School leaders increasingly tell me that it is “hard to cut through the noise” — a reference to school security vendor marketing sales pitches, materials and spin. Recently, it has even become difficult to cut through the noise of school safety presenters’ organizational titles and affiliations. Many school administrators and school safety professionals pondering whether […]
Category Archive: School safety conferences
The politics of school safety: From “tours” of school mass shooting scenes to statehouse lobbying and your local school district, the politicization of school shootings and school safety may be the very reason progress has stalled, not advanced.
Strategic school safety leaders must recognize and understand that school safety is a political issue. From the highest national levels to your local school community, politics has infiltrated school safety narratives, policy and funding. Superintendents, school boards, and principals must be consciously cognizant of the increasingly political context around school shootings and school safety. Yet […]
“Dancing with the Devil”: How some education associations and school safety conference organizers are selling their souls and conference agendas to security vendors — and potentially increasing school safety and liability risks for superintendents and school boards
“Unfortunately, we increasingly have to dance with the devil.” More than a decade ago, these words were said to me by a now long-retired head of a national association for school leaders. He was explaining to me why he had to fill a few annual convention speaking slots with vendor-affiliated speakers rather than more experienced […]