Safe Havens International begins work on comprehensive school security assessments for 199 schools for Orange County Public Schools, Florida

Safe Havens International (SHI) recently began a comprehensive school safety, security, climate, culture and emergency preparedness assessment project for 199 schools in the Orange County Public Schools (OCPS) in Florida. 

A global non-profit school safety center, SHI analysts have now assisted in school security assessments for more than 6,000 K12 schools across the nation and have assisted with six statewide school security assessment projects.

SHI is serving as the lead organization for the project with more than 30 analysts on the ground in Orlando.  Three other firms have partnered with SHI for the four month project.  Like SHI, Human Technology (HT) is an internationally experienced firm.  HT personnel have developed more than seventy web courses for the United States Department of Homeland Security, more than seventy FEMA live training programs and a variety of security training programs for the United States Department of State.  HT personnel have worked in every U.S. embassy world-wide and recently developed the U.S.D.H.S. IS 360 Active Shooter Training Program as part of the 2013 White House School Safety Initiative.  SHI was honored to have the opportunity to collaborate with HT on that project. 

Parkhill, Smith & Cooper (PSC) is another internationally experienced project partner.  A Texas-based architecture firm, PSC employs more than 300 architects and engineers with more than sixty of them engaged full-time in school renovation and construction.  PSC hosted a school security design conference at Texas Tech University last year which featured SHI Executive Director Michael Dorn as the keynote presenter.  PSC has conducted assessment projects for more than 150 United States Department of Defense schools including a K12 school at the United States Marine Base at Guantanamo Bay.  Evansville, Indiana-based school security consulting firm Integrity Security Protection (ISP) is also a partner organization on this project. 

In all, more than forty personnel will help conduct a wide array of assessment processes at each of the 199 schools in the district.  The assessment will cover school design, security technologies, student supervision, mental health services, law enforcement and security support, student discipline, school climate, school culture and emergency preparedness, and mass casualty event planning.  The assessment processes are focused on evidence-based, assessment-based and research-backed approaches to school safety, security, and emergency preparedness. The project also includes the development of a web-based software evaluation and training program which will allow district personnel to conduct school safety, security, climate, culture and emergency preparedness assessments annually.

The Safe Havens team includes five school security directors, three school district police chiefs, two analysts with state level emergency management and homeland security experience, a school transportation director, a team of architects, an electrical engineer, an attorney, and two highly experienced school mass casualty incident mental health recovery planners.   

About Michael Dorn

Michael Dorn serves as the Executive Director of Safe Havens International, a non-profit school safety center. The author of 27 books on school safety, Michael’s campus safety work has taken him to 11 countries over the past 34 years.