School Planning and Management, 2015
“In 2013, Wyoming legislators asked us to conduct a thorough physical security assessment to ensure that we maintain a world-class condition relative to school security,” begins William T. Panos, director of Cheyenne-based Wyoming School Facilities Department (WSFD), which is dedicated to finance, design and construction. “We have 48 school districts, 1,300 facilities and 25 million square feet, so it was no small undertaking.
School Planning and Management, 2015
What can schools with little or no money available do to improve their security and safety programs? In assembling “Twenty Simple Strategies to Safer and More Effective Schools” for the Maine Department of Education, Michael Dorn and his colleagues at the Macon, Ga.-based nonprofit Safe Havens International went a long way toward writing the book on the topic.
But in a recent interview with SP&M, he also stopped just short of recommending that, before doing anything, everyone involved take a deep, cleansing breath.
Reaction to active shooter events in the news has become “so emotional and so visceral,” says Dorn, “that I would say children are dying each year due to preventable injuries” because people are fixated on the shooter threat.
School Planning and Management, 2015
A well-managed facilities program is much more than just keeping sites in operational order and up to par with compliance tasks like drills and inspections. Think of something as important and multi-faceted as hazard communications. To be done right, a district’s HazCom program has to include: the written plan, which must be reviewed annually; the identification of all chemicals and potential hazards hidden in every cabinet and corner of every building; having access to corresponding and current Safety Data Sheets (SDSs); completion of various inspections; ensuring chemical containers are properly labeled; providing employee awareness and training; maintaining supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE) for staff; and effective communication to make sure staff are aware of the proper use, dangers and impacts of chemicals and hazards.
By Linda Lemasters
Protecting our nation’s children in a time of global unrest is of utmost importance to parents, educators, and the community. The thought of the physical safety of children immediately came to my mind a few evenings ago when the news from Paris came into our living rooms. Though schools were not involved, it reminded me that schools at all levels should be vigilant and remain ready with comprehensive emergency operations and crisis management plans. We hope we never need to initiate such operations and plans; however, we cannot permit ourselves to become complacent. Reviewing steps to take should a threat come to light, resolving issues of information sharing, meeting with crisis management teams, considering when to involve law enforcement, and holding a review with all responders are actions that will further emergency preparedness and assist in creating safe school climates.
First and foremost, this planning is not only for K-12, but is also paramount for pre-schools through higher education. Although we would like to think that crises would not happen to us, none of our schools—no matter what grade level—are immune.
Second, let’s review whether or not the plans are up-to-date and current. One of the best ways to do that is to review the guides and resources provided by the various government websites (http://www.dhs.gov/school-safety). USDoE, FEMA, REMS, and Homeland Security are some of the excellent resources. Another is our Education Facilities Clearinghouse (http://www.efc.gwu.edu//). Not only does the Clearinghouse provide a library of useful resources, it can provide technical assistance by experts to your school, district, or state.
Third, administrators should make sure that the person(s) responsible for crisis management and school security has (have) all of the plans and information at the ready. Are procedures in place? Does everyone have the materials and resources they need? One way to assess that is to have a tabletop exercise concerning realistic threats. These exercises assist in clarifying roles and responsibilities, identifying needs and solutions, developing agency relationships, assessing resources and capabilities, and evaluating the workability of your plan. Some states require tabletop exercises; however, they are worthwhile for everyone.
Reflection and debriefing of the exercise is an integral part of the tabletop. An evaluation by each participant should be required. After creating a comprehensive report, it is time for revisions to the emergency operations plan to address any problems that were exposed during the exercise. FEMA offers several examples of tabletops, which may be useful (http://www.fema.gov/emergency-planning-exercises).
The fourth step is the training and re-training of all staff and employees. This is not simply the teachers in facilities—it is all employees. Teachers, assistants, board members, clerical, custodial, food service, transportation, IT, and any other employees need to be included. Processes should be reviewed; any questions must be answered.
Finally, students need to be involved. This is a sensitive issue, as we do not want to create fear in our students; rather, we need to ensure that, by including students in the planning, we will assist in allaying their fears. When conducting this step, it is important to remember that children and students of different ages respond differently—often by actions rather than words. Careful observation is necessary.
Providing adequate explanations of safety and crisis plans; watching for and responding to signs of stress, fear, or anxiety; reminding students that trustworthy people are in charge; and, reviewing processes and procedures to use in the event of an emergency are only a few of the ways we can assist in providing a feeling of safety and security for students. The keys to all of this are training, readiness, and predictability. Students of all ages need to know that there is consistency in plans and the reactions of people in charge will be those that put their safety first.
Have I provided all of the information and steps you should use to review your safety and crisis management plans? Absolutely not! What I hope you get from this blog, however, is to keep emergency planning in the foremost thoughts of your security employees. Only when our students of all ages feel safe will they achieve their best.
Linda Lemasters, Director, Education Facilities Clearinghouse
Linda is an associate professor in the Graduate School of Education and Human Development of the George Washington University, where she advises students, directs student research, and directs a project at Taibah University in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Her areas of expertise and research include educational planning, facilities management, and women CEOs. She actively conducts research concerning the effects of the facility on the student and teacher, publishes within her field, and has written or edited numerous books including School Maintenance & Renovation: Administrator Policies, Practices, and Economics and book chapters including a recent chapter, Places Where Children Play, published July, 2014 in Marketing the Green School: Form, Function, and the Future.
Neighborhood perceived/built environment and physical activity (PA) associations have been examined for adolescents around homes, but not surrounding schools. To examine if positive perceptions/built environment in neighborhoods surrounding schools predict PA among low-income, urban adolescent girls.
The Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse and Violence Prevention Funded by the U.S. Department of Education
Institutions of higher education (IHEs) are often regarded as sanctuaries, protected environments where young people explore great ideas in a collegial atmosphere and make lifelong friendships. Consequently, incidents of violence on campus are particularly shocking for the extended campus community, evoking questions about whether there is any safe haven. An abundance of evidence indicates that in fact campuses are not immune from such incidents. There are many types of campus violence—including rape, assault, fighting, hazing, dating violence, sexual harassment, hate and bias-related violence, stalking, rioting, disorderly conduct, property crime, and even self-harm and suicide. While grappling with these complex problems is challenging, lessons learned from community-based prevention research point to a set of best practices to guide the development, implementation, and evaluation of interventions to improve campus health and safety.
Shideh Parto & Neda Ziabakhsh, 2015
Nowadays, on the one hand with rising crime statistics, especially in the urban environments and awareness of crime prevention before the outbreak on the other hand, is expected to experts of environmental design and architecture have special attention to approaches that focused on reducing and deterring crimes through the interdisciplinary and communicative nature among various sciences which are involved in the town and its management. Accordingly, crimes prevention approaches throughout environmental designing have been considered by planners and designers of the field of architecture and urban planning. This paper is pointed the main and base role of designers and architectures in reducing and deterring urban crimes in CPTED approach after noted that introduction of theoretical motivation and necessity in the field of urban public safety, and is briefly mentioned the concepts, principals, paradigms, and strategies of this approach. Methodology of present research is analytical and attributive which will focus on content explanation and efficiency mechanism of this approach in our current urban environments. Finally, results indicate that can be emphasized on this point which is reduced the rate of urban crime occurrence through environmental design and architecture. This point will be discussed in terms of strategic and operational approaches.
Massachusetts Department of Higher Education, 2008
Pervasive media images of mass shootings at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University have raised the specter of serious violence on college campuses. But by any measure, the risk of serious violence on campus is remarkably low, particularly in its most extreme form. Although the chances of serious violence may be remote, the potential consequences can be devastating and long-lasting. Colleges must respond proactively to the risk, as parents rightly expect a special level of care for their sons and daughters while they are away at school. Thus, it is prudent and imperative that colleges take reasonable steps to ensure the safety of students as well as faculty and other employees.
This Emergency Management Resource Guide template is designed to assist schools and districts in the creation and use of custom-made Emergency Response Plans. This template addresses the four phases of emergency management and is organized around these four distinct planning venues, they are:
This planning protocol allows the school district and individual schools to customize their plans to address the unique needs of their specific location.
This joint statement provides a framework supported by educators for improving school safety and increasing access to mental health supports for children and youth. Efforts to improve school climate, safety, and learning are not separate endeavors. They must be designed, funded, and implemented as a comprehensive school-wide approach that facilitates interdisciplinary collaboration and builds on a multitiered system of supports. We caution against seemingly quick and potentially harmful solutions, such as arming school personnel, and urge policy leaders to support the following guidance to enact policies that will equip America’s schools to educate and safeguard our children over the long term.
