School Safety Is Leadership: Keeping Safety at the Forefront Every Day
Editor’s introduction: School safety leadership is an ongoing responsibility, not a project administrators can complete and check off a list. In this guest article, Dr. Jim Hanna, Superintendent of Rossville Consolidated School District, shares a superintendent’s perspective on leadership, emergency preparedness, relationships with first responders, exercises, accountability, and maintaining school safety as a daily strategic […]
Strategic School Safety Leadership: Preparing for the “Unknown Unknowns”
School emergency plans are usually built around the knowns. Strategic school security leadership gets tested by the “unknown unknowns.” Schools appropriately plan and train for foreseeable emergencies: fires, severe weather, medical emergencies, threats, violence, evacuations, lockdowns, reunification, and other scenarios. But some of the most difficult situations confronting superintendents and school administrators do not fit […]
School Security Leadership: Does Your Superintendent and School Board Really Know What’s Happening in Their District?
Omaha’s electric shock glove controversy exposes a bigger school safety leadership problem. Here’s a question every superintendent and school board member should be asking: Do you really know what’s happening in your schools when it comes to safety, security, policing, and emergency preparedness? Not every operational detail. But enough to provide meaningful leadership, oversight, and […]
What Is School Security Leadership? 7 Characteristics of Effective School Safety Leaders
What is school security leadership? Effective school security leadership combines ethics, independence, sound judgment, competence, transparency, strategic thinking, and the courage to make difficult decisions in the best interests of students, staff, and schools. School security leadership is more than managing security technology, writing emergency plans, conducting drills, or responding to the latest school safety […]