Planning for Safer Schools

There are two types of school administrators: those who have faced a crisis and those who are about to face one. In an ideal world, one would like to prevent all school crime and ensure the safety of each staff member and student. The reality is that there are so many things outside the control of the school administrator that such a task is virtually impossible. To attempt to predict the potentially disruptive behavior of students, a staff member, or the intruder who comes onto your campus is unrealistic.

However, being armed with the knowledge that this could happen to you, the astute administrator can do several things to prepare for a crisis, avoid a crisis, and preclude successive crises.

The administrator's challenge

One out of twelve youngsters who stay away from school do so because of fear--truly a national tragedy. Clearly, no greater challenge exists today than creating safe schools. Making our schools tranquil and safe places of learning requires a major strategic commitment. It involves placing school safety at the top of the educational agenda. Without safe schools, teachers cannot teach and students cannot learn.

Implementing a safe school plan is an essential part of this process. School administrators have a host of opportunities and strategies that can be implemented to make a difference. The difficulty is in effectively analyzing the problem and then deciding what can be done about it.

Safe school planning is all about the "art of the possible." It is not limited by a set of guidelines. Each community has the opportunity to shape the type of school climate it wishes to create.

Safe school strategies

There are a wide range of strategies administrators can use to make their campus safer, and many of them cost little or no money. For instance, making a campus welcoming while carefully controlling campus access and screening visitors are strategies that involve developing and implementing guidelines, but don't involve extra spending. Even minor changes in the environmental design of a campus, such as adding convex mirrors in stairwells and trimming shrubbery that interferes with natural surveillance, can greatly enhance campus security.

It takes a village

Of course, the role of the administrator is not to single-handedly solve a school's safety problems. A safe school plan requires cooperation, and an administrator's key role is that of leader and coordinator. The components and the players are limited only by the commitment of the local community. Crucial players include students, educators, parents, law enforcers, judges, recreation program directors, probation directors, and other youth-serving professionals. The key questions they must ask are "What is it we want to accomplish?" and "How do we want to make it happen?"

In a safe school, there is a spirit of acceptance for every child, and behavior expectations are clearly communicated, consistently enforced, and fairly applied.

Unlimited options and potential exist for safe school planning. It is about the art of the possible. It is about creativity. It requires only the ability to get started.

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