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• 1 Laura Collins // Mar 27, 2008 at 3:39 am

  SCHOOL SAFETY PLANNING WITHOUT ASSESSMENT: GUESSING IS NOT PLANNING

  You go to the doctor because you feel sick. When the doctor enters the examination room the doctor tells you that he is giving you a prescription for to medicines. Confused you ask, “But you haven’t examined me yet to diagnose my problem?” The doctor replies, “Don’t worry I have a pretty good idea what is wrong with you so I’ll just wing it”.

  How fast would you run out of there? This is how most school district design school safety plans. They use a little bit of internet information, a little bit of other districts information and a lot of guess work. This is not professional or effective planning.

  Without a compete assessment an effective plan cannot be designed. Most districts have had safety assessments conducted by local people or companies. The problem is that these assessments are superficial and general ineffective for planning purposes or problems solving.
  Most of the security assessments that have been performed in U.S. schools have focused either on security hardware [cameras, locks, etc.] or exterior crime prevention. Since school safety is primarily about the management of a school environment and the people in it, an accurate assessment of safety must include analysis of the management systems in place on a daily basis that affect daily security issues.
  The following is a list of what a proper school security audit should include:

  • Each audit / assessment must be custom designed to the school facility structure and personality. For example California style [one floor, flat or shallow roof] buildings present different security problems than a school facility that have multiple floors. Socio-economic aspects of the community and the surrounding area also set the personality of a school.
  • A complete audit must also include interviews with key community people regarding juvenile crime and social problems related to children.
  • The audit must seek out key personnel within each school for extensive interviews. These key personnel provide much of the relevant usable information for the audit.
  • An audit of sub social groups must also be conducted.
  • An audit of management structure related to security is also vital in a proper audit.
  • An audit of the relationship and communication between staff and students must be properly conducted.
  • Student movement and classroom management must be audited.
  • An audit of disciplinary issues must be conducted.
  • Finally, the audit must provide specific issues with specific solutions must be designed for each school facility.

  http://www.SERAPH.net

• 2 Laura Collins // Mar 27, 2008 at 10:27 am

  EXPERT GROUP DISCOVERS 5 REASONS WHY COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES ARE NOT SAFE

  The SERAPH Research Team, consisting of education and law enforcement experts, has discovered five reasons for unsafe college campuses.

  The SERAPH Research Team provides a bi-yearly school-safety report for Congress and in 2006 prepared an assessment of the “The Virginia Tech Review Panel Report”.

  In its analysis of security concerns at colleges and universities across the country, SERAPH has determined:

  1. Since the Columbine massacre in 1999, police departments across the United States have been training in “active shooter” response. This has been a well-established practice for use in public [K-12] schools.

  However, our survey of college and university security directors and police chiefs shows that few have had this training. Two reasons were given: Administrators often do not want to pay for the training or in some cases bar campus security/police from participating in training to avoid what they perceived to be a “militaristic campus atmosphere”.

  2. College administrators have no training in security or police operations and as a result micromanage security operations on their campuses. This is problematic because of the obvious delay it causes in response time. In addition, when a college or university has a police department, administrative micromanagement can violate state law regarding obstruction of justice.

  3. A proper security audit is vitally important to campus security. However, our survey of security directors / police chiefs indicates that most college administrators will not allow these assessments to be done out of fear of liability exposure and the chance the audit would require changes in management systems.

  4. Threat assessment as a science has existed in the United States since the early 1940s. Predication and prevention of violence is a critical aspect of campus security and one that, in SERAPH’s experience, seriously is lacking on higher-education campuses. All Resident Assistants, security / police and department administrators should be trained to identify violent behavior in students, staff and visitors.

  A lack of systematic monitoring of people on campus contributes to crime.

  5. An emergency plan is only as good as the data in it and the ability of key personnel to use it effectively.

  Training is important for the effective management of an emergency by key personnel. You cannot ask untrained people to do what trained people do.

  SERAPH Research Team: http://www.seraph.net/about_seraph.html

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