school stabbing, a school shooting and student-shooter suicide, and a gang-related student killing in a community where safety concerns spilled over […]
Category Archive: Crisis – Emergency Planning for Schools
The State of School Security Ten Years Post-Columbine
School Security Blog debuts this first week in January of 2010. We will quickly delve deeper together into the many facets of school safety, security, and emergency planning. But first we need to reflect on the state of school security. We can’t move forward without having a feel for where we have been and where we are today. So we begin with posts […]
Nuts and Bolts Fundamentals Missing in Many School Safety and Crisis Plans
Missing nuts-and-bolts fundamentals in school security and emergency planning come back to haunt us when a crisis or high-profile security incident occurs. We can prevent many situations with the proper training and time allocated to doing the leg work critical to meaningful school safety and crisis planning. Want to stump a school crisis team? You don’t need to ask complex questions. Instead: […]
The Columbine 10th Anniversary: Lessons Learned, Glaring Gaps
The Columbine 10th anniversary arrives on April 20, 2009. Anniversaries offer us time for reflection on lessons learned and future directions. The legacy of Columbine at its tenth anniversary is a mixed bag of lessons learned and implemented, with many glaring gaps and a lot of work remaining. The good news is that progress made on school […]