What can I do to make sure my school is as safe as possible?

The short answer is list the daily risks (anything that could negatively interrupt the learning environment) you face. Develop a plan to mitigate each risk. Measure regularly to make sure your plan is effective. We have been giving that information to schools, organizations, and businesses since 2007. What gets missed the most/makes schools not as safe as possible, is analyzing the data to make sure their protocols/procedures are effective.

Example: You have three bullying incidents in September, five in October, and seven in November. You know you have a problem, but is it time to throw out the bullying prevention protocols/procedures you spent time and money developing/teaching?

In order to determine whether a current protocol/procedure is effective we use these four questions in which to measure effectiveness:

1. Does everyone that needs to know the current policy and procedure(s) (electronic survey’s help you measure) know how to use/implement the current policy and procedure?

2. Is there a current goal associated with the protocol(s)? Example 1: we want to see bullying incidents at 2 or less per month. Example 2: We should be able to lock down our campus in 30 seconds

3. Is some sort of training done on the protocol/procedure at least 2x per year?

4. Are all available tools used to help us make sure we are reaching our protocol/procedure goal? (Bullying example: video surveillance, student survey’s, incident reporting software, supervision assessment, etc…)

Listing your risks and protocols/procedures out, and assigning a point value for each of the four questions listed above will provide you a numerical score/benchmark score to help you determine not only your level of safety, but what areas you need to target to improve/direct resources.

This is a condensed version on how to prove your school is as safe as possible. If you would like to see examples of risk mitigation scoring sheets, proven effective and best practice protocols please visit our research document website at www.school-security-consulting.com or call us at 888.287.6157