Back To School: When Parents Ask The Right Questions, Schools Get Safer
Today’s parent’s are no longer satisfied with being told that “everything is being done.” Today’s parent’s want to know precisely what that “something” is.
If you are among those parents making a meaningful difference — and you want to learn more about what your school is doing to keep your child safe — the following are the top five school safety questions every parent should ask:
1. When was the last safety and security assessment conducted? Who conducted it? What were the findings? What enhancements were recommended? What actions were taken? When is the next assessment scheduled?
Safety requirements are typically mandated at the state level, but individual school boards still have a lot of discretion in how those state policy’s get implemented at the local level. Virginia, for example, requires their schools to have a security audit conducted every year, but not all states adhere to these same standards, and not all states place the same emphasis on the safety of the students. Some schools choose to have their security assessments focus on other security-driven concerns like computer theft and vandalism rather than student safety.
2. Who is the administrator responsible for handling the school’s threat assessment and management program?
The goal of a threat assessment and management program is to keep schools safe and help would be offenders overcome their anger, hopelessness, and despair. A threat assessment program provides students with the help they need while managing an otherwise hostile threat toward peaceful resolve.
Who is responsible for managing threats at your child’s school? What training are teachers given? What is the methodology for how are those threats are reported, assessed, and managed?
3. What is the school’s access control policy for visitors and student re-admittance once classes are in session? How is this policy enforced?
In most cases, schools have a very well-written and in-depth policy for being allowed into the school once classes are in session. Regrettably, the practical application of that policy leaves much to be desired. In most instances, findings show that those who are responsible for granting access are usually inundated with a dozen other priority tasking — the least of which is confirming that the person at the door is who they claim to be. This reduces an otherwise effective access control policy to nothing more than a Pavlovian response of: Buzzer Pressed = Access Granted.
4. What are the determining factors for when to evacuate and when to shelter-in-place? Who is it that makes that decision?
The difference between when to evacuate and when to shelter in place is pretty cut and dry. As general rule, if the threat is external to the school (high winds, falling trees, severe storms) you stay inside and shelter-in-place where it is safe. Conversely, if the threat is internal to the school, (bomb scare, fire, active shooter) you would evacuate in order to put as much time and distance from the threat as possible.
When threatened with a physical threat like an active shooter or a bomb, running away and putting as much time and distance between you and the threat is ALWAYS the best course of action.
“Hiding” should only be a last-resort option. You wouldn’t hide from a fire in hope it wouldn’t find you — you would run. Life and death is not a game of hide and seek.
Life and death is not a game of hide and seek.
The issue that most often arises is that schools often prioritize accountability over survivability. As one school administrator explained, “liability wise, it’s better for us to have an injured student we can account for, than a student who’s perfectly safe, but “missing.”
5. What nearby safe-havens are in close proximity (running distance) to the school where your child could go in the event of an emergency evacuation?
Safe-Havens are a place where you know you can go to be safe and seek help.
There have been some concerns raised with just how safe evacuation plans really are. Especially those which are rehearsed ad nauseam and shared on social media. When you evacuate a building because it is unsafe, you want to move to a place that ensures some level of security…not a parking lot or street corner where you just wait to be counted. After all, the whole point of evacuation is to be safe.
Children deserve a safe and welcoming learning environment. Administrators seeking to improve student safety and school security need to heed a simple, yet important fact: Over time, safety, unlike algebra, has evolved into a completely different subject matter from what many administrators once learned. Partisan politics need not get in the way of parents asking the right questions to ensure that their children get the protection they deserve.
