School Security Assessments for Independent Schools – Unique Challenges for a Unique Environment

I just finished another independent school security assessment this afternoon and it dawned on me that we are averaging one independent school security assessment per week.  While we have worked with independent schools regularly over the years, we have never had the volume of requests to conduct independent school security assessments before.  I have always enjoyed working with a wide variety of schools because it is such a great opportunity to learn.  As with every school security assessment project, I learned things during this assessment that were new to me.  As with public and other type of non-public schools in different regions of the country, we see many unique situations working with our independent school clients.  For example, a number of independent schools have students of prominent parents who are protected by professional bodyguards.  Some independent schools have multiple bodyguards on or near their campuses each day. 

I look forward to working with two more independent schools in the next couple of weeks to see how they address school safety, security and emergency preparedness in ways that are tailored to their own unique situations.

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.