Michael’s Blog

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Words and Tone Speak Volumes

I had the good fortune to interview a remarkable school principal two weeks ago during a school safety and security audit in my home state.  One thing I noticed right away was his calm, reassuring voice with a very low volume.  His words were measured and soothing.  His words also counted.  His achievements as an educator are truly impressive.  His school is located in a high crime area and serves mostly students who would be categorized as high risk coming from high crime and low-income neighborhoods.  But in his school, calm and respectful behavior is the norm rather than the exception.

How we speak to others speaks volumes.  His caring and thoughtful manner of speech sets a positive and reassuring tone in his school, which helps his staff to achieve great things against all odds.  The words we speak and the way we speak them is important and is impactful.  Showing respect to others by our words and our tone of voice is a powerful way to show people that we want them to succeed because we care.  With at-risk youth, this can make a major difference.  Choose your words carefully and convey them with respect and you will enhance your ability to make a difference in the world.

Stop Bullying Now is an Excellent Free School Safety Resource from the U.S. Government

School bullying has become an even more timely topic in recent years and many students, parents and school officials are eager to see successful strategies to help address this powerful negative societal phenomenon.  The movie Bully has been making waves the past few months for its graphic depiction of real-life bullying (though the way the movie was presented may even encourage suicide).  A few weeks ago we celebrated the #stand4change event, which asked students, staff and other stakeholders across America to take a stand against bullying by speaking up against it.  There are many other programs like this one across the country that are creating change at a grassroots level by asking people to recognize the problem of bullying.  I have been sharing my personal message with schools, students and community partners for over a decade and I find it to be one of the most rewarding parts of my work.

Fortunately, the federal government launched an excellent bullying prevention campaign a few years ago and many schools now utilize it.  However, I still interact with many school officials who have never heard of the campaign, so we felt it would be a good idea to post a blog with a link to help make readers aware of this quality free resource to help address bullying in schools. 

 

 

 

 

A Valuable Tool – Creating A Culture of School Safety

There are so many ways to make schools safer that are no-cost and low-cost approaches. Visitor sign in protocols, locking doors, supervising students effectively and many other valuable tools can dramatically reduce risk in schools. There are also a number of amazing technology solutions available to schools today. However, the catch is that all of these proven approaches require the support of school employees to work.

One of our analysts was able to defeat the security of a client district’s high school three days in a row in spite of the fact that this school incorporates some of the most recent and robust security systems in use by schools today, including:

• An access control system that requires students to use a proximity card to enter the school.
• Entry point walk through metal detection
• Security X-ray screening of all purses, book bags and other items
• A visitor management system that requires that a visitor’s driver’s license to be swiped to automatically check their identifying information against databases of known sexual predators, barred individuals and outstanding court orders.
• Daytime alarm coverage for all other exterior doors
• A robust security camera system that is staffed and monitored by a security officer
• Nine hall monitors
• One police officer

In spite of all of this security technology and personnel, Russell Bentley was able to gain access to the school interior without detection three days in a row. In addition to our security assessment, a real incident occurred due to the same issue when a group of gang members entered the school and attacked a student during school hours.

These gaps were possible because there was no buy-in for safety measures by staff at the school. There was no appreciation for a culture of safety and security among staff or leadership. This is one of the most challenging hurdles faced by school security directors, school district police chiefs and others tasked with maintaining safe and secure schools. But when you enter a school where all these things have come together, you immediately notice the difference.

Efforts to inform, educate and involve staff should be ongoing, and must be thoughtfully implemented to obtain meaningful results.

Codes Can Kill – Update on Why the Use of Codes in School Crisis Plans Can Cause Death and Serious Injury

I recently posted a blog on why it can be dangerous to use codes in school emergency preparedness plans.  For example, many schools still use “code red”, “code blue”, “Code Yellow” etc. without any plain text instructions such as “emergency lockdown” to clarify what life and death action steps should be implemented.  This approach has failed in numerous actual crisis events at schools and fails badly when we conduct crisis simulations in one-on-one settings to test how well staff can react to high stress situations.  This also goes against the founding principles of the National Incident Management System (NIMS) as well as the Incident Command System (ICS).

For example, we were recently testing a large urban school district’s emergency plans as part of a school safety, security and emergency preparedness audit requested by the district’s superintendent.  As part of our assessment, we utilized our First 30 Seconds evaluation set, running 36 employees through more than 200 school crisis situations.  Each employee was shown a short orientation video to explain the process to them before responding to three video school crisis scenarios and three scripted school crisis scenarios.  This approach is consistent with the research of Dr. Gary Klien, David Grossman, Bruce Siddle and other respected experts in how the human mind and body work under life and death stress. 

This is similar to methods used for the past three decades for law enforcement and military personnel.  These scenarios were used to gauge how well individual employees could make the most critical life and death decisions before they are given instruction by a supervisor.  This is a far more accurate predictor of how someone will respond than a typical fire or lockdown drill because each employee is forced to make decisions rather than to simply practice a protocol.  While traditional drills are extremely important and beneficial, they do not induce decision making unless they are specifically designed to do so.

The district being evaluated has completed a Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools Grant (REMS) and has developed plans utilizing a series of codes using colors but no plain language instructions.  For example, code red is an emergency lockdown and code yellow indicates a preventive lockdown.  Extensive efforts have been made to train staff on the color codes and monthly drills are designed to reinforce them.  However, as we typically see, testing using the scenarios revealed that many employees got confused by the color code system when trying to determine which protocol to follow, often yielding an incorrect response.  In some instances, the results were alarming. For example, two building level administrators implemented lockdowns when faced with a tornado because they got confused about which color code to use.   This means that the administrators ordered all staff and students to move into classrooms and lock the doors rather than to move to severe weather shelter areas and assume the tornado shelter position.

As Lt. Col Dave Grossman says, “when faced with a crisis, we do not rise to the occasion, but rather we sink to the level of our training.” This means that the employees who were tested are likely to perform worse, rather than better, under the stress of an actual tornado headed right towards their school.   

When you conduct 200 crisis simulations at a variety of schools with a wide range of employees, and you see staff repeatedly struggle with which code to use for the situation, it becomes readily apparent how deadly it can be to rely on codes to save human lives.  Codes can be one of the weakest links in an otherwise sound school crisis plan.  If you are using codes to move people to safety in your schools, please consider the potential consequences of this approach.

 

Student Bullying Presentations are a Blast

I used to decline requests to deliver my presentation – Weakfish – Bullying Through the Eyes of a Child for student groups.  I was concerned about how useful the presentation would be for students, since it was originally intended for adults.  I had a client who was insistent that I deliver the presentation for several different schools in Jasper, Indiana some years ago that forever changed my mind on this.  A student wrote a thank you letter to me after my visit, and in the letter he indicated  that he had been contemplating suicide and had decided not to kill himself after hearing the presentation. 

I still advise schools that they must implement a structured approach to bullying prevention to have a significant and lasting impact on bullying.  I recommend that school districts adopt evidence-based approaches to bullying prevention, combined with strategies to improve student supervision and even broader approaches to improve school culture and climate.  And there is never a bad time to re-evaluate the effectiveness of student supervision. 

Since that presentation in Jasper, I have delivered many of these presentations at schools around the nation and have found every one of them to be a powerful, inspiring and meaningful experience.  I have met so many great students, parents and educators during these events and I find them to be a great motivator to keep doing what we’re doing here at Safe Havens.

Are the Right Employees Getting the Word on Life-Saving Action Steps for School Crisis Situations?

I just finished evaluating school crisis plans for two different school districts and observed the same common but potentially deadly planning flaw in both of them – many employees who are listed in the plan as responsible for performing life – saving action steps are not issued the plan component where these steps are listed.

This is an extremely common and problematic issue for school crisis planning.  One of the reasons we emphasize the need for role – specific planning is that this approach is one of the most reliable ways to get information to the employees who will actually need to implement critical action steps in an emergency.  While this can also be accomplished with training and properly designed drills, few school organizations can afford to put staff through several weeks of training to provide them an appropriate depth of knowledge that would enable them to perform correctly during drills and to handle a wide array of crisis situations without such written guidance.

Taking the time to verify that employees are provided the information they need to enable them to perform the action steps they are expected to perform is a wise investment of time and could easily save a life one day.

Use Caution When Performing School Security Assessments and Other Types of Work After Hours

Three of our analysts were conducting school security audits last night when they went to check a cafeteria loading dock area.  As they rounded a corner they came upon three young men who were smoking marijuana.  This particular school district is in a community with an unusually high level of violent crime and I had cautioned our analysts to be especially careful when they conduct the night time portion of the assessments. 

Our personnel are often conducting safety audits in two or three states in the same week and each community has different risk levels for violence.  It is not unusual for us to have one analyst working in Maine while another is working in the Chicago area on the same day.  Obviously, the crime rates will vary between regions and even in different parts of the same community.

As with local personnel who perform internal safety assessment processes, our personnel could easily be attacked if they do not use caution.  The same cautions apply to school employees who must move about in the evenings and at night.  For example, some school districts employee energy managers who check lights at schools during hours of darkness and most districts have night time custodial personnel and food service personnel who arrive before the sun rises. 

People working in and around schools after hours have been sexually assaulted, robbed and even murdered.  Whether personnel are internal employees or as in our case outside contractors, appropriate caution should be exercised when working in and around schools in high crime areas after hours.

Arrests for Theft of PTA and School Funds an Unpleasant Reality

Steve Satterly posted a news item earlier relating to the criminal investigation of an Indiana school PTA official.  The investigation centers around missing funds from the organization and is typical of the cases that often occur when money comes up missing from school affiliated organizations.  This case shows the needs for thoughtful control of how money is collected and handled in almost any setting where groups of people and moderate to large sums of money are involved. 

Proper accounting procedures combined with good internet security practices are always a good idea.  There are people out there who will jump at the chance to steal money and sadly, schools and the organizations that support them are not immune to these risks.

Many Good People Out There Trying to Help Students Succeed.

After a long day of conducting school emergency preparedness interviews for a large school district, I am reminded of how many good and dedicated advocates for the children are out there each day serving thier communities. 

I have been running 36 employees from this district through more than 200 video and scripted school crisis scenarios to test and measure the district’s emergency preparedness strategies.  This poses many unique challenges for these employees from various job categories and is a more effective way to quantify how well employees have been prepared to handle the first 30 seconds of any crisis situations they may encounter. 

This approach is also quite reveailing in that it really highlights just how much most school employees care about kids.  It is truly an honor and a priviledge to be allowed to interact with so many fine people from schools around the nation and abroad.  It is a truly inspiring experience and I feel truly blessed.

 

 

 

FEMA Offers Good Quality Live and Web – Based School Emergency Preparedness Training for Free

While many people in the field of education are aware, we regularly run into school and public safety officials who do not realize that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) offers many excellent training opportunities relating to school safety at no cost.

FEMA offers live training on all – hazards school crisis planning at their training facility in Maryland and will even cover the costs of airfare, lodging and meals for attendees.  They also offer an array of free web courses relating to school crisis planning.

If you have not already done, so check out the excellent free resources by clicking on the link above.

Great New Book on School Crisis Recovery – Reclaiming School in the Aftermath of Trauma – Advice Based on Experience

I have had the good fortune to co-author a more than twenty books with a number of high caliber experts in the field like Gregory Thomas and Dr. Sonayia Shepherd.  I just received my copy of Reclaiming School in the Aftermath of Trauma – Advice Based on Experience.  This excellent book was edited by Dr. Carolyn Lunsford Mears who is a superb writer and a joy to work with as an editor.  Dr. Mears is a much better writer than I am and did wonders with the quality of the chapter I contributed.

Dr. Mears and the other contributing authors did a wonderful job providing different perspectives to the topic of school mental health recovery for situations ranging from bullying to natural disasters, acts of terrorism to one of the most deadly school shootings in our nation’s history.  The book addresses school infrastructure recovery issues as well as school mental health recovery concerns.

For those who are interested in improving our ability to help students, staff and parents cope with tragedy, this awesome book is a must read.

Students Trying to Deal with Grief Relating to Teacher’s Murder in the Community Illustrates Situations School Officials Must Address

When sixth – grade teacher Tonawanda Thompson was shot and killed at her home in Connersville, Indiana, the violence had an impact at Fayette Central Elementary School even though the incident did not involve an act of school violence.  District grief counselors met with students from the school Tuesday morning after their teacher Tonawanda Thompson was shot and killed outside of her Richmond home.

Officers from the Richmond Police Department are investigating the tragic murder of the pregnant teacher while school officials try to help students and her colleagues deal with the pain of losing a valued member of the school community.  School officials often have to work to address acts of violence, accidents and other situations resulting in the deaths of students and staff away from school.  While such efforts are virtually unknown in many other countries where mental health services are rarely and sometimes never offered to students not only for these types of situations but even situations that occur on campus such as the terrorist attack on a school in Beslan, Russia which left hundreds of staff and students dead.

Mental health recovery efforts such as these are often well thought out and impressive in American schools.

 

Codes can Kill

For more than a decade now, the United States Department of Education, FEMA as well as many state departments of education, law enforcement and emergency management have been advising schools about the dangers of using codes such as “code yellow”, “code red”, “Mr. Smith and Wesson is in the Building” etc. to announce emergency protocols such as lockdowns.  This approach has proven to be dangerous because staff often get confused between the various codes even in schools that conduct monthly drills using codes.

During a recent school safety audit, we conducted approximately 200 crisis simulations with staff to measure how well staff could make decisions and communicate during life and death crisis situations.  This district uses color codes such as those described above and requires monthly emergency drills.  As we have seen with other school districts, school administrators as well as rank and file staff repeatedly became confused as to which code they should use when tasked with responding to video and scripted crisis scenarios.

It is important to remember the how dire the consequences can be when a code is misunderstood.  For example, in this district, the confusion between a lockdown code and the code for severe weather sheltering could quickly result in a mass casualty event.

Though many schools still use this approach, we have seen a high fail rate during assessments as well as during actual emergency situations at schools.  We urge school officials to carefully reconsider this approach.  Please keep in mind that there is a dramatic difference between conducting a lockdown drill where a school administrator knows in advance that they will be conducting the drill and school employees facing a specific situation, making fast decisions and communicating with other staff.   

Missing Massachusetts Toddler Found in Dark Classroom

Police in Westport Massachussetts are investigation to learn how a three year old child was left in a classroom at a day care center at the end of the day.  The child was found in the dark classroom at the end of the day during a search for the missing child.  This case illustrates how critical student supervision is to school safety.

Gun found in Toronto school

Toronto middle school principal Craig Crone assures parents that his school is safe after he found a loaded Colt .38 Special revolver in a student’s book bag during a search.  Crone stated that he found the gun while searching the student’s book bag after a fight at the school.  The 12 year old student has been arrested and faces disciplinary action.  Anyone who follow Safe Havens should know how dangerous it is for an educator to search a student for weapons.

Gun incidents and school shootings have been problematic in Canada despite strict firearms laws.   When I presented at a national school safety conference in Toronto three years ago, attendees brought up a tragic school shooting in the area.  They stated that a high school student was shot and killed in a high school in the area because he was African – Canadian and school officials were criticized for their attempts to form a magnet school for black students to protect them from such acts of racial violence at school. 

The school principal feels that security cameras will make the school safer and they are in the process of adding cameras at this time.  “Those things are going to make a difference, I believe, and it’s going to reassure staff and the community and the parents, obviously.”

There is no research to show a correlation between security cameras and reductions in school weapons violence.  Most targeted acts of violence have occurred in schools with CCTV coverage.  While cameras can be a valuable addition to school security strategies, other measures such as reducing the number of fights on campus, visual weapons screening, random surprise metal detection, improvements in student supervision and educational programs have shown far more dramatic reductions in student weapons violations.

The school notified parents that there had been an incident at the school by way of a letter, but were not notified that a gun had been found.  The school serves 560 students in Grades 6, 7 and 8.  A meeting was set for Wednesday to provide parents with additional information.

Michigan State Police Work to Enhance School Emergency Preparedness

I was privileged to have the opportunity to keynote the Michigan State Police Homeland Security Conference a few years ago.  The response to my session was favorable and they had to bring in an additional 200 seats to accommodate a surge in attendance for a breakout session on advanced school emergency preparedness concepts following the keynote.  This high level of interest in the topic speaks volumes about the dedication, care and concern for student safety by Michigan educators and public safety officials. 

The MSP decided to do three one day conferences in different cities around the state this week and I felt honored to be allowed to keynote these sessions as well.  Repeat conferences were held at the Macomb intermediate School District, the Michigan State Police Academy and at Western Michigan State University to make it easier for educators and public safety officials to attend in tight budget times.

The MSP serve not only as the lead state law enforcement agency but also function as the state’s emergency management agency as well.  The agency works diligently to provide emergency management training and support to Michigan schools and is currently using a FEMA grant to provide STEP training at no cost to Michigan students    This program was developed through the Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency and FEMA.  When I keynoted the Rhode Island state school safety conference earlier this year, educators and public safety officials literally raved about the STEP program which is designed to teach students how to prepare for and survive crisis situations.  I have no doubt that the same outcomes will occur in Michigan as well.

I was particularly pleased this week to such good attendance and participation from educators who far outnumbered public safety officials in the sessions.  Often, conferences on school emergency preparedness held in the early Fall and late Spring are not convenient for educators to attend.  We had a diverse group of educators, law enforcement officers, fire service, emergency medical service and emergency management personnel in attendance as well as a number of school safety consultants who wanted to learn more about evidence – based emergency preparedness measures.

I was also pleasantly surprised to see how eager participants were to participate in interactive activities.  In fact, I gave out more than forty Safe Havens books and training DVDs to attendees. I typically give out books and DVDs to people who contribute with brilliant comments and probing questions during the day.  I thought I was well prepared with so many door prizes, but wish my luggage space would have accommodated another thirty or so books as I could have easily given them out due to the high level of insightful participation by attendees.

I was deeply touched by the personal conversations I had with an emergency manager who related how he was badly bullied.   I equally touched by a conversation with a police chief who served in the United States Navy in Vietnam and survived a gunshot wound from a shotgun as a police officer.  I spoke to several other Vietnam vets about their valuable service to our country, the friends they lost and how they now remain in service to their country as educators and public safety officials.  A Michigan State Police Sergeant told me how she had found the courage to stand up to a teacher who was verbally abusing a student who was gay when she was in high school years ago.  To me, this is a different kind of valor and it should not surprise us that she now puts her life on the line to protect others when she was willing to accept risk to protect another student as a teenager.  These fine and brave men and women epitomize everything that we respect about American heroes. 

Most of our staff at Safe Havens have been blessed with the opportunity to travel to other countries in our work.  The context we observe in Mexico, Bolivia, South Africa, Vietnam, the Congo, Rwanda, Honduras, Guatemala and other far – away places we have visited is hard to describe at times.  Wherever we go, we meet truly impressive people who care deeply about children and youth.

I have been blessed to meet many true American heroes like these outstanding men and women in Michigan who have dedicated their lives to making the world a safer place for their fellow citizens.  This week has reminded me once again that we are truly blessed to have so many heroes walking among us who will accept nothing less than the very best for our children.

 I was delighted to receive this awesome print depicting Michigan State Troopers following my presentation at the Michigan State Police Academy.  Sergeant Michelle Robinson presented it to me after I had made a comment about how cool the photo was in the framed display at the academy.  The officers are equipped with a bolt action rifle, a Thompson Submachine Gun, a Winchester model 1897 police riot shotgun and a tear gas gun.  As I told attendees, these guys probably had no idea just how cool they would look decades after they posed for this photograph.  The Michigan State Police recently celebrated their 95^th anniversary and all MSP personnel  should be proud of the institution these men represent.

New edition of our newsletter available now

This will be a short blog post before the weekend.  In lieu of a longer post, you can download 23 pages of great content from our staff as well a new guest author.  Be sure to sign up for our mailing list and make sure that we are on your “approved sender list” so that we don’t get stuck in your spam-box.  And forward this, share it or re-tweet our announcement to anyone who you think should be getting this info.

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The Safety Net – Volume 2, Issue 3: Severe Weather & Schools

How to select a School Safety Consultant or Expert Witness

There are currently hundreds of school safety consultants in the United States.  Many of them are highly qualified and honest experts who can provide assistance that is worth far more than the fees they charge.  Unfortunately, there are also some school security and safety consultants who lack proper credentials, experience, or other qualifications to perform the types of work they are often hired to do.

 Here are just a few situations involving issues with school safety consultants that I am personally familiar with:

• I served as an expert witness on a school homicide case.  The school district settled the case after withdrawing one of their school safety expert witnesses.  The plaintiff’s attorney was preparing to challenge his qualifications to serve as an expert witness by way of a deposition when the defense counsel suddenly announced that the witness was being withdrawn from the case. This consultant has appeared as an “expert” on national news programs but has few tangible and verifiable credentials on his expert witness resume. 

• In another case where I served as an expert witness, a school safety consulting firm settled a school safety lawsuit for $1.5 million after a school district settled 26 lawsuits relating to a single school safety incident.  The suit centered on the qualifications of the firm to perform school emergency preparedness consulting and training services.   The firm that was being sued provided no evidence of any formal work experience or training for any of their consultants in the field of emergency management.

 Fortunately, there are numerous reputable and qualified safety and security experts available.  A little investigation can often help to sort the good from the bad:

• Ask for and check at least six references that have hired the expert or firm.
• Make sure their background matches your needs.  For example, absent specific training or work experience, a former law enforcement officer (even from state and federal agencies) may have no relevant formal training in emergency management to qualify them to develop proper school crisis plans.  In the same vein, a psychologist might not make a good school security expert absent some specific experience in the field.
• Beware of experts with vague credentials.  For example, one frequent sign of a non-qualified expert is one who doesn’t list specific former employers or universities by name but instead gives generalities and grandiose statements about past positions and affiliations.
• Remember that cost frequently has little bearing on quality.  Some of the least qualified experts charge the highest rates while some of the most reputable people in the field have much more reasonable rates.
• When viewing the credentials of a consultant, consider whether members of a jury would consider them to be qualified to perform the type of work you would retain them for.
• Ask the consultant in writing if they have ever had a client request to terminate a contract and if so why.  While there are instances where contracts are terminated for reasons beyond the ability of consultants to control, a pattern of this type of outcome can indicate trouble.
• Ask the consultant in writing if they or their firm have ever filed a civil action against a client, filed an open records request or any written appeals on bids.  While there are legitimate reasons for consultants to take these types of actions, a pattern of these behaviors could indicate that a difficult working relationship may be more likely. 

Learning during a civil action that the school safety consultant you have hired has been fired for serious misconduct or having a reporter point out that they have been arrested for a serious crime can be rather awkward.  Taking the time to conduct due diligence when evaluating school safety experts can save a money, time and perhaps even lives.

Student supervision during field trips is important

Student supervision is one of the most fundamental and important aspects of school safety for K12 schools.  Many school safety problems result from situations where students are not being properly supervised which is why student supervision is frequently a key issue in school safety litigation.

Proper and well-documented staff development relating to student supervision, as well as thoughtfully written policies, should be one of the most important aspects of any school safety program.  The bad news is that these are overlooked all too often, and we can see this when we evaluate many of the preventable school safety incidents that occur each year.

Effective student supervision concepts are especially important in certain situations, such as during emergency evacuations, lockdowns and sheltering.  Failures in this area have resulted in multiple deaths in at least one incident and have caused significant problems in a number of other situations.  Another situation where student supervision is very important involves student field trips and special events like pep rallies, athletic events, graduation ceremonies and other situations that require adaptations of concepts designed to improve student supervision and accountability. 

Focusing on ways to improve student supervision is one of the most cost – effective and reliable ways to reduce the risk of serious injury and death to students and to staff.  Whether the threat involves bullying, tornadoes or acts of terrorism, improving approaches to student supervision reduces the risk that students and staff will experience harm.

During a visit to the Mayan Ruins at Uxmal in Yucatan, Mexico last week, Michael Dorn observed this group of students on a field trip who were not being properly supervised.  This lax supervision could quickly result in an injury or death at a site where numerous hazards are present, and children can easily fall 20 to 300 feet if they are not extremely careful in navigating the ruins.   In a region where police officers typically patrol with a fully automatic weapon or tactical shotgun in their hands, risks from violence are also a factor as they would be in many parts of the United States, Canada, the U.K. Israel and other countries where school violence has been problematic.

School Safety is a Global Issue

I just returned from a seven-day vacation in Mexico.  Most of my time was spent in a remote area with no telephone or Internet access.  A doctor from Indiana had to perform an emergency surgical procedure on a local man’s eye to prevent him from losing it as the nearest medical care was an hour and a half away.  Though the wound would not have posed a major threat in most regions of the United States, the physician was pretty sure the man would lose the eye if he did not act promptly.  Using a paper clip, a safety pin and a pair of nail clippers, he worked expertly to remove a sliver of a thorn from the man’s eyeball.  I was deeply impressed and also grateful that I have medical jet evacuation insurance due to the number of trips our analysts take to places like Rwanda, the Congo, Honduras, Vietnam and Bolivia.  You can quickly die from things what would rarely be life – threatening here in the U.S. in some of these regions.

Though the level of violence in Yucatan Peninsula is far lower than in places like Ciudad Juarez, passing through a checkpoint with four of five police officers or soldiers armed with M-4 rifles, tactical shotguns and Uzi submachine guns is not an unusual occurrence in the region.

These dramatic societal differences also demonstrate school safety challenges that would be rather unique for schools in most parts of the United States.  Contrary to popular belief, there are more than periodic problems with school violence, fires, natural disasters, abductions of students, substance abuse issues, student discipline and other school campus safety issues in other countries.   In spite of the death penalty for possession of firearms or ammunition, there have been a number of school shootings in the People’s Republic of China over the past decade and more than 20,000 students have died at school in natural disasters in other countries in the past two decades.   

Though we often focus on school safety issues in our own country and our primary issues are sometimes different from those in other regions, there are sometimes more similarities than differences when it comes to the need for school safety strategies and effective emergency preparedness measures in schools anywhere in the world.  I have never visited any country where incidents involving serious injury and death from school crisis situations have not taken place.  School safety truly is a global concern anywhere you venture.

Instances of Students Being Handcuffed and Arrested for Incidents at School Often Presented Out of Context

In recent years, there have been media reports (as well as at least one document presented as a research report) that have provided distorted information about how school/law enforcement partnerships operate.  There have been at least two “reports” prepared by civil rights groups that contain inaccurate information that would likely not withstand a proper peer review process and a number of media reports that contain incomplete accounts of situations where law enforcement officers are involved with what are often termed to be normal disciplinary actions.  While some instances do involve relatively minor disciplinary situations, other offenses referred to have actually involved situations including forcible rape, edged weapons assaults and other serious criminal acts.

Today’s educators and their community partners face many challenges in appropriately addressing students and non-students who become disruptive and sometimes even violent.  While there are definitely instances where school employees and law enforcement officers have acted inappropriately and in some instances even in violation of criminal laws in restraining students and implementing disciplinary actions, there have also been a number of instances where inaccurate, inflamed and incomplete information has been provided in the media and in other forums.

Three decades in this field has taught me to be careful about passing judgment based on media accounts.  For example, if any of you remember the initial media frenzy after the Centennial Park bombing during the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia.   Though not initially a suspect, Richard Jewell was implicated by the media as a person of interest in the case.  When the actual bomber, Eric Rudolph, continued to carry out bombings in the area, Jewell was found to be innocent, but his reputation had been ruined in the media by that point.  He was actually a hero and saved countless lives that day by his actions.  While working security at the event, he used good judgment and pattern recognition to detect the explosive device and start moving people away from it almost 10 minutes before the initial bomb threat call came in.  Though 2 bystanders were killed when the bomb exploded, there would have almost certainly been more killed and injured if it were not for his actions.  I had the good privilege to have him attend several of my presentations after that incident, and he struck me as one of the kindest and most polite people I have ever met. 

I have also learned to question “reports” and even peer review journal articles, which on occasion are seriously flawed and provide inaccurate conclusions and assertions.  Though many such documents are extremely accurate and can be helpful to us, it is not hard to find “reports” that show an increase in the U.S. school homicide rate that clearly does not exist or peer review articles that assert falsehoods like the “trench coat mafia” that never existed at Columbine High School. 

The current dialogue relating to the appropriate utilization of arrest and restraint by law enforcement officers in schools is a valid and important discussion and there is clearly opportunity for improvements in the field.  At the same time, specific incidents are sometimes inaccurately portrayed as the norm in the field of education and couched in emotional ways.  Taking the time to look beyond the headlines with an understanding that this is a complex as well as troubling societal problem can go a long way towards successfully working towards improved approaches.

Avoiding a Damaging Loss of Trust in the School Safety Arena

Whether you are a democrat who leans far to the left of your party, a republican who is oriented towards the far right of yours or like most folks, you are somewhere in between, you may be deeply concerned about our country right now. Regardless of political affiliation, you are likely concerned about the economy and other key issues. Like many people, you may now lack faith due to the constant lack of cooperation between our elected officials in Washington. Though spirited debate and even downright verbal altercations between some of our leaders has been a recurring feature of our form of governance, the low levels of confidence and high levels of dissatisfaction expressed by many Americans do seem to be more problematic than is normally the case. These catfights stem from a complicated range of causes among them, an unusually high level of divisiveness among our elected officials. The current intensity of the blame game, finger pointing, name calling, desperate distortions of fact and the occasional outright sickening personal attacks have created a fair amount of dysfunction, anxiety and a serious lack of confidence according to pundits and polling data. Our congress in particular appears to have lost the confidence of many of its constituents. The current infighting and resulting loss of trust of large segments of the American public offers valuable lessons for those in the school safety field. Just as our elected officials and the various organs of government they serve can fall into disfavor and suffer from credibility problems, so to can schools, school systems and local public safety agencies. Though the politics that cause these situations have a different dynamic, they are often political in nature nonetheless. The current lack of confidence in our elected leaders is taking a heavy toll on our economy and is causing serious long-term harm to our country and its citizens. As recent events have demonstrated, the loss of confidence in government leaders is not confined to our nation, but the damage to credibility here at home is readily apparent. As one indicator, take the steady erosion of the respect for the office of the president. It used to bug me a bit to hear journalists from abroad refer to our nation’s leader as “Mr.” instead of “President”. In recent years, our own media has often adopted the practice of using “Mr. Bush” and ‘Mr. Obama” as well. This lack of respect for the office of the president is an indication of an overall lack of respect for elected officials. Authorities on language such as experts in statement analysis emphasize how powerful and important our choice of words can be. I may be rather old fashioned in this regard, but I do feel that it is symptomatic of a culture that has become deeply distrustful not only of elected officials, but of others in positions of authority such as school superintendents, police chiefs and other types of leaders as well. This type of distrust and even dysfunction can also occur in the arena of K-12 education. When a major incident occurs or is mishandled because of a lack of cooperation between school and/or public safety officials in the community, everyone loses. In such cases, not only do victims and their loved ones suffer, but so do the organizations that are perceived as having dropped the ball which are often viewed negatively for long periods of time. If we step back from these situations, it becomes clear that they sometimes occur from some form of office, organizational or community politics. When tragedy reveals such problems, there is plenty of blame to go around whether it surfaces in the media, in school safety litigation or on a personal level to those who experience the event. Taking the time and expending the sometimes-significant effort to build bridges instead of fences between people, departments and organizations can prevent not only a good tar and feathering, but can avert considerable pain and suffering as well.

Note: This blog has been posted for Michael Dorn while he is in a rural region of Mexico with no internet or phone service. He may be delayed in responding to e-mails relating to this blog.

Columbine 13 Years Later

On the 13th anniversary of the Columbine school tragedy, the events of that day remain as present as they did back in 1999.  A new documentary by a student who was at Columbine High School on the day of the shooting reminds us that basic preparedness and crisis stress management are critical if we want to be ready for any level of crisis.  Several years ago another student who was at the shooting directed a film called “April Showers” that gives great insight to what the event felt and looked like for a student that was there.

 I recently keynoted the California Association of School Transportation Officials Annual Conference in Sacramento, California.  As with every state and national pupil transportation conference I have presented at, I found the conference to be dominated by highly motivated and dedicated people who care deeply about students.  As is typical of these types of conferences, I was truly touched by the comments of many of the school bus drivers, transportation supervisors and directors I met.  I was invited to attend the conference banquet and am glad I did.  Several of the attendees at my table shared truly touching comments about the need for school bus drivers to focus on not only the safety of the students they transport each day, but for the need of drivers to serve as role models and mentors to them. 

One story that was disturbing to me fits a pattern with similar stories that have been related to me hundreds of times over the years by school bus drivers, food service personnel, custodians and other support personnel.  Though each situation is different, there is a common theme whether I am in California, Wisconsin, South Dakota, Hawaii, Florida or New York – some school employees view other school employees as low status personnel who are not smart enough to take action.

This particular example is a good one to help school administrators understand just how dangerous arrogance among school employees can be.  After the dinner, the supervisor for a large district related a story from when he had served as a school bus driver.  He was driving a large school bus with seating capacity for 96 students on a field trip to Los Angeles from his community.  He related that there were two other buses and that the drivers were concerned that cars in the downtown area where they were going to park could easily hit students.  The drivers clearly instructed all students to not cross between any of the buses and to use a specific crosswalk to cross the street.  When he stopped a group of students who he saw attempting to cross between two buses and made them go to the proper crosswalk, a teacher challenged him on his actions in front of the students.  He told me that when he explained why he had taken this action and how dangerous it was for the students to cross the street between the buses, the teacher told him that he was “only a school bus driver” and that she wanted the students to cross between the school buses.  Fortunately, he instructed the teacher that she did not have the authority to do this and he insisted that the students cross in the appropriate crosswalk and the students complied. 

I know there are two sides to every story.  But if this situation occurred as it was related to me, there is a serious problem.  To have a teacher countermand a safety procedure of another employee who has more experience in the field is inappropriate.   To publicly do so in front of students without a compelling reason is even worse.  To do so in violation of the law is yet more egregious.  But to do so in a manner that is humiliating and arrogant is really pushing the limits of human decency.  Such actions and attitudes are far too prevalent in school schools.  I witnessed this form of arrogance from time to time and it is truly disturbing.  To assume that a school bus driver is a less important person than a school teacher is nothing short of ignorance combined with arrogance.

On March 2, 2012, in Henryville, Indiana School Bus Driver Angel Perry had eleven kids on her bus ahead of a dangerous tornado.  She was looking for a safe place to shelter her children, and made the decision to return to the school.  On the radio, her voice remained calm as she instructed her kids on how to protect themselves, and got a student count.  Upon arriving at the school, she counted all the children off the bus and was the last person off of her bus.  Three minutes later, an EF4 tornado struck the school, sending her bus flying over 200 feet across a highway into a restaurant.  

Far from being “just a bus driver”, Angel Perry’s actions showed her to be a true professional who put the lives of her children ahead of her own.  She is a fine example for any teacher to emulate.  This is a great reminder that we all need to work together and not forget to include everyone in our planning and training efforts.

Note: This blog has been posted for Michael Dorn while he is in a rural region of Mexico with no internet or phone service. He may be delayed in responding to e-mails relating to this blog.

Do your practices match your procedures?

Avoiding Tragedy and Litigation - Do your practices match your procedures?

Failing to follow logical school safety procedures is one way to increase the risk that someone will be hurt in a safety incident. It is also one of the best ways to be successfully litigated. One of the more effective tactics by a plaintiff’s attorney in school safety litigation is to show that a custom policy or practice was not followed that would or could have averted the tragedy. One of the best ways to avoid school safety litigation is to prevent anyone from being harmed by adopting, effectively communicating and consistently following proper safety practices. All three of these components are needed for a safe school.

Understanding that no amount of emotional suffering, litigation, and other common long lasting and difficult outcomes from a child’s preventable death at a school will ever return the lost joy and happiness to family members, as well as other students and staff, should always shape and guide the discussion of life safety issues.

School leaders and staff should all work to create and maintain a culture of safety. This requires not only the creation of effective practices, but efforts to clearly communicate them to staff, students, parents and guardians. This also requires efforts to instill these core values into the day-to-day activities. Taking the time to establish effective written guidelines that can be realistically implemented by staff, students and those who drop off and pick up students each day is an excellent practice. From a functional reliability standpoint as well as from a perspective of civil liability, having written or implied policies that match appropriate practices is important.

Take the time to develop good school safety procedures, policies and practices. Follow up on these efforts to invest the time to develop clear and achievable written guidelines when it is appropriate to do so, and then find the time to make the reality in your school match these written guidelines. The precious young lives you have been entrusted to care for deserve no less attention to detail.

Note: This blog has been posted for Michael Dorn while he is in a rural region of Mexico with no internet or phone service. He may be delayed in responding to e-mails relating to this blog.

Who Should Make The 911 call?

 

Photo by Rachel Wilson – Safe Havens International Video ©2011

 

Careful thought and appropriate training should address the issue of which campus employees should make calls to 911 when an emergency occurs. There should be no assumptions on the part of school administrators or rank and file employees as to the most effective way to handle 911 calls for life and death assistance. It is not uncommon for school employees to lack formal guidance on when they should call 911 during a life and death emergency situation. The wide variety of school designs and the ways they are operated at different times of the day make it impossible to have an effective standardized national approach to this seemingly simple issue.

Normally, it is best for calls to 911 to be made by school office personnel rather than employees faced with an emergency in other parts of the school. There are several reasons for this:

• It is often difficult for staff to perform life saving actions while they are on the phone with 911 dispatch personnel for several minutes or more.

• If a staff member in a remote part of the building calls 911 directly, the office may not find out that there is an emergency for several minutes. This can cause a significant delay in ordering protective actions such as lockdown for the rest of the school’s occupants. This approach can also cause a delay in school crisis team members responding to the incident scene to provide assistance.

• School offices are often staffed by multiple personnel who can manage several critical tasks at one time.

At the same time, we recommend that all school staff be specifically trained and empowered to call 911 directly if doing so will reduce the risk to students and/or staff. For example, if a staff member is unable to contact the office or there is no one in that office at the time of day the incident occurs.

Regardless of the specific situations in each school, it can be extremely important that school and area public safety officials have effective discussions on this topic. These discussions should yield workable approaches that can and should be incorporated into staff development efforts. These efforts should be geared to achieving the end result that congruent understanding between the rank and file employees, to line supervisors and middle mangers, as well as among department heads and the top leadership in the organization is achieved.

A good litmus test is that if someone posed a series of several life and death scenarios to every employee in the organization, the majority of responses as to whom they would call for emergency assistance should be consistent. If experience indicates that this level of consistency would not surface, this might be a good opportunity for improvement.

Sometimes the simple things in life are among the most important. How the initial call for emergency assistance is made can be a life or death aspect of even fairly routine emergency situations. Taking the time to look at how critical information will flow in the first critical minutes of an emergency may be just as important as the technology available to communicate during crisis situations. Though it is often relatively inexpensive in terms of cost and time to address the issue of who calls 911, the failure to do so can be rather costly.

Note: This blog has been posted for Michael Dorn while he is in a rural region of Mexico with no internet or phone service. He may be delayed in responding to e-mails relating to this blog.

CHICOPEE – A hero who calmed a dangerous situation and protected young children

Police and school leaders in Chicopee, MA are recognizing the heroic actions of a school crossing guard to protect and calm students during a gun battle where a state trooper was shot Friday.  Campus safety can sometimes go beyond the school grounds as demonstrated in this incident.

Veteran school crossing guard Deborah Paquette downplayed her actions and instead gave credit to police officers. “They were the ones that protected us. They had the incident well under control,” she said. Police Chief John R. Ferraro Jr., Mayor Michael D. Bissonnette and Superintendent of Schools Richard W. Rege Jr. all praised Paquette for her actions during the start of nearly a three-hour gun battle on West Street that started shortly before 8 a.m. Friday.

This is by far not the first time we have seen educators and support employees perform bravely and effectively to protect students.  A school teacher in Mexico was praised last year for her similar efforts to protect and calm elementary students while a gunfight between drug gangs raged outside her classroom.  In another case in the Middle East last year, a campus custodian saved more than 300 students from injury and death when he realized that a man who was trying to enter a cafeteria had a bomb.  The custodian was killed when the man detonated the bomb but no students were injured.

School safety, security and emergency management require the training and empowerment of all school employees.  As this case illustrates, you never know which employee will be first on the scene of an incident and be forced to take immediate actions to save lives.

 

Fayette County Kentucky Student Disciplined for Accessing Information on School Violence on Web Site

School officials in the Fayette County, Kentucky Public School System announced Thursday that they have disciplined a Lafayette High School student who accessed a Web site containing images of school violence.

School officials notified parents of the situation via a letter to Lafayette parents Thursday afternoon. School officials also announced that they had assigned additional law enforcement personnel to the school to reassure parents that efforts were being taken to address concerns about school safety.

School Bus Driver Refuses to Return School Bus After He Was Terminated

Police arrested a former school bus driver after he refused to allow school officials to take possession of a school bus following his termination.

This rather bizarre case illustrates the difficult situations that sometimes arise after school employees are disciplined. In one Florida case, a school superintendent was shot and killed by a school employee after he was terminated. The former employee used a ruse to enter the superintendent’s office before shooting and killing him. In a more recent case, an administrator at a private school in Florida was shot and killed by a former employee of the school.

These and other tragic cases illustrate the types of school safety issues that can arise from terminations, suspensions and other disciplinary actions that must sometimes be required in school organizations. Safer schools require the types of workplace violence prevention measures that have often proven to be appropriate in other sectors.

Former Private School Teacher Takes Bin Laden’s Place on FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List – This Case Has Serious Implications for School Safety and School Security

Fox News reported today that 30 year – old Eric Justin Toth has been named to replace Osama Bin Laden on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.  The FBI says that Toth is wanted for allegedly producing and possessing child pornography. The investigation began when Toth was caught with pornographic images of children on a camera belonging to the private school where he was employed.  Working towards safer schools requires alertness to individuals who may prey upon children.

School safety strategies should encompass the concern of security screening of volunteers and employees.  This case illustrates the need for schools to not only conduct thorough background checks on all employees before they are hired but to operate with policies and procedures designed to help identify any staff or volunteers who may be a sexual predator.  Sexual predators often seek access to children and youth by obtaining employment with or volunteering for schools and youth service organizations.   The manner in which school employees are supervised also has a direct bearing on campus safety. 

 The fact that a former educator has been placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted List after an investigation that began while he was a school teacher shows serious implications for school safety and school security.

Teacher Arrested for Using Students to Sell Drugs

Recently, Meredith Burris Pruitt, a 31-year-old teacher from Gastonia, N.C., was arrested for using teens to push drugs around school according to the Gaston Gazette. According to media accounts, the former Forestview High English teacher was terminated after an anonymous tip to school officials prompted an investigation into the drug ring. According to the Charlotte Observer the ensuing investigation showed that Burris Pruitt supplied Clonazepam pills — a drug used to treat anxiety, panic attacks, and seizures — to a 15-year-old student and asked the student to give her back profits from the sales. This case has serious school security aspects due to the nature of the alleged criminal acts.

These types of tragic incidents have occurred in the past but are fortunately rare in the field of education in the United States. Screening of applicants can have a direct impact on school violence prevention and other school safety efforts. This and other cases of educators being arrested for serious crimes highlight the need for school officials to not only conduct thorough criminal history checks of applicants but to carefully consider the findings of such checks as well. We have no knowledge of any issues of this type in this particular case and are not insinuating that the district did not conduct proper applicant screening, rather we are using this case as an illustration that like other fields like law enforcement, medicine and business, there are people in any field who will commit serious crimes in the work setting resulting in a need for careful screening.

It is not unusual for some schools and districts to hire employees who they know have criminal records sometimes compromising campus safety. While having a criminal record should not automatically exclude someone from working in a school district, certain types of arrests and patterns of multiple arrests should be reviewed with extreme care before the candidate is offered a position. In addition, the hiring authority should never rely on an applicant’s version of what happened when they were arrested. Police reports, court records and interviews with criminal justice personnel should be used to vet the situation in such cases. Safer schools require careful selection of school employees. In our school safety assessments, we often see significant gaps in school safety due to poor employee screening processes.

Three Adults Killed in Shooting at in – home Day Care Center

Three adults were killed in a shooting at a suburban daycare center located in a residence in a suburb of Minneapolis.  No children were in the center when the shooting occurred.  Police are seeking a suspect who was seen fleeing the scene on a bicycle.  Though rare, other fatal shootings have occurred in day care centers in the United States.

School safety issues including acts of violence sadly affect early chidcare facilities. 

 

 

Are your School Staff Trained to Spot Tornadoes?

From time to time, we see references in a school crisis plan for a staff member to be assigned to go to the roof or and outdoor area of the school to watch for approaching tornadoes when a tornado watch is announced. An obvious question for us then becomes, “have these designated staff members attended a training session in tornado spotting?

We think this type of training is also a good idea for all school staff who work outdoors during the day supervising students or performing maintenance work. School officials can contact their local or state emergency management agency to learn more about this type of training. Tornado preparedness is a key school safety concern in many regions of the United States.

Teacher Slightly Injured in Shooting near Crawford Elementary School in Russellville, Arkansas

Police report that a teacher was slightly injured by a round fired during near Crawford Elementary school around 5:00 P.M. last Thursday. According to Russellville police spokesman Drew Latch, the shooting happened after students had left for the day. Latch said the victim did not require hospital treatment and they do not believe that the teacher or students were intended victims.

As this and a number of our recent blogs demonstrate, community crime near schools can have a significant impact on school safety as well as staff, student and parent perceptions relating to safety.

Man Shot and Killed on Elementary School Playground in Canada

A 36 – year – old man died from a gunshot wound after he was shot at a playground at Cathy Wever Elementary School in Hamilton, Canada Friday night. The victim was found when police responded to reports of shots heard around 8:20 p.m. at the School. The man was rushed to Hamilton General Hospital, where he later died.   As with school shootings in The People’s Republic of China, South America, Europe, Africa and other regions, this incident is yet another reminder that school shootings are far from a uniquely American problem.

Though it is often difficult to compare school homicide rates between countries due to differences in reporting parameters, it appears likely that the per capita homicide rate for K-12 schools in Canada is very similar to that of the United States. Comparison of available data from British police in 2003 to homicide data from the United States showed a higher per capita homicide rate in England than in the United States for that school year.

Contrary to common perceptions of students, staff parents and many educators, the U.S. school homicide rate has declined sharply over the past thirty years. While data provided by some school safety product manufactureres and school safety consultants has show increases in the U.S. school homicide rate, we have not see any replicable studies using standard research methodologies that shows an increase in the U.S. school homicide rate. While the number of incidents is still far too high, great progress has been made in school safety in the United States.

Six Gang Members Charged with Fatal Shooting of 14 Year – Old Boy in Front of Middle School in Union City, California in 2007

The shooting of a fourteen year – old boy in front of a Union City, California middle school in 2007 demonstrates the school safety challenges from community crime that schools sometimes face. Vernon Eddins was shot in front of Barnard – White Middle School. Six men who police allege are members of a Latino youth gang were charged with the murder of 14 year – old Eddins, who was African American. Members of the community have alleged that local law enforcement officials have not done enough to protect African American students from the Latino gang.

Working as a school district police chief in a community with intensive gang activity, it is clear to me that many non-public and public schools face significant challenges in working with local law enforcement officials to try to prevent gang violence in and near schools in many communities. Our district police force went to considerable lengths to provide intensive police coverage in the 1,000 foot school safety zones designated by Georgia law. These intensive efforts dramatically reduced the threat level in these areas.

This issue is so pervasive that the School Safety Project of the Georgia Emergency Management Agency – Office of the Governor held a state – wide school safety conference about ten years ago focused on prevention measures to reduce crime in school safety zones. Approxamately 500 educators and law enforcement officials attended the conference demonstrating how high the level of interest was in this topic.

Guns in Schools Pose Challenges to Educators, Students and Parents

The school safety topics that have dominated the media over the past ten to fifteen years have included:

• School shootings
• Schools and terrorism
• Bullying
• Suicides relating to bullying at school

There has been considerable distortion of each of these four topics in the media and the public and often educators frequently have a number of common misconceptions including:

• The misconception that school shootings are a new phenomenon
• The false notion that the school homicide rate has increased in the United States
• The notion that school shootings are a uniquely American phenomenon
• The mistaken impression that most school weapons assaults involve guns and active shooter situations
• The false assumption that most school shootings are caused by bullying
• The inaccurate perception that school bullying is the primary driving force in many student suicides
• The idea that student suicides where bullying is a factor are a new phenomenon
• The false notion that school violence is a public school issue that does not affect non-public schools

While there are many other common myths that are also frequently driven by the way the media covers events.  These misconceptions are also heavily influenced by people who are quoted by the media as experts and who present at conferences and seminars on school safety whose information is not grounded in careful research.  For example, there are numerous peer review articles, books and conference presentations that have included as factual assertions information about bullying, the “trench-coat mafia” and other inaccurate depictions relating to the Columbine High School shooting and bombing attack.  Careful research by author Dave Cullen and personal conversations I have had with dozens of students, parents, staff and public safety officials who were directly involved provide a very solid argument that a variety of urban legends from this terrible event have become accepted as fact by many people.

We urge educators, parents, students and community partners who want to make schools safer to remain grounded and to be pragmatic when they read or hear media accounts, books, articles and conference presentations.  There is much good information in all of these venues but unfortunately there is also a great deal of dangerous disinformation in the air on these important but emotionally charged topics. 

 

Loaded Gun Found in Student Locker Causes Concern and Raises Questions About Metal Detectors in Schools

Three students were arrested in Ellensburg High School in Ellensburg, Washington after school officials acted promptly and notified police when they received information about the weapon from a student. As is common in this type of situation, some parents raised issues about how the weapon was brought undetected onto campus and wondered if metal detectors were needed.

I recently had discussions on this topic with a school superintendent from a small rural school district in a community with a violent crime rate far below the national average. I told him that I did not think that metal detection would be appropriate for his district unless they began recovering weapons from students on a regular basis or surveys of students indicated they were having an increase in weapons being carried to school. A recent independent safety, security, climate, culture and emergency preparedness assessment indicates an unusually low threat level from violent crime. The district rarely has a fight, bomb threat or even a parent cursing out a school employee. While other areas of improvement were identified, the types of weapons violence that metal detectors are most effective in addressing such as those that do not involve a targeted act of violence (commonly also referred to as an active shooter) do not appear to be a high risk.

While I have extensive first-hand experience implementing and evaluating a number of school district metal detection programs and have seen how effective they can be, most school districts are not prepared to properly fund entry point metal detection programs which often cost between $250,000 and $500,000 per school site per year to maintain an effective program that is unlikely to be defeated by a motivated student of average intelligence. I have never conducted an evaluation of an entry point metal detection program in a K-12 school district where I could not get a gun into a school (outside my own district).  Though we help our clients identify and correct these gaps, they do pose some significant challenges.

Random, surprise metal detection – first developed and implemented in the early 1990’s in the Bibb County Public School System in Macon, Georgia – is a more practical option for many non-public schools and public school districts that do have higher risk levels. This was one of the primary approaches that helped Bibb County Public Schools reduce student weapons violations by 90% over the course of ten years.

Problems with weapons in schools are of concern to schools in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Africa, Australia and even countries like China which typically execute anyone caught with a firearm or even ammunition. At the same time, the problem of weapons in schools is a fairly complex issue with no “silver bullet”. Strategies should be locally tailored and related to the risks, realities and resources in each community. Though many people who have never actually screened students with metal detectors and security X-ray equipment think that entry point metal detection is simply a matter of buying and installing equipment, a trip through airport security can help put things into context.

Easter Egg Hunt Safety Concerns Have Significant Implications for School Safety

I am getting ready to fly home after working with two small public school districts in Maine this week.  We have been conducting school safety, security, climate, culture and emergency preparedness assessments for both districts and they are both very high quality school systems with excellent climate and culture.  The biggest advantage from a school safety standpoint is that the schools are in low-crime communities in Maine and have inherently lower risks for violence than many school districts.  The biggest challenge they both face is that they are both in low-crime communities in Maine so it is harder to get parents, students and staff to understand that there is some risk of violence in any school no matter how peaceful the community is.  This can make it difficult to obtain buy in from the community and from staff for appropriate security measures.

We have had much discussion about how to achieve this balance in both districts and my parting thoughts with one of the superintendents yesterday afternoon was that these challenges are much easier to address than a dysfunctional community where behaviors that should shock and alarm us can sometimes become commonplace.  For example, there are too many communities where a shootout between rival gang members is not an earth-shattering event.

When I turned on my laptop this morning, I noticed that one of the top stories in the national news was the cancellation of an Easter egg hunt in Central City Park in Macon, Georgia.  According to the Macon Telegraph, “event organizers in Macon, Ga., forced to cancel this week amid fears greedy moms and dads would become violent and trample on kids to grab eggs.”

The article went on to say that Joe Allen, who is a former Macon/Bibb County Fire Fighter, elected official and the founder of the Kids Yule Love which organizes the Central City Park egg hunt, said previous bad behavior meant this year’s event had become a liability because “parents caused a situation in which some children got hurt.”

I served as the Chief of School Police in Macon for ten years.  I know Joe Allen from my interaction with him as a county commissioner and from the many times that my school district police officers volunteered to help Joe and his staff package donated toys for children who lived in poverty.  I also know that tomorrow will be a very sad day for Joe.  Simply put, this must be breaking Joe’s heart.

Joe pointed out the need to cancel the event because as stated in the Macon Telegraph, “a woman was hurt and several kids were trampled on at previous hunts as aggressive parents tried to get more eggs for themselves or their children”.

The challenges my school district faced and still faces today are considerable in contrast to many school districts around the nation due to the unusually high levels of interpersonal violence in the community.  Societal norms there are a dramatically different from the two communities i worked with here in Maine this week.  As I get ready to fly home, I am enjoying a drive on the coast for a few hours and it will be nice to not have to worry too much about being car jacked.  While anything is possible, it is pretty unlikely that I will find myself staring down the barrel of a handgun in my travels today, and it I probably won’t get cursed out by a store clerk with a short temper.  And that is the way it is supposed to be in Maine and the way it should still be in Macon.

I’ll take on the challenge of educating and informing people who underestimate their actual level of risk over fixing a broken community any day.

 ”When people get hurt, they want some kind of compensation,” Allen added.

It is not the first Easter egg hunt canceled because of pushy parents in the past month.

Another free annual event held in Colorado Springs, Colo., was canceled in March because “aggressive” parents previously snatched too many eggs for their children.

Alert bystander interrupts attempted kidnapping and rape of student on – Suspect Convicted of Assaults on Five School Aged Girls

Prosecutors in Van Nuys California were able to obtain a conviction for the actions of 25-year-old Jose Perez because an alert witness interrupted his assault on a 15-year-old girl as she sat at a table outside of her school.  The man grabbed her and dragged her into the bushes, fleeing upon the approach of the man, Perez fled and the witness recorded part of his license plate number leading police to the suspect.  Perez was also convicted of assaulting four more teenage girls and faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Incidents like this demonstrate just how quickly a violent offender from the community can enter a campus and attack students and staff.  These types of school safety incidents have occurred in schools in low-crime areas as well as in high-crime neighborhoods.  It is a good idea to consider the community crime rate when establishing school safety measures.

 

Congressman Bruce Braley Proposes National School Bus Ticketing Legislation

Several states already utilize cameras on school buses to issue citations for motorists who pass school buses illegally. The bill is known as the Kadyn bill in memory of Kadyn Halverson who was struck by a motorist in September 2001 when she was seven years old.. The man who killed her was driving while under the influence of marijuana and claimed that he never saw the school bus, it’s flashing warning lights or the little girl as she crossed the street.

Data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration shows that since the year 2000, 130 school-aged pedestrians where killed in school – transportation accidents. Critics of the bill point out that of these 130 deaths, about two thirds involved children who were hit by school buses and question how much imact on school bus safety the law would really have. 

Gun Control not a Core Issue for School Shootings

One of my editors just sent me a press release concerning a movement to authorize students to carry concealed firearms on higher education campuses in an effort to help prevent the types of lethal situations that occurred yesterday at Oikos University in Oakland California.

An organization called Students for Concealed Carry asserts that there have been more than 20 multiple victim shooting incidents on college and university campuses that have “gun free zones” and that there has never been this type of incident on any of the more than 200 college and university campuses where students who have a concealed firearms carry permit can carry a gun to class.

When one such law was hotly debated for Utah institutions of higher learning, a number of education leaders and school safety consultants predicted that campus shootings would soar. At that time, I was asked to write a column about the issue for College Planning and Management Magazine to address the issue. I basically wrote a column that I felt would not satisfy anyone on either end of the debate because my opinion was and still is that gun control legislation is largely irrelevant to the homicide rate on K-20 campuses in relation to a variety of other factors. Surprisingly, I did not get a single e-mail or call from anyone who was upset about the article (or who liked it for that matter). There has also not been a single shooting incident involving a student with a gun permit since that time in 2008 pretty well countering the argument that the changes in the law were going to result in a string of school shootings.

I think I laid out a pretty balanced argument concerning the issue then and will try to do so in an even more concise format now. As there have been a number of deadly school shootings and even more deadly attacks with other types of weapons in the People’s Republic of China where the mere possession of a single round of ammunition or a firearm results in a swiftly applied death penalty, it seems that even the most draconian gun control approaches do not eliminate homicide from schools.

Countries like Germany, Japan, Canada, England and France which have very strict gun control legislation also have had fatal school weapons assaults such as the deadly attack in a German elementary school where a man used a flamethrower to kill and maim a classroom full of helpless children. With one attack with a knife in China resulting in 25 victims being stabbed and slashed and another resulting in 28 being victimized, it is clear that gun control efforts can sometimes simply shift the type of weapon being used. Since the two most deadly school attacks in U.S. history involved fire (95 killed in an arson fire in a Chicago Catholic School) and explosives (more than forty killed in an attack on the Bath School in Michigan), it bears mention that alternative weapons can and have been employed in the United States as well.

At the same time, I am not convinced that students carrying concealed firearms to class will have a statistical impact on the homicide rate in our colleges and universities either. I have a concealed weapons permit and do sometimes carry a gun for protection so I am not a person who would be characterized as anti-gun (though a university professor in Arizona once wrote me a scalding e-mail accusing me of being a gun control advocate because I mentioned that our universities needed to address the issue of periodic multiple victim campus shootings more effectively a couple of years prior to the tragic Virginia Tech Shooting).

I try to base my school safety views on data, assessment results and the experiences of my clients and think this provides a more balanced view on such hotly debated topics. Though contrary to popular belief there have been a number of instances of armed citizens interrupting campus shootings at both K-12 and higher education campuses, the overall incident rate may not be dramatically impacted. A more noticeable impact may be on the number of students who are attacked as they try to get to and from their college campuses each day and evening. In my ten years working as a university police officer, most of the more severe incidents such as rape, armed robbery etc. involving our students did not occur on school property but in the neighborhoods around the university. In fact, since that time, the university went to considerable expense to buy up homes around the university and to help clean up the previously high crime areas.

Though this blog will likely not please many people on either side of the gun control and school safety debate, more than thirty years as a full time practitioner in the field has taught me that the gun control debate is probably a lot less relevant than many people think when we look at the big picture of school safety. As violence has never been a leading cause of death on campus, it is important to use a broad brush when it comes to addressing the topic appropriately.  The issue of school shootings is important, however, more students and staff die from other causes every year and these must be addressed as well. 

Police Say Gunman at Oakland, California School Opened Fire when Students Failed to Comply With His Instructions

Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan stated that former student One L. Goh entered the Oikos school with the intent of shooting an administrator but could not locate her.  Goh then ordered a secretary into a classroom and began lining people up. “Not everyone was cooperative, and that’s when he began shooting” said Jordan.

Jordan stated that the former student had been expelled from the school and that he had complained about being teased at the school because of the difficulty he had speaking English. Witnesses and police reported that Goh did not seem to be remorseful about his actions. Goh is a South Korean national.

The attack on the small college of less than one hundred students was especially deadly in relation to the number of people in the school at the time of the attack. Police say that only about thirty-five people were in the school when Goh opened fire, which means he killed or wounded nearly one third of all the school’s occupants. Dechan Wangzom reported that she was in her vocational nursing class when she heard gunshots; she locked her door and turned off the lights.  According to Wangzom’s husband, the gunman banged on the door several times and began shooting outside the room before leaving. No one in the classroom was injured.

This tragic case illustrates the complicated nature of some of the concerns and limitations relating to schools that are opting to augment the use of lockdowns by teaching staff to attack active shooters by throwing books and other objects at them. While it appears likely that the aggressor was going to shoot people in the classroom regardless of their actions, it is important to note that he fired as soon as he experienced non-compliant victims and that at least one room full of potential victims escaped injury by using traditional lockdown concepts.  While it is probable that the number of victims was reduced when people began to flee, this case illustrates just how fast a person brandishing a weapon can move from threatening people to shooting people.  If even a single person who is present misreads the situation and becomes aggressive, an aggressor who did not intend to open fire may do so.  Though it is highly unlikely that this was the case in this situation, there are many situations where someone brandishes a weapon on campus and does not actually attack anyone. Active shooter situations are extremely rare though deadly school crisis events in contrast to traditional weapons assaults, situations where someone is threatened with a weapon on campus and other types of weapons incidents in schools.

Active shooters in the majority of U.S. targeted acts of violence have not expended much effort to force entry into locked classrooms. Solid proactive prevention measures such as teaching with classroom doors locked can also help to reduce risk from these and other types of situations. Teaching students and staff to attack active shooters is a hotly debated topic with at least one school administrator dead after attempting to subdue a gunman in a Wisconsin high school.

Having served as an expert witness in traditional school shooting as well as active shooter situations and having been asked to assist after dozens of other traditional as well as targeted acts of school violence, I can attest that these are complex situations and that there were many differences between the seven school active shooter cases that I am closely familiar with.  Great care should be taken before making significant adjustments due to one or two unique situations.  Actions that could prevent death in one scenario can cause needless deaths in another instance. 

Details Sketchy Regarding Shooting at Oikos University in Oakland, California

An unusually limited amount of information has been released regarding a shooting at Oikos University in Oakland, California today. Unconfirmed reports are that a student has shot and killed as many as five other students at the school. We will revisit the incident when more reliable information becomes available.

As I was posting this blog, Oakland Police confirmed that six people had been killed in the incident.

Shootings at colleges and universities have been problematic for decades in the United States, Canada, Australia as well as in other countries but the media has been intensely focused on them since the deadly shooting at Virginia Tech.

California School Bus Drivers, Supervisors and Directors Very Focused on School Bus Safety

I had a wonderful time doing a keynote and two breakout sessions for the California Association of School Transportation Officials today in Sacramento.

The attendees were incredibly kind and interacted constantly during the keynote. They had to turn people away from both of my breakout sessions that followed and they were kind enough to give me a second standing ovation at the end of the last breakout session. I had the chance to visit one-on-one with a number of the attendees during breaks throughout the day and to a person they were highly committed professionals who are clearly focused on doing what they can to improve school bus safety, security and emergency preparedness.

I have been blessed to have had the opportunity to keynote many state and national pupil transportation conferences over the past twenty years and have always been deeply impressed with the caliber of people who step up to the plate to take on the challenges of getting our kids to and from school each day safely. School bus drivers are often among the most poorly paid and least recognized employees in the K-12 educational system but are often also among the most dedicated. They have worked hard to make and keep the school bus the safest way for our students to get to and from school each day.

It was truly an honor and a privilege for me to be allowed to be in the presence of so many awesome advocates for the children today.

School Officials Criticized for Decision not to Evacuate School After Bomb Threat in Killeen, Texas – Shows Lack of Understanding of Bomb Threat Procedures by the General Public

Some parents in Killeen, Texas are upset that a local high school was not evacuated after a bomb threat was received on Monday.  Students were taking an exam when the threat was received but the District’s Director of School Safety John Dye said the decision not to evacuate was not based on the testing at Ellison High School.

Dye said that Killeen ISD authorities searched the school and found no signs of a suspected device. 

Most people mistakenly think that automatically evacuating a facility whenever a bomb threat is received is the safest course of action, but many government agencies including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Enforcement suggest that multiple options including keeping occupants in place while a sweep is conducted can help to reduce the ability of a bomber to more effectively target evacuees by calling in bomb threats and patterning how occupants will react.

In the white paper on school bomb threat management I developed for the Indiana School Specialists Academy and in our school bomb threat management training programs, Safe Havens recommends not evacuating as one appropriate option for school bomb threats.  This is partially because a site that is not fully secured by fencing and bomb detection screening measures can be more easily targeted if they always evacuate for bomb threats.  When considering that this also makes it easier to target building occupants with a vehicle bomb, a flexible approach makes even more sense.

Two Glynn County, Georgia School District Police Officers Recognized for Acts of Valor

I reprinted the below text from the Glynn County, Georgia School District website.  We had the privilege of working on a Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools (REMS) grant with the district last year and I had the opportunity to work with the district’s police chief Rod Ellis and several other officers from the department.  I know that Chief Ellis must be and should be extremely proud of the work of these outstanding police officers.  As Chief Ellis mentions, the winners of this prestigious award are selected by their brother and sister officers from across the state.  We congratulate Officers Hope and Hopper on their selfless actions, their superb work and for this recognition from their peers.

Officers Mark Hopper and Shane Hope of the Glynn County Schools Police Department recently received the Officers of the Year for Valor Award from the Peace Officers’ Association of Georgia (POAG) for their response to an incident at Brunswick High School on the first day of school in August 2010. The award was presented at the POAG annual conference at Sea Palms on St. Simons Island in late September.

While investigating two vehicle break-ins at BHS, a parent of the owner of one of the vehicles came to the school and confronted the officers. Hope watched the man as he returned to his truck, reached inside and put something in his waistband, which turned out to be a loaded 9 mm handgun. The man then continued to confront the officers, becoming more and more enraged. Recognizing that the man was carrying a weapon, Hope and Glynn County Schools Police Chief Rod Ellis, who had just arrived on the scene, drew their weapons and ordered the man to disarm. With the man refusing to cooperate, Hopper moved in behind him and disarmed him without any weapons being fired.

“Officers Hope and Hopper used their training to diffuse an extremely intense situation without anyone being harmed,” said Ellis, who nominated the two for the POAG award. “I was very impressed with their actions. Had Officer Hope not keyed into what was happening when the man retrieved the weapon from his truck, the end result could have been very different.”

Ellis noted that this was the first time that the POAG Valor Award had ever been presented to a school resource officer. “SROs are certified peace officers in the state of Georgia and they carry the same responsibilities as other law enforcement officers. It is gratifying to know that our colleagues around the state recognized and appreciated the professionalism with which Officers Hope and Hopper handled this situation at Brunswick High School.”

 

 

Suspect Arrested After School Shooting in Finland

A man who shot another person in the hand apparently entered a local school in Tempere, Finland and fired a round through a classroom door before being arrested by responding police.  No staff or students were injured in the incident which is still under investigation.

School shootings have been relatively rare in Europe but do occur from time to time.

Video with Audio from School bus Security Camera Depicts Henryville, Indiana School Bus Driver as Calm and Collected Under Life and Death Stress

School Transportation Director Steve Satterly from Indiana sent me a link to a video clip depicting school buses being devastated by tornadoes on Henryville, Indiana.  Steve is becoming quite an authority on school and school bus tornado preparedness as mentioned in previous blogs.  He toured the damaged schools in Henryville shortly after the storm hit and took photographs of the schools and damaged buses. 

I just viewed the video which appears to have been dubbed with audio of a school bus driver alerting the students on her bus to the tornado that was headed in the direction of their school bus.

While it is impossible to obtain a complete picture of her actions from snippets of audio, I was personally deeply impressed with how calm the driver sounded, how quickly she seemed to take action and by the fact that she can be heard counting the children as they evacuated the school bus.  My son and I have often trained more than 10,000 drivers in a single year.  We continue to see examples of school bus drivers rising to meet incredible challenges.

I will be keynoting the California Association of School Transportation Officials Annual Conference in Sacramento, California tomorrow morning and I intend to tell the attendees how this is yet another example of a school bus driver performing extremely well under life and death conditions.  In my 20 years of work as a police officer, I have heard more than a couple of well trained law enforcement officers who got more excited on the radio during an emergency than this driver sounded (including perhaps even myself on a few occasions).

Every school bus driver in America should be proud of her actions.

Indiana School District Provides Enhanced Emergency Training for School Bus Drivers

School Bus Fleet Magazine ran a feature article in the last issue about Indiana School Safety Specialist Steve Satterly and his efforts to enhance the level of emergency preparedness training in his school corporation.

Satterly, who has authored a guest blog and is authoring feature articles and a white paper on school and school bus tornado preparedness serves as an athletic director, transportation director and as the director of school safety for his district.

Attempted Abduction of 10-Year-Old Boy in New Zealand School a Close Call

Police and school officials in New Zealand say that a 10-year-old boy had a close call when a teenager lured him to a wooded area near the school when he went to use a school restroom. When they arrived at the wooded area, the older boy pulled out a length of chain and was apparently about to tie the child to a tree when some adults passing by scared him off.

This type of incident demonstrates the need for good student supervision and access control in schools. Our analysts have found few strategies that can improve school safety, climate and culture as well hour for hour and dollar for dollar as efforts to improve student supervision.

School Bus Shot by BBs in Burlington Kentucky During Route

A spokesperson for the Boone County, Kentucky Sheriff’s Department stated that a 14-year-old student had been suspended from school and taken into custody by deputies after he shot out a window of a school bus when it stopped at an intersection in Burlington.

The spokesperson stated that no one was injured in the incident.

Man Takes 19 Students and School Bus Driver Hostage and is Captured by Police

26-year-old Stephen Decker boarded a school bus during a stop and told the driver that he had a gun and a bomb.  The man demanded $25,000 in cash.  The driver called 911 and deputies from the Henry County Sheriff’s Department responded and took the man into custody.  No injuries were reported.  No weapons were found when Mr. Decker was taken into custody.

School bus hostage situations are rare in the United States but there have been other incidents around the United States.  School bus safety is a challenging issue because school buses are so mobile and routes often cover large geographic regions across the country.  School bus hostage situations in other countries have often been acts of school bus terrorism.

Student Disappearance Raises questions about how schools should notify parents that students are absent from school

15-year-old Sierra LaMar never got on the school bus and failed to show up for school.  Eleven hours later, her mother received an automated notification that the girl had missed all of her classes that day.  Her panicked mother called police and authorities are still searching for the girl.

Relatives and child-safety advocates assert that advancements in technology make it practical for school officials to communicate more quickly with parents when their children miss classes.  Marc Klaas from the KlaasKids Foundation, suggests that this case illustrates the need for this type of change.  His daughter, Polly Klaas was abducted from his home and killed in 1994.

Some school officials counter that the notification systems are designed to help better communicate with parents and to reduce truancy – not to enhance the safety of students on their way to school.

16 Year old Student hit by Van While Crossing Street to get to School in Brockton, Massachusetts

A student was hit by a van as he was crossing the street to get to school in Brockton, Massachusetts. Traffic safety is a concern for schools, which often pose unique and varied challenges. I keynoted a statewide school safety conference for the Massachusetts Departments of Education and Emergency Management in Brockton, and clearly recall an educator who served in an area public school district for more than forty years who attended the event in spite of a blizzard.

This incident highlights how school safety encompasses many different issues and there have been a number of students and school employees who have been seriously injured and killed in these types of situations. We recommend that school officials consider seeking assistance from local and state law enforcement officers to help them periodically review the movement of vehicles and pedestrians move to and from their schools each day.

School Buses Damage by Tornado in Henryville, IN may not be Fully Covered by Insurance

Two school buses were damaged beyond usability by a tornado in Henryville, Indiana recently and the owner of the private contract bus service Alice Hunt, told WHAS11 news that her insurance carrier had offered the company far less than it would cost to replace the school buses with used buses with comparable mileage because they were valuing the buses based on year model without consideration for value.

The insurance carrier is reviewing the claim.

Student Shot and Killed at Mississippi State University

According to the Blaze and AP, student John Sanderson, 21 was shot at Evans Residence Hall at about 10 P.M. Saturday at Mississippi State University. Mr. Sanderson was transported to an area hospital where he died.

Authorities are still searching for a suspect  - who was seen fleeing the area after the shooting. The university has about 20,000 students and the university website states that the area around the campus is a low – crime neighborhood.  This school shooting illustrates the fact that even colleges and universities with low crime rates can quickly become the scene of campus violence.

Indiana School Safety Specialist Steve Satterly Exhaustively Researches School Tornado Preparedness

I finally had time to read an article about a tornado that was photographed on Mars. I normally don’t research the topic of tornadoes so heavily that I would find out that a tornado (it was actually an 800 foot tall dust devil) rampaging around Mars. But Steve Satterly researches the topic enough to find such an article. You see, Steve has this thing about tornadoes. Actually, he has a thing about tornadoes and schools. In fact, Steve probably knows as much about schools and tornadoes as anyone I have ever run into - he has certainly written pretty extensively on the topic.

Steve has also been kind enough to take the time from his very busy schedule to write a guest blog for me on the concept of best available shelter in schools for tornado situations. He was also kind enough to do the bulk of the research and the writing for a 3,000 + word series of articles on school tornado preparedness we recently co-authored for Campus Safety Magazine. Then he was kind enough to offer to write a feature article for our next issue of the Safety Net, the free electronic journal we publish. He was also kind enough to offer to do the same for a white paper on school tornado preparedness we are working on for the Safe Havens website. All this while he is working on another feature article on recovery concepts for school tornado strikes for School Planning and Management Magazine.

Steve is a pretty busy guy since he serves as the Director of Safety and Security, as the Director of Athletics and as the Director of Transportation for a school corporation (district) in Indiana. He is even busier since he is also working on a certificate in Homeland Security in the evenings. We are very grateful that Steve has been so kind to donate his time to help us help others better prepare for school tornado strikes. Having survived an F3 tornado that ripped ventilation equipment off of the roof of his school when he was a new assistance principal, he is deeply committed to helping protect school employees and the students they serve from this deadly type of school crisis situation.

I am personally glad to know there is someone out there who has devoted so much time to the study of schools and tornadoes.  We are fortunate to have so many advocates for the children like Steve Satterly.   The world is becoming safer due to his awesome efforts.

Concerns for Possible School Violence in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Show how Community Gang Issues Frequently Impact School Safety

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police gang unit officers and area school officials are working to address concerns relating to a fatal shooting of 17 year old John Derrell Kempson Jr. who was shot and killed on Saturday night. The victim was a student at Vance High School and police are concerned about the level of social media chatter regarding possible gang violence in wake of the murder.

Additional police presence has been in place at several area high schools this week due to concerns about possible gang violence. This type of situation has been a major issue for many school districts.

When I served as a school district police chief in the 1990’s we regularly assigned additional personnel to potential trouble spots through our Special Operations Unit – a group of selected officers who could be moved from one area to another to help address these and other types of concerns. Our school district police department normally assigned between eight and ten sworn personnel to a federally funded area gang task force each summer to help us maintain accurate gang intelligence. Other officers from this task force would in turn often be deployed at schools and athletic events when intelligence indicated the potential for gang violence was high.

These types of situations often places considerable strain on school district and local law enforcement resources and requires a high degree of cooperation and collaboration. Gang members often try to target students who are members of rival gangs as they try to go to and from school as well as at school and during special events.

A proactive approach is required to keep the types of gang violence that have become common place in many communities from turning into major incidents of violence at schools and school events.

Police Investigation in Nobleville, Indiana Confirms that Students had Sexual Intercourse on School Bus

Noblesville, Indiana Police have concluded an investigation into a February incident where an 8 – year – old girl and a 13 – year – old boy had sexual intercourse on a school bus.

Police stated that the incident was captured on a security camera but not detected by the school bus driver and a driver’s aid because they could not see the incident due to the height of the school bus seats. The children, who both attended the Indiana School for the Deaf were transported to and from school by a school bus operated by Noblesville Schools.

The family of the 8 – year – old girl is being represented by attorney Robert King Jr. who questions the decision of Noblesville Police to rule the incident as consensual due to the child’s age and the size of the other student.

In a statement released by Noblesville schools, officials stated, “The safety and security of all children attending Noblesville schools is our top priority”.   

Suspect in Terrorist Attack on Jewish School in France Killed in Shootout with Police

Mohamed Merah was shot as he jumped out of a window during a gun battle with police after a 32 – hour standoff in Toulouse, France. Merah had told police negotiators that he murdered staff and students at the school and that he killed victims in other attacks to avenge the deaths of Palestinian children and to protest French troops being deployed to Afghanistan.

Merah claimed to have received training from Al Qaeda and to have visited Afghanistan and the Pakistani region of Waziristan, which is heavily infiltrated by militants. As with the horrific bombing in Oklahoma City by Timothy McVeigh, lone individuals who are motivated by extremist ideologies can be difficult to guard against due to limitations of one of the more effective counter terrorism measures – intelligence operations.

This tragic incident demonstrates how terrorists have often specifically targeted younger K-12 students in their attacks globally.   Unfortunately, school terrorism is a school safety concern for schools in most regions of the world to at least some extent.

Spring Rise in School Bomb Threats a Good Reason to Review Bomb Threat Protocols

Many schools receive bomb threats each Spring disrupting classes and costing school and public safety agencies thousands of dollars. Bomb threats also create danger and fear in a variety of ways.

Periodically re-evaluating school bomb threat procedures to see if changes are needed and to make sure that school officials are prepared to respond quickly and appropriately to threats that are received can be a good idea. School bomb threats are a recurring school safety issue in many schools each year.

Fifteen Year old Girl Arrested for Shooting at School Bus in Athens, Georgia

Police have arrested a 15 – year – old girl for shooting at a school bus at about 2:00 P.M. this Monday in Athens, Georgia. The driver was the only occupant of the bus at the time the incident occurred and a window was broken in the attack.

The driver recognized the girl as a student who had previously ridden on the school bus. The girl was charged with two felony counts and released to her mother.

What Does “Best Possible Shelter” Mean for School Tornado Sheltering?

Guest blog by Steve Satterly

Imagine for a moment that you find yourself in the ring with Iron Mike Tyson. He’s glaring at you, growling, and there is menace in his eyes. Then you hear the bell. Now, I don’t know about you, but even after 12 years in the Infantry, I would run like heck. As my mother didn’t raise any fools. I think that most rational people, faced with this situation, would do the same.

Now let’s change the scenario a bit. You have kids behind you, and you think he wants to hurt them (he doesn’t, but let’s go with it). You have the choice of running and leaving your children, begging for your (and their) life, or doing the best you can to protect them.

Facing a tornado is very similar to this analogy. On your own, you can most likely run for your life. Add people you are responsible for to the situation – and the decision-making changes. No one since Pecos Bill can defeat a tornado. All you can do is the best you can do. Given your responsibility to the people in your care, it is important you know what “the best you can do” is.

Many schools do not have the luxury of having a FEMA certified storm shelter with which to protect their children. They can be expensive – especially if you do a retrofit, alter existing construction to a new form, or build an addition. In FEMA publication P-431 “Tornado Protection: Selecting Refuge Areas in Buildings”, a process is described by which schools can identify “best available refuge areas”. These are areas in an existing building that have been designated by a qualified architect or engineer as a place likely to offer the greatest protection in the event of a tornado. Since these areas are not “safe rooms”, there is a possibility that people in those areas may be hurt or killed during a tornado. However, these “best available refuge areas” make such casualties less likely than in other areas of the building.

I am not an architect – nor am I an engineer. I have studied tornado mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery extensively. I have been through an EF3 tornado at a school myself. I have also seen for myself the damage to schools by EF4 tornadoes. This gives me the opportunity to let you know about some of the resources I have found, such as FEMA P-431. This can be found at http://www.fema.gov/library/ as well as other resources, which are free. If you cannot hook up with an architect or engineer, invite your local Emergency Management Director to walk through your building with you and use his or her expertise. Don’t do it alone – and don’t just take the word of some guy on the internet (even me!).

Take the time to do it right – because there is too much at stake.

Steve Satterly is the Director of School Safety and Transportation at the CSC Southern Hancock County in East Central Indiana. He is a survivor of an EF3 tornado on September 20, 2002. He is a certified Indiana School Safety Specialist with more than 75 hours of FEMA training. He is currently working toward a Master’s Certificate in Homeland Security through the School for Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA) at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis. The author welcomes questions, other viewpoints and any comments at satterly.steve@att.net.

Clark County, Nevada School District Has a World Class School Crisis Recovery Team

A school safety director just forwarded me a link to an article about the mental health recovery team in the Clark County School District in Las Vegas, Nevada. He was most impressed with what he read.

We have had the good fortune to work with the folks who operate this team as well as the Student Threat and Evaluation Team several times over the past decade or so. I must say that the district operates what I feel are hands down the best two teams of this type that we have encountered anywhere in the nation or for that matter, anywhere in the world.

The work this group of outstanding people has done over the years is truly remarkable. They have developed a number of cutting edge concepts, incorporated best practices from other schools and districts across the country to augment what they have in place and have worked tirelessly to improve on the school safety measures that they have in place. The student threat evaluation and assessment processes they have developed to help address the threat of an active shooter as well as more common types of weapons incidents and student suicide risk is most impressive. Their use of GIS mapping to identify “hot spots” in schools is also an awesome effort that has yielded tremendous results. They have also developed a truly world class drill evaluation instrument that they use to spot-check how effectively drills are conducted in the district.

To say that our analysts have been deeply impressed with their efforts would be an understatement. Bill Miller, Rosemary Virtuoso, Dr. Paul Webb, Roy Anderson and the rest of their dedicated team have continually impressed us with their attention to detail and their attitude of never accepting the status quo when it comes to student safety and school crisis preparedness.

Many School Officials Re-evaluating Tornado Procedures and Sheltering Locations

Tornado strikes on schools and communities have many school and public safety officials re-evaluating how they address the threat of tornadoes to their schools. Tornado sheltering procedures, training and drills are extremely critical school safety and school crisis preparedness topics.

We still encounter far too many schools that do not have properly written tornado protocols, do not regularly conduct tornado drills or have faulty concepts in place such as sheltering students in areas with open span roofs. We are also seeing school officials that are making significant changes to their tornado procedures without careful research because of one or two unique events. For example, many school officials have begun considering early school closure because of the near miss in Henryville, Indiana. While the decision to close school in that case clearly averted deaths of students, the loss of human life could be staggering if students and staff are caught in the middle of bus transport by a tornado elsewhere.

Concepts that have proven to reduce risk over many situations and many decades of practice should not be abandoned without careful evaluation of those concepts and of local considerations such as school design.

Sex Abuse Investigation in Bend, Oregon Charter School Demonstrates Problems with Student/Staff Texting

Michael Bremont, the Director of the Redmond Proficiency Academy, in Bend, Oregon, was charged with sodomy, rape, attempted rape and sexual abuse according to KATU.com. Court records show that a relationship allegedly began in 2009 and that the administrator flirted with a 15 year old female student as the relationship developed.  This incident raises important and recurring school safety issues.

This case illustrates the need for well thought out policies on contacts between students and staff using the various forms of social media. It also highlights how sexual predators who obtain employment with or volunteer for schools often use the process of “grooming” to seduce students by a series of interactions that test the likelihood that the child will engage in sex with the adult.

Policies, training and enforcement of policies on staff and volunteer conduct are extremely important in trying to address the ever present risk of sexual exploitation by school staff and volunteers in schools. School officials should operate their organizations with an understanding that while current best practices in employee screening can be extremely helpful, they have inherent limitations. By assuming that in spite of the best efforts in screening employees and volunteers, a sexual predator may be selected to work with children.  School administrators can implement structure that will make it more likely that predators will be identified sooner, hopefully before they can abuse children and youth. While sexual predators in schools look like any other employee, often have excellent academic credentials and are frequently top performers in their field, they inherently must act in a manner that is different from the majority of employees who would never consider molesting a student.

Good policies, practices and close attention to how personnel follow them can help more quickly identify them, particularly if administrators and staff are familiar with and practice utilizing the research proven concepts of pattern matching and recognition. Pattern matching and recognition involves an evidence-based approach where staff in any setting are trained and empowered to trust their instincts to help them notice patterns of behavior that do not fit the norm for the circumstances.

North Carolina High School Student Has Throat Slashed with Scalpel in Attack

A 15 – year – old female student snuck up behind a 16 – year – old girl and stabbed her in the throat at Nash High School in Baily, North Carolina. The attacker reportedly used a scalpel to slash the victim’s throat. A school resource officer took the suspect into custody and the victim was transported to a hospital and then transferred to a different hospital for treatment.

In our work with schools in the United States and abroad, we find that most school weapons assaults involve edged weapons. School officials should be sure to consider edged weapons assaults in their prevention as well as school crisis preparedness strategies. Edged weapons assaults are a key school safety concern for schools as demonstrated by this type of school violence incident.

School Bus Crash in India Kills 16 school Children

The BBC is reporting that at least sixteen school children died in a school bus crashed into a canal in Andhra Pradesh, India. Police report that another eighteen students were injured. The students were on their way home when the driver of the bus swerved to try to avoid a head on collision with a motorcycle. The bus apparently went off of a bridge into a canal. India is one of the most dangerous countries in the world from the standpoint of traffic fatalities. School bus safety varies considerably across the globe as this tragic incident illustrates.

Stop Bullying Now is a Great Free Resource for Schools

As anyone who has conducted even a moderate review of the literature knows, bullying has a tremendous impact on our students and the ability of schools to teach. The pain, suffering, anguish and other negative effects of school bullying not only have a significant effect on school safety, but on school climate, culture and academic achievement as well.

We know that many school children are truant from school each day, we have seen far too many instances of students who commit suicide at and away from school due to bullying and we have many examples of students who drop out of school due to bullying. When combined with the rare instances where victims of severe bullying take hostages at school or carry out school shootings, these negative and sometimes dire situations add up to a significant school safety issue.

Whether operating from a standpoint of school crisis prevention or from the standpoint of enhancing academic achievement it makes sense to evaluate the frequency and severity of bullying in any school and then to address the determined risk level appropriately. Schools are often limited in fiscal resources to address bullying, emergency preparedness and other school safety issues. Fortunately, there are many excellent free resources for American schools.

One example of this in the area of bullying prevention are the resources available from the United States Department of Education on bullying, including the Stop Bullying Now Campaign available to schools at no cost from the United States Government. This program has received excellent reviews from a number of experts in the field of bullying prevention and is worth consideration for schools that lack funds to purchase evidence based bullying prevention programs such as the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program. Effective bullying prevention strategies are an excellent way to improve school safety, school climate, school culture and to enhance student achievement.

Update on Toulouse School Attack – Guest blog by Chris Dorn

I’d like to provide a bit of context for the school attack that happened in Toulouse, France this morning.  While I don’t have any more information than what we are seeing in news reports, I do know the city of Toulouse well.  In the summer of 2007 I spent six weeks in this peaceful city, exploring it on foot and by bicycle with all of my free time.  If I had to describe Toulouse in American terms, I would call it a “college town”.  With a population hovering around 500,000 people, 20% of those are students (the third largest student population in the country).  This is relevant information in light of this tragic attack at a religious school – the most recent in a string of attacks in the region.  The lesson we can take away from this is that any school can be a target, and we must remember to always be on alert to prevent dangerous situations and mitigate them if they do occur.  While this story is updating rapidly, here is a link to one of the most recent reports I have seen on the attack:

Toulouse Killings: Death in the Morning from the Economist

 

To illustrate what the city looks like here is a photo from my stay there.  The photo depicts one of the town thoroughfares.

 

Chris Dorn is Executive Producer of Safe Havens Video and has been an Analyst with Safe Havens since 2003.  He is the co-author of “Innocent Targets: When Terrorism Comes to School” – one of the leading texts on school terrorism and school related attacks in the world.  This book has been referenced around the world and was distributed to all 50 states through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Gunman on Motorcycle Kills four in Shooting at a Jewish School in Toulouse, France

A gunman riding a motorcycle opened fire Monday morning as students and parents entered a Jewish school in Toulouse, France killing three students and a teacher. Another student was wounded in the deadly attack.

French authorities are searching for the gunman who reportedly chased students into the school while firing two different guns. Authorities are investigating to see if the attack has any connection with two separate shootings of French soldiers that occurred in the region last week according to the BBC. Though the attack has not been determined to be an act of school terrorism at this time, the incident bore similarities to past school terrorism events around the globe.

A teacher, a three year old, a six year old and an older student who was the child of a teacher at the school were killed in the attack that left students, staff, parents and the Jewish community stunned. School violence in general has become more problematic in French schools in recent years with a number of reported instances of students and staff who wear either a crucifix or a Star of David being attacked by Muslim students. However, this deadly attack was far more violent than these more common acts of violence, which have generally been carried out by students.

As in the U.K. and many other parts of Europe, French schools have been experiencing more acts of overall violence than has traditionally been the case making school safety a much larger concern.

28 killed and 28 injured in school bus field trip in Switzerland

A catastrophic crash involving a charter bus transporting Dutch and Belgian school children and their chaperones left 22 students and six adults dead with 14 more students in hospitals and another 14 students injured. This tragic mass casualty event was described with terms like “carnage” and “devastation” by emergency responders who worked for more than two hours to free the last survivor from the wreckage.

This horrific case demonstrates how school safety concerns go beyond the schoolyard and in this case can even extend to another country.

Multiple Victim Stabbing at Miami – Jacobs Career College Demonstrates the need for Schools to Take Edged Weapons Assaults Seriously

A man armed with multiple knifes walked into the admissions office of the Miami – Jacobs Career College in Columbus, Ohio and stabbed a person. At that point, bystanders attempted to subdue and disarm the man who then responded by producing an additional edged weapon. By the time responding police shot the man, four people had been injured, three of them critically.

Stabbings on K-12 and higher education campuses occur much more frequently than attacks with firearms but most do not involve multiple victims. We have found this to be true not only in our work in the United States but in our work in other countries as well. At the same time, there have thus far been at least two knife attacks in schools in the People’s Republic of China where at least 25 people have been stabbed. School stabbing rampages have also occurred in other countries such as Japan.

While edged weapons incidents are far more prevalent on school campuses than other types of weapons incidents, we have found that very few educational employees have received any instruction or training on what to do about them.   Even fewer have ever participated in drills and exercises to practice the action steps that need to be implemented to counter people who are threatening to use a knife or have actually used an edged weapon to attack others.  One reason for this is the over emphasis on catastrophic but extremely rare active shooter situations at schools.  While it is critical that employees and students be provided information and practice on these deadly situations, this should not be to the exclusion of other dangerous and more common types of school weapons incidents.

For example, our analysts have conducted one – on – one structured simulation interviews using both scripted and video school crisis scenarios with more than 500 school employees in the past several years. We have found that on average, only 1 out of every 100 interviewed participants can properly respond to a scenario of an angry parent who is brandishing a knife. While most school staff can verbalize the correct procedures for a person who is firing a gun, they typically cannot handle a person with a knife. As yesterday’s savage attack demonstrates, a person who has an edged weapon and a desire to use the weapon on a school campus can create devastating damage in a matter of seconds.

As with medical emergencies, tornadoes, fires and any other category of school crisis events, school crisis plans, training and drills should prepare employees to adapt to any situation that occurs, not just those types of events that garner intensive media coverage.   A comprehensive approach to school safety and crisis planning can reduce danger to school employees, visitors and students.

Can a Hacker Gain Access to Security Camera Feed, Alarm System Controls or Student Information through your Smart Phones?

Guest blog by Phuong Nguyen SHI Public Information Officer

  

Due to the number and severity of cyber attacks on school systems, there is increasing concern among school leaders about the techniques used by hackers and other cyber criminals to access sensitive information, commit thefts and to perform denial of service attacks.

One area of considerable interest involves the amount of information that can sometimes be accessed by hacking into smart phones and how easy it can sometimes be to breach the security of these devices. For example, in many school districts and non-public schools today, authorized employees can remotely view live feed from security cameras, can turn major systems like freezers in a cafeteria and alarm systems on and off. In many school organizations, authorized employees can quickly access sensitive student records from a portable device.

In polling a number of school safety officials, we have found that most of them have not installed any protective software on their employees’ smart phones, including those that can be used to access these types of systems. According to cyber security experts, with available tools, hackers just need to be within the wireless coverage range of those mobile devices to compromise them. For example, as many people often use the unsecure Wi-Fi hotspots available in public places, such as airports, hackers just need to be in those places to accomplish their malicious work. If password information has been stored on a phone that is used to access these systems and appropriate protective software is not in use, a hacker may be able to access anything that the legitimate user can.

We suggest that school organizations that utilize these types of systems consider protection of these mobile devices by installing appropriate antivirus software, developing appropriate use policies as they would for desktop computers, and providing proper staff development sessions for those who have access to these systems via portable device. As the recent successful hacking of a conference call between FBI officials and Scotland Yard investigators demonstrate, there are people who can and will hack telephone calls.

School cyber security is a rapidly evolving and often vulnerable area. Taking reasonable steps to protect these sensitive systems and information should be a consideration.

Phuong Nguyen serves as the Public Information Officer for Safe Havens International and is working on a dual Cyber Security/MBA MS degree program. Phuong has an MA in Applied Linguistics from Vietnam National University and an MA in Mass Communications from Texas Tech University.

New School Safety Training and Evaluation System Makes Every Second Count

Safe Havens has been scripting, filming and editing for more than a year to develop a powerful new emergency preparedness evaluation and staff development system designed to help improve the ability of school staff to make life and death decisions in the first 30 seconds of a crisis. This system is based on one on one evaluations with more than 500 school employees from around the nation and the research of a number of top experts. This system Safe Topics – The First 30 Seconds was released today. You can view a powerful 90 second demonstration video on the home page of our web site at www.safehavensinternational.org

15 Reported Injuries in Pennsylvania School Bus Crash

Local news agencies are reporting that approximately 15 people were injured when a school bus from the Turkeyfoot Area School District in Pennsylvania was involved with a crash with a commercial truck.

Early media reports indicate that some students were airlifted to hospitals while others were reportedly transported to the hospital by ambulance and via school bus. The crash occurred at about 2:45 P.M. EST. This is the second mass casualty school bus crash in the state in the past two years.

Safe Havens International Video produced a school mass casualty event mental health recovery training video featuring Safe Havens Analyst Dr. Sonayia Shepherd last year. 1,000 copies of the video, which won a Telly Award, have been distributed at no cost to Pennsylvania schools to help them prepare for such events.

Gunmen Attack School Bus in Ethiopia Killing 17

A group of gunmen attacked a school bus killing seventeen and taking three women hostage before opening fire on responding police officers according to Ethiopian news sources. Early news accounts assert that the students were forced to lie on the ground before being methodically executed by the gunmen. Though no group has been identified as carrying out the attack at this point, terrorists have attacked school buses on numerous occasions outside of the United States. School buses are typically soft targets and are difficult to protect from carefully planned attacks as we have seen since the first reported attack on a school bus by the Palestinian Liberation Organization in the state of Israel more than fifty years ago.

Student Abducted from School in the United Kingdom

British news services are reporting that a female student was forcibly dragged from her school by her ex boyfriend. Police are searching for both teens and fear for her safety. It is fairly standard for schools in England to be fenced and gated with access control systems due to concerns for school security. This incident demonstrates how easy it can be for students to be abducted from their schools. Fortunately, such incidents are still relatively rare.

Disturbance in New York City High School Shows How Serious Student Disruptions can be

There was a major disturbance at a New York City public high school recently that shows just how out of control students can become. Videos taken during the incident have been posted on the web and viewed by thousands of people.

The situation occurred at Murry Bergtram High School and graphic video of the disturbance demonstrate a high level of chaos.  Viewing these video clips remind me of an even more violent student disturbance at Ballard Hudson Middle school when I was a student there. In that instance, local law enforcement officers wearing riot gear broke up the melee with riot batons after a school district police officer was severely beaten.

Situations of group student violence this severe are fortunately relatively rare in most parts of the country. These situations demonstrate how important school climate and culture are and how important it is for school security and law enforcement officials to establish solid rapport with the students they serve. This can be accomplished in any school, including schools serving high - risk student populations.

Fatalities from School Shootings Down, Lower Level Aggression Appears to be Increasing

The Twin Cities Press reported that a 17 year old student attacked an 18 year veteran teacher and injured him badly enough to require transport to the hospital by ambulance. The teacher reportedly was cursed severely and then savagely attacked after instructing the student to remove headphones as required by school policy. Though not as horrific as an active shooter situation in a school there is an important aspect of this type of event. Many educators can relate something similar in a school they have taught or worked in if they have been in the field for more than ten years. Though fortunately, most of these incidents do not escalate quite to the level of this incident, verbal and physical attacks on school employees are disturbingly common in relation to many other types of school safety and security incidents.

While school shootings often dominate the media coverage for school safety topics, there has actually been a well documented reduction in the per capita homicide rate on school property in the United States. There are a number of reasons this may be the case including:

• Improved emergency medical care

• The development of the multidisciplinary threat assessment approach for schools

• Improved school security and access control practices

• Increased utilization of weapons detection strategies such as random surprise metal detection, gun detection dogs, visual weapons screening and pattern matching and recognition

• An increased awareness among staff, students and parents about the dangers of school violence and the need to take school safety more seriously

• Improvements in policies relating to weapons on campus, violent behaviors and triggering behaviors such as fights

• The addition of thousands of school law enforcement officers in public and non public schools that previously did not have this valuable and effective resource

• Increased consistency in application of consequences for serious violations that can precede weapons use by students

• Improvements in school design

• Improvements in school climate

• Efforts to reduce bullying

• A variety of other techniques

While we still have much room for improvement, tremendous strides have been made and many gains achieved in our efforts to reduce weapons violence in our schools. At the same time, educators in many schools and districts often report a significant increase in lower level forms of aggression by students, parents and visitors. Though not a valid research approach, informal polling via a show of hands during keynote and training sessions for more than 50,000 attendees at my sessions in the past few years has revealed that a lot of hands go up when I ask people who have been in the field of education for more than ten years to raise their hands if they perceive significant increases in these types of behaviors. When I contrast the number of people in the room with those who keep their hands up when I ask about the perception that this type of behavior has increased, the overwhelming majority of attendees indicate that they do see a worsening in this area.

Though these types of events do not dominate the national news discussion relating to school safety and school performance, they have a very significant impact on both. I have met many former educators who have decided to change fields due to these types of incidents. Schools where reports of physical and verbal aggression are a regular type of event to any degree should work diligently to address this aspect of school safety. We have seen a number of schools successfully address lower level aggression through a comprehensive and thoughtful approach combining evidence based strategies with other techniques that are not as deeply rooted in solid research but have shown improvement nonetheless.

If lower level aggression is a regular problem in your schools, make it a priority to address this corrosive problem head on to reduce risk, reduce distraction in the classrooms, enhance the ability of children to learn and teachers to teach while making all safer.

Are Your School Employees Properly Empowered to Improve School Safety?

One thing we notice regularly in our school safety, security, climate, culture and emergency preparedness assessment work are opportunities to improve the level of empowerment of school employees to improve school safety. From preventive actions to life and death decision making, we regularly see significant gaps that relate to the empowerment of school employees to protect themselves and others.

We also often see this in school safety litigation work, unfortunately, this is often after someone has been seriously injured or killed and school safety related lawsuits have been filed. I recall a risk management instructor relating a case from Utah where a school district settled a case for millions of dollars after a student died from a medical emergency. In this truly extreme case, the district’s superintendent had put a policy in place that no one in the district could call 911 without his permission. This policy had apparently been implemented because the superintendent had been embarrassed when he could not respond to a reporter who asked him why police had been called to a school because he was not yet aware of the situation. When a student stopped breathing, there was an extended delay in calling for an ambulance while the superintendent was located.

While this is an extreme example, it is far from the most deadly. There have been other instances where the response by public safety officials was delayed while school employees tried to locate an administrator to make a life and death decision.

These deadly delays can be made less likely through proper planning, structure, training and most of all by clear empowerment of school staff that they can summon life saving assistance or take action to otherwise save when it is appropriate.

Easy, Inexpensive and Effective – Improve Student Supervision to Enhance School Safety

 

One of the most important aspects of school safety involves student supervision.

Effective student supervision practices reduce the risk of school safety incidents ranging from bullying, non-custodial abductions of students, sexual assaults on campus, weapons incidents, tornadoes and even terrorism. This is because improvements in student supervision are a powerful preventive measure while also being an important emergency preparedness tool.

For example, it is harder for someone to physically bully a student who is being closely supervised and it is not as easy to move students who are not being carefully supervised to safety if a tornado warning is received. One of the most common issues in school safety litigation involves student supervision. School safety expert witnesses are frequently asked to evaluate how much of an impact student supervision has had in a school safety incident.

Taking the time to focus on and properly address student supervision issues is time well spent.

Protect Yourself so You can Protect Others – A Critical School Safety Concept

Anyone who has flown commercial air in the last decade or so has heard the safety message that they should put their own mask on before putting the oxygen mask on others such as small children in the event of a loss of cabin pressure. Though many people do not realize just how fast they can lose consciousness, they do understand that it is logical because they cannot properly protect children if they become unconscious while trying to help a child put their mask on first. There is an important school emergency preparedness point in this example from commercial aviation. School employees should be taught to take care of their own safety first so they can in turn be capable of protecting students and other staff. As at least two school employees have already died heroically but needlessly in school shooting situations because they did not apply this concept, it bears mention.

Law enforcement officers, fire service professionals and other public safety personnel are trained on this point heavily. Many deaths in these fields have provided practitioners in those fields with object lessons that should not be forgotten. An acquaintance of mine died in just this manner when he hit a utility pole while rushing to the aid of a fellow officer. His fatal crash not only took his life, but it also diverted valuable assistance to the officer in distress because additional units had to rush to his aid when he crashed.

Just as public safety officials must be trained to overcome the natural tendency of caring people to sometimes put the safety of others first inappropriately, educational employees should be trained to consider what help they will be able to provide if they become incapacitated because they do not take adequate steps to protect themselves before they act to protect others.

Carefully Define your Scope of Work for School Safety Assessment Projects

One thing I have noticed in reviewing bid solicitations for many school safety assessment projects over the years is that the requests for proposals (RFP’s) for these projects are almost always different from one another. One reason that almost no two RFP’s are alike is that each client has it’s own needs and focus. Another reason they vary so much is that there are so many different approaches to conducting assessments for schools.

Even the terminology for the assessments varies widely. For example, here are some of the more common descriptors used for these processes:

• School security assessment

• School security audit

• School safety assessment

• School safety audit

• School hazard and vulnerability assessment

• School risk assessment

•School hazard hunt

• School tactical site survey

• School safety, security, climate, culture and emergency preparedness assessment

• Student supervision assessment

• School emergency preparedness assessment

This list could easily run to a full page if we listed all of the terms we have seen in RFP’s. While there is no problem with the use of any of these terms, it is important to understand that these terms without a proper scope of work all mean different things. For example, an “audit” implies a different approach to and “assessment” and a school security assessment will be taken by many vendors to exclude general safety issues and does not cover issues relating to school climate, culture or emergency preparedness. Taking the time to determine what aspects relating to school safety need to be evaluated before writing an RFP can go a long way to a more effective and practical bid process.

For example, one attendee to a state – wide training program on school safety evaluation and assessment related that her district had paid a consultant an enormous sum of money to assess school in her district. Though the consultant presented himself as one of the nation’s top experts, he only spent about forty five minutes in each school and delivered very basic reports in contrast with the processes we were outlining in the training session. The district had tried to terminate the contract with the consultant due to numerous complaints that had been received by district staff and area public safety personnel but the consultant had threatened to litigate the district. The district ended up attending a training session on the coordination of school safety assessments and re-doing all of the assessments themselves. In hindsight, the district realized that a failure to properly define the scope of work had helped contribute to this unpleasant situation.

A little bit of research prior to releasing a bid solicitation can help to make sure that the services that are desired match those that are delivered, reduce the costs of the services and ensure that safety is enhanced by the process.

Use Caution When Making Public Statements after a Safety Incident Occurs

Education leaders naturally want to reassure students, parents, staff and the community when a school safety incident takes place. It is quite normal for a school superintendent or headmaster to make a statement to the media like “our schools are safe” in an effort to calm fears. However, statements of this sort made when stress levels are high and people are in pain due to a tragedy can have two very negative and lasting consequences increased exposure to civil liability and an increased loss of public confidence. While issues of potential civil liability exposure should generally be viewed in balance with the many other demands of effectively operating schools, they should not be ignored.

Statements that we commonly see such as “safety is our number one priority” are easily attacked and refuted in a deposition or trial. For example, an attorney may ask a school superintendent who makes such a public statement if safety is the largest budget item during a deposition. As the answer to this question will always be no, this line of questioning will likely be used to suggest that the school leader has intentionally misled the public in regards to the actual level of safety. While this point may seem trite to some, I have seen a number of instances were a single poorly worded phrase has had a dramatic impact in school safety litigation. Working as an expert witness in school safety malpractice cases reveals just how important wording can be. In the same manner, the media frequently uses similar tactics when covering school safety which can do serious long term damage to the reputation of school leaders and their organizations. One superintending in an affluent well funded suburban school system made the mistake of stating during a school board meeting that his school system was the safest district in the nation while addressing an incident that had occurred. When he was challenged as to the validity of this statement by parents and the media, he stuck to his statement rather than modifying it. Area media began to hammer the superintendent and the district by reporting as many safety incidents as possible for more than a year. The damage to the district’s credibility lasts to this day.

Fortunately, there are ways to help reasonably assert the organization’s emphasis on safety while reducing the problems that can result from these types of statements. By carefully choosing the way such statements are phrased, school spokespersons can get the message out that safety is a priority in an honest, effective and easily defensible manner. The first rule of thumb is to ask, “Could I prove that this assertion is true and valid in court and under oath?”. For example, if we go back to the oft heard statement that “student safety is our number one priority” the answer is clearly no. However, the statement “we take student safety seriously in our school district” would be much easier to validate in a district that does indeed have a comprehensive and effective safety program.

Taking the time to carefully phrase statements relating to student and staff safety can save money and can help to build rather than reduce confidence.

Tribute to a Life Well Lived and Well Taught

I attended a memorial service yesterday for a relative who died after a long and hard fought battle against cancer. Ellen was just forty two when she left us. Those who spoke at the service related how Ellen was a happy, funny, fun loving, clean living kind of gal who brought joy to all who knew her. All of those descriptions paint a picture of who she was and how she lived her life. In the more than 300 pictures that played on the screen in the funeral home before the service, she had a beaming smile in almost all of them. But Ellen was also a superb educator. Her mom is a retired teacher from the same district who won numerous awards for her excellence in teaching. Her grandmother was also a distinguished career teacher as is her sister.

Ellen had gone back to school to earn two graduate degrees with one of them being a degree in special needs education. One of her long term colleagues spoke of how much of an amazing teacher she was to her kindergarten class of special needs children. She continued to teach half days even after the cancer was taking a serious toll on her and was devastated when she realized that she must stop teaching because her students deserved more than her failing health could allow her to give.

As I listened to the minister and her colleague speak of what a wonderful human being and gifted teacher she was, I knew from personal experience that everything they said was true. I also realized that Ellen is typical of so many atypical people in the field of education who have dedicated their lives to the service of others. All that is good and just in our society stems from people like Ellen. Though everyone’s job has purpose and makes a contribution to our society, there are those who walk gracefully and quietly among us to serve others. Thankfully, there are public safety officials, military personnel, mental health professionals and teachers who work wonders every day they serve. These people who have chosen noble callings like teaching make the world a better place for the rest of us.

As the packed service illustrated, Ellen was definitely one who lived her life well, with purpose and with tremendous impact on many.

School Shooting at Episcopal High School in Jacksonville Reminds us that Violence can happen at Public, Private, Parochial, Charter and Independent Schools

March has been a busy month for school safety incidents.  The shock of the tragic school shooting in Chardon, Ohio has caused a larger number of school violence incidents to be reported in the media than is normally the case. As with other many other tragic high profile multiple victim school shootings, many incidents that do not ordinarily garner attention in the national news are making headlines.  The positive side of this increased media coverage is that it does help to remind students, parents and parents that school safety is an important topic and that we should all do our part to avert tragedies.  All the same, these incidents are a bitter pill for those that have to endure them.

One report that received national coverage today was a terrible murder suicide at Episcopal High School in Jacksonville, Florida.  Early reports indicate that a Spanish teacher returned to the school with a semi-automatic rifle concealed in a guitar case and shot the school’s headmistress fatally before taking his own life after he was terminated this morning.  Over the years there have been a number of homicides, sexual assaults, hostage situations, deadly fires and other major crisis events in non – public schools around the nation.  The deadly shooting at an Amish School in Pennsylvania is one of the more well known examples. 

These tragic situations serve more than adequate notice that non – public schools must also consider all four phases of school crisis planning as relevant and important to their successful operation.  Though it is truly sad that any educators must contend with these types of hazards, it is a reality in education across the globe. 

Our hearts go out to the members of the Episcopal High School family in their time of difficulty.

Recent Tornado Strikes Provide Clear Evidence that Schools Should Focus Appropriately on Tornado Preparedness

The deadly near miss in Indiana this week should provide a clear warning to all school and public safety officials. Tornadoes are deadly and no school in a region where they can occur should ignore them. As a number of states where tornadoes occur regularly still do not require tornado drills, there are still many schools without a written tornado sheltering procedure where no tornado sheltering drill has been conducted in years.

We have seen this many times in our school hazard and vulnerability assessment projects. In the last two years, we have had client districts in Pennsylvania, Illinois and Virginia that not only did not have written tornado sheltering procedures in place, but where some central office administrators also objected to the recommendations for tornado drills to be added. They felt that these types of drills would take up too much class time in relation to the likelihood that a tornado would hit an occupied school. Tornado strikes occurred near schools in all three regions within a year.

While most schools in tornado prone regions do have written plans and conduct tornado drills, we have seen more than one instance where a school district has conducted an active shooter full – scale exercise while tornadoes, hazardous materials incidents and earthquakes have been virtually ignored as a threat. We have seen many more instances where school officials were using gymnasiums or other open span areas for tornado shelters. We recommend that school administrators ask area public safety officials to visit their buildings and evaluate the shelter areas they are using.

The advanced planning and decisions by administrators in Henrysville, Indiana clearly saved many young lives this week. The results would not have been the same had they not taken tornadoes seriously.

Good School Safety, Security and Crisis Planning Ideas Abound

One of the cool things about what we do at Safe Havens, is that we get to see so many different approaches to school safety, security and emergency preparedness as we visit schools across the United States and abroad. I have seen better school security practices in some schools I visited by donkey drawn cart and dugout canoe in the Mekong Delta than I have seen in some public and independent schools in of the most affluent parts of the country. That said, American schools generally do tend to do a better job in many areas of school safety in contrast to what we see in South Africa, the U.K., Canada, Bolivia and other places we have worked.

While schools in the U.K. typically have far better access control than the majority of their U.S. counterparts billions of dollars of federal funding, research, a steady stream of frightening media coverage following major incidents like Monday’s deadly school shooting in Chardon, Ohio have created a lot of positive change in American school safety. Sadly, we see dangerous situations in schools on a daily basis and still encounter the pervasive “it can’t happen here” mentality from school employees, students and parents”. While people in reality know deep down that a major school crisis event such as a tornado, fire, earthquake or active shooter situation could occur in their community, they often do not seem to face these types of risks as part of the reality of possibilities on a more practical day to day. This is why we so often see such massive changes in safety, security and emergency preparedness after an event occurs. Once injuries and deaths have actually occurred, people typically begin to assign a much greater priority to safety than they did prior to the incident, regardless of how much they had in place prior to the event.

One big advantage we have in the United States, Canada and in a number of other developed countries is the ability to see what our neighbors are doing to improve school safety to get ideas for improvement. It is extremely common for us to find an exceptional practice in one school system or non public school that is not in use ten miles away at another school in a nearby town. With public school systems, it is extremely common to see a practice in place in one school that would benefit all schools in the district if it were implemented at those schools. This can even crop up in litigation when a school safety expert witness points out that a practice that is in place in several schools in the district would likely have averted a tragedy had it been also used in a school where an incident has not occurred.

Taking the time to visit other schools in the region can help spread new and effective ideas effectively. Many of these ideas are inexpensive, practical and effective school safety solutions.

Do we have good “people detectors” in our schools?

As with every multiple victim school shooting in recent years, media coverage of Monday’s school shooting in Chardon, Ohio has been at times heavily focused on what warning signs might have been ignored or missed prior to the shooting. I caution people to be careful as they evaluate information on these situations from the media as we have already seen many instances of inaccurate information in this case as we have with past targeted acts of school violence.

In his excellent book Columbine author Dave Cullen’s extensive research into the actual occurrences clearly counters the many myths that arose out of that tragedy. His book refutes the still common claim that bullying played a major role in the event, that the shooters were “loners” and that the infamous “trenchcoat mafia” never existed. At the same time, each of these events does and should make us ask the probing questions relating to actions, words, social network communications, behaviors and other observable indicators that have often when detected, helped to avert tragedy.

The near miss at East High School in Green Bay, Wisconsin is a case in point. Alertness, connectivity between students and staff and superb collaboration between school and law enforcement officials prevented a great tragedy at that well run school where people are connected to other people to a high degree. To paraphrase how one United States Department of Education official put it – we need people detectors in our schools.

Working in a school district where we stopped multiple planned school shootings, one planned school bombing and a planned double suicide deeply ingrained the importance of school employees being structurally as well as personally connected to the students they have chosen to serve. Fortunately, school officials today have considerably better information than their counterparts did when the per capita school homicide rate was much higher in the 1970 to 1980 time period. This most recent tragedy serves as yet another reminder that terrible acts of school violence can occur in great schools in nice communities.

Role Specific School Crisis Planning can be a life saver

 

 

 

Role specific school crisis plans can better prepare school staff to utilize mental simulation to prepare for emergencies

As the recent school shooting in Chardon, Ohio demonstrates, any and every employee in a school may be required to take immediate action to minimize injuries and prevent the loss of human life. Properly preparing employees to handle a wide variety of emergency situations through training, empowerment and practice. This requires that role relevant and specific information be provided because different employees do not do the same thing in a crisis event. For example, a building principal in an elementary school does not perform the same action steps as a custodian, who typically performs different action steps than a food service employee or a school bus driver. As another example, if all employees in a school operate off of the same emergency planning component and an action step is to call 911, all 75 employees in a school may be tied up for several minutes while they jam the 911 center with redundant calls.

There are several ways to address role specific school crisis planning. One of these approaches involves the creation of role specific emergency charts for key job classifications as has been done as a state – wide planning concept in Wisconsin and Indiana. While this approach requires far more time in the plan development phase, it can reduce the amount of training time needed for a large number of employees. Emergency reference charts should not be viewed as an instructional manual to follow step by step during the first critical seconds of a crisis. Instead they are a valuable tool to help staff develop what Dr. Gary Klein refers to as a base of knowledge. Klein’s research shows that people can perform exceptionally well in making life and death decisions but they need practice using a concept known as mental simulation. For school employees to get increased benefit from this research – based concept, they need to be provided appropriate responses to a wide array of situations rather than just a few situations that we fear the most like active shooter situations.

Role specific planning is one way to help afford a variety of school employees with a good framework of experience so they can be more prepared to meet any crisis situation they encounter. American educators have been forced to address a wide range of crisis events such as the September 11 terrorist attacks which required immediate action by school officials, an antipersonnel grenade detonating in a rural Georgia high school band room, a teacher committing suicide in a home – made gas chamber he constructed and a number of other seemingly bizarre incidents that most schools would not plan for specifically. Role specific school crisis planning can be a valuable school safety tool.

New School Safety Training and Evaluation System Makes Every Second Count

New Learning and Evaluation System to enhance School Safety

Safe Havens has been scripting, filming and editing for more than a year to develop a powerful new emergency preparedness evaluation and staff development system designed to help improve the ability of school staff to make life and death decisions in the first 30 seconds of a crisis. This system is based on one - on - one evaluations with more than 500 school employees from around the nation and the research of a number of top experts. This system Safe Topics – The First 30 Seconds was released today. You can view a powerful 90 – second demonstration video on the home page of our web site at http://www.safehavensinternational.org

School Shooting in Chardon, Ohio Reminds us of Critical Aspects of School Shooting Incidents

Lessons learned from school shootings

Today’s tragic multiple victim school shooting in Chardon, Ohio is yet another reminder of some of the more critical prevention and mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery efforts that should be properly covered in school crisis plans. While no plans can be expected to be perfect, we have seen many instances where top flight school safety planning has enabled school and public safety officials to properly respond to such incidents and in a number of instances to prevent them from occurring in the first place

I should be clear that none of the following comments are intended to imply that staff at the school or in the district have made any mistakes in any of these areas. These are instead offered as lessons learned from our involvement in the wake of dozens of past school shootings that have occurred at times when students are not on class as well as for multiple victim school shootings in general.

• A number of what the United Secret Service and United States Department of Education define as targeted acts of violence have taken place at times when students are not in class. This demonstrates the need for schools to conduct drills relating to key functional protocols like room clear, reverse evacuation, emergency lockdown and evacuation at times when students are in different locations and at different times of the school day. For those who have never conducted a lockdown during passing times or a lunch period, it can be a most revealing experience.

• These types of incidents also highlight the need to provide written plan instructions, training and to conduct drills to empower staff and students to initiate life – saving action on their own without first contacting an administrator when it is appropriate to do so.

Actual incidents as well as extensive assessment simulations with hundreds of school employees from small, mid – sized and large school districts around the nation has revealed that school employees are often well prepared to function with direction under life and death stress but are frequently still not well prepared to be the person to initiate life – saving actions in the first thirty seconds of an event. The most powerful example of this is the deadly 1958 school fire at the Our Lady of Angels School fire which killed 95 students and employees. Staff at the school waited approximately five minutes before pulling the fire alarm while they tried to locate an administrator at the school.  We have seen similar stress reactions in more recent mass casualty events at schools.

• These events demonstrate the importance of focused mental simulation of a wide range of types of crisis situations. A number of researchers have documented the profound effects of life and death stress on the human mind and body. We have found that an overemphasis on active shooter scenarios can reduce the ability of staff to function for any type of incident including active shooter situations. Researchers have found that having a broad base of knowledge can help people make better decisions regardless of the type of crisis they face. While the failure to conduct drills and exercises relating to active shooter situations can be deadly, too many lockdown and active shooter drills and exercises can also be quite dangerous.

• School officials should plan and practice making decisions, communicating with both internal key staff and with area emergency responders and to effectively communicate with the public promptly but accurately in the wake of a major school crisis event. Formal training or school staff in the National Incident Management System and crisis communications are both important.

• School and public safety officials should be well prepared to perform key strategic functions such as off – site family reunification and to initiate these actions very early in the crisis. For example, the decision to begin off site family reunification should normally be made in the first five to ten minutes of the event in most types of situations. This is because parents and relatives of students often rush to the affected school during a crisis and can overwhelm responders.

There are also a number of strategies that can help to prevent these types of incidents. Successful interventions have occurred since the early 1990’s when a series of planned school shootings were averted by Bibb County Public School Police Officers and School Social workers. The concepts developed in this school system combined with techniques developed by the United States Secret Service and the United States Department of Education have been utilized to prevent numerous planned attacks at schools since that time.

• Training in visual weapons screening to help staff recognize the specific physical behaviors that can indicate that a person is carrying a gun

• Multi-disciplinary threat assessment teams

• Informational efforts to educate students to report potentially dangerous statements and behaviors

More recently, educators have been receiving on other proven tools to recognize dangerous individuals and situations that have been in use in the military, law enforcement and emergency medicine for many years. For example, many educators now receive formal training in an evidence based concept know as pattern matching and recognition. This training has helped cardiac units in hospitals reduce mortality by as much as 50% and is now being used to help school custodians, teachers, counselors, school bus drivers and other employees to detect troubled students based on subtle but clearly noticeable cues that something is not right.

We hope this information is of help to you in your efforts to make schools even safer. American K-12 schools and their community partners have made tremendous strides in reducing the homicide rate in our schools over the past three decades but more opportunities for improvement exist. Again, we in now way intend anything in this blog to reflect specifically on today’s tragic event. The information we have at this point on the incident has not been confirmed which would make any such critiques unreliable at this point.

Building Experience to Improve
Crisis Decision Making

Source: Photo by Rachel Wilson, Safe Havens International Video©2012.

How campus employees will perform under extreme stress and time pressure in various physical settings and situations will depend on a variety of factors, including the depth and breadth of simulations requiring them to make decisions on an individual basis.

In his extensive research of fire commanders, emergency medical personnel, military personnel, and others who must routinely make life and death decisions, Gary Klein1 documented that people need a solid and broad base of experience to prepare them to make correct decisions on a regular basis. Klein’s research implies that the broader the base of experience people have, the higher the chance of making appropriate decisions under stress they can have. His research, as well as the work of others in the field, demonstrates that the over-emphasis on one category of event approach utilized by many organizations in the development of their emergency preparedness measures is fatally flawed because it does not match the way human beings make decisions under crisis situations.

There is often a dangerous over-emphasis on what the response should be if there is an active shooter situation on a campus. Emergency preparedness plan content, training sessions, as well as drills and exercises often focus more on this one type of event than other equally dangerous types of campus crisis situations that occur with at least as much, if not greater, frequency, such as tornados and fires. An over-emphasis on one type of event can deny campus employees the opportunity to improve their ability to think and act when lives are at stake in different situations. The frequently out of balance emphasis on active shooter situations is perhaps the most prevalent example of just how easy it can be to work tirelessly on emergency plans while inadvertently creating deadly gaps in emergency preparedness for the organization. There have been several instances of emergency plan failure in crisis situations involving campus shootings, even when they have been the type of event mostly emphasized in preparedness measures.

To prepare staff and students to be more likely to make correct life and death decisions, a greater emphasis on the all-hazards approach is needed. Focusing more than 10 to 15% of our energies on one type of scenario, such as acts of violence, will not help employees fully develop their base of experience for crisis situations as much as a more balanced approach does. Understanding how important a wide base of experience in life and death decision making can significantly influence how campus employees are trained and empowered. This aspect of emergency preparedness should also significantly impact the types and frequency of drills and exercises. Focusing too much on gunman on campus can result in needless losses, even if that is the type of event we are someday faced with.

Reverse Evacuation – A Life or Death Protocol

When polling audiences during keynotes, I find that most schools do not conduct reverse evacuation drills and in fact that many do not even have a written protocol for this critical life saving concept. The reverse evacuation protocol is not only critical, it is perhaps even more important than the lockdown protocol. This is because any school that does not have a reverse evacuation protocol and the ability to execute it effectively, may be unable to implement a lockdown, shelter in place for hazardous materials or severe weather sheltering protocol when and if students and staff are outside of the school.

This protocol became popular after the state of Kentucky put out a school crisis planning guide which included a reverse evacuation protocol many years ago. The Federal Emergency Management Agency also includes a reverse evacuation protocol in one of their planning documents. Simply put, a reverse evacuation protocol is used to rapidly and safely move students and staff inside a facility when it would be dangerous to remain outside. As school officials need a mechanism to rapidly move people back into a building in the event of a tornado, armed aggressor, aggressive animal or hazardous materials event near the school, this is one of the most important tools to prevent mass casualty losses from such events.

If your school crisis plans and drill processes do not include reverse evacuation, now might be a good time to implement this life saving concept.

Our goal for this blog

As a global non – profit pre-K – 20 school safety center, our objective is to help to make students and those who dedicate their lives to educating them safer wherever in the world they happen to have been born. The dedicated Safe Havens team has launched a campaign to provide the largest source of free and low – cost school safety information, tools and resources in the world. This blog is but one step in this major multi-year undertaking.

In this blog, we will attempt to provide up to date, practical and easy to apply information to help create and maintain safe, effective learning environments where dignity, honor and respect are prevalent. We will draw on our experiences working with thousands of schools from South Dakota to South Africa and from Virginia to Vietnam to try to provide unique perspectives to safety, security, climate, culture and emergency preparedness challenges and opportunities.

Please feel free to contact us for additional information on school safety or to sign up for our free e-newsletter at www.safehavensinternational.org or at 478-994-1417. You may also want to check out the video podcasts on our web site as well.

We thank you for your interest in and most of all for your commitment to safer schools.