Federal authorities acknowledge a credible terrorist threat to your city or to a city near you. What does a school principal and superintendent do? School officials faced this very reality last night when federal homeland security officials acknowledged a credible al-Qaeda terrorist threat to NY City and Washington, DC. School safety officials in New York City and DC likely […]
Blog Archives
Behind the Scenes of a Crisis: 9/11 Ten Years Later
Communication, coordination, and complacency. These three themes repeatedly surfaced in comments by morning panel members for The Press Club of Cleveland’s: Behind the Scenes of a Crisis, September 11 10 Years Later program. The September 7th program’s morning panel included representatives from the FBI, Red Cross, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Cleveland Police, Regional Transit Authority, and […]
Are Domestic Terrorists Targeting Your Child’s School?
Libya, Iran, Al-Qaeda, Mexican drug cartels, and the list of other possible threat sources to U.S. national security and public safety continue to grow. In fact, one veteran national public official openly asked this week if the U.S. has more international enemies now than we did just prior to 9/11. When you think about it, […]
Pop Quiz for School Maintenance: Shots Fired – Who Do You Call?
Shots are fired in a high school bathroom. The suspects flee. Who does the maintenance worker and his/her supervisor call? Not the police. Shots Fired, Suspects Flee; School Staff Delay Police Call A March 22, 2011, MercuryNews.com article reporting on Shots fired at Berkeley High School, three arrested says the school’s maintenance worker who heard the shots […]
House Proposes Cuts to 2011 School Emergency Planning Grants
First the Obama Administration proposed eliminating K-12 school emergency planning grants from the 2012 federal budget. Now, it appears the House Appropriations Committee is calling to eliminate the funds from this year’s 2011 budget! In a Friday press release on $4 billion in spending cuts as a part of a proposed short term government funding Continuing […]
Gardena School Shooting: Security Policy Disconnects Create Safety, Credibility Risks
Failure to follow security procedures and to communicate with parents can easily lead to a post-crisis crisis for school leaders. Two students were wounded at Gardena High School on Tuesday after a gun in a 10th grader’s backpack discharged in a classroom, striking a 15-year-old girl in the head and a 15-year-old male in the […]
Cell Phones, Texting, School Safety, and Discipline
There is no constitutional right for students to have cell phones in schools. This is one of several points I made in an interview for a Fox News Channel national story earlier this week entitled, “Zero Tolerance for Classroom Texters.” The peg for the story is a Benicia High School (California) policy where school administrators […]
Schools Are Under-Funded & Under-Prepared for Disasters, Feds Say
Schools and communities are neglecting children due to a lack of funding and lack of a national strategy to address the needs of children in disaster planning, according to a report by The National Commission on Children and Disasters, a commission created in 2007 by the President and Congress. “Children are 25 percent of our […]
REMS School Emergency Planning Grant Lessons Learned
Good school safety consultants learn from every project and client school district. If not, they’re not very good consultants. My colleagues and I have consistently received positive feedback from our work with school districts receiving federal Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools (REMS) grants. We have provided training for crisis teams and administrators, emergency planning assessments, […]
Emergency Management Agencies: Hidden Treasures for School Preparedness – Part 2
Part 1 of my interview with Joe Wainscott, Executive Director of the Indiana Department of Homeland Security (IDHS), addressed school preparedness and emergency management agency relationships. Today, the conversation continues with a look at potential school transportation needs during a community disaster. We also discuss partnering benefits including pre-planning and pre-training activities. During tough financial times, a good […]