The next time you head onto your school campus, take a look at the site through a different lens. Instead of looking at your school from your eyes as a school employee or as a parent, look as if you are a school safety consultant: Campus perimeter: Is there a defined perimeter distinguishing school property […]
Category Archive: School Safety Issues
School Safety Experts Can Learn from Obama and Republican Get-Together
President Obama and representatives of the House Republican conference met earlier today where a spirited 90-minute exchange occurred after a year of bitter, intense political sniping between their two parties. Although intense, the exchanges appeared to be sincere, genuine, and at least somewhat productive. At a minimum, it was generally more civil than the daily shots we see fired in soundbite […]
Motivating and Inspiring School Safety Participation
Commercials have never been a favorite part of my TV time, which is typically limited to cable news in airports, hotels, and my office background. But I’ve actually stumbled on a series of TV commercials I look forward to seeing over and over. The Foundation for a Better Life has a series of inspirational TV spots worth watching. The […]
Are You a Part of Your School Security Program?
A fellow traveler once told me I could star in a reality TV show contest on how quickly one could get through a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screening at the airport. Perhaps he was correct. Like many business travelers, I am quick to off-load my coat, shoes, laptop, cell phone, and other required items into […]
Is Staff Arrival and Departure Security in Your School Safety Plan?
A Cleveland elementary school teacher was robbed and her car was stolen as she arrived outside the school around 7:30am today. This incident illustrates the importance of thinking about school security beyond just the hours when students are present. All schools, especially those in high-crime areas, should have security considerations in place from early staff arrival until the […]
Three Ways to Make Your School Safer Today
Many things we can do to make our schools safer require more time than money. Three ways to make your school safer today include: 1) Ask students about safety at their school. Where do they feel most safe? Least safe? Why? What would they do to make their schools more safe? 2) Identify comfort levels and […]
School Safety Requires a Mindset, Not Mechanical, Change
A school shooting or other high-profile violence incident occurs in a school-community. Within hours, parents and others call for more surveillance cameras, metal detectors, and other physical security equipment. Parents understandably want a “guarantee” that threats to school safety will not happen a second time at their school. Most educators realize, however, they cannot honestly provide such a guarantee. Yet it […]
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 […]
School Security Blog: A New Community for Safe Schools
Parents will forgive educators if their test scores go down. They are much less forgiving if something happens to their child at school which could have been prevented. As a superintendent once said to me, “If I mess up with school safety, it will be my career-ender.” The good news is we can prevent school […]
School Safety Blogging from the NSBA Annual Convention
It has been a great five days at the National School Boards Association annual convention in San Diego. The staff at NSBA is terrific, as always. Board members and superintendents I met from around the nation are genuinely concerned about the safety of their students. Several themes came from our work with these school board members and superintendents: […]