By Bret Rachlin on 3/12/2010 9:27 AM

Since safety and security drills continue to spark news stories concerning both K-12 and higher education schools, it would be interesting to understand what happens when a drill takes place. Recently, Navajo Preparatory School (NPS), a college prep high school in New Mexico, conducted a safety drill (Source: THE Journal, March 8, 2010, Safety Drill! Critical Response in Action). Here’s what occurred.

- Disturbing note found: A student found a disturbing note with a picture of a gun and a message saying, “There is no tomorrow.” The student gave the note to a teacher who passed it along to the principal, which kicked the Critical Incident Response Team (CIRT) into action.
- Shelter-in-place: CIRT used the intercom system to “put the campus into shelter-in-place – whereby everybody stays put but activities otherwise g ... Read More »

By Bret Rachlin on 3/5/2010 5:16 PM

Higher education institutions have done a good job of developing emergency plans to prepare effectively for security and safety incidents. This summer new amendments to the Jeanne Clery Act, “a federal law requiring colleges to release campus crime statistics and security policies to their current and prospective students and employees,” should help those colleges be prepared even better for emergencies (Source: Security Directory News, February 9, 2010, Changes to Clery Act impact emergency plans, require drills).

The Clery Act’s new amendments focus on three main changes.

1. Emergency notification – schools must include the procedures to notify the campus community during an emergency immediately in their official emergency plans. Schools must also have a plan summary disclosed in their annual security reports.
Read More »

By Bret Rachlin on 2/25/2010 4:47 PM

Last December the New Jersey State Senate passed a bill requiring schools to conduct security drills. Conversely, earlier this month Colorado lawmakers voted down a bill that supported mandatory safety school drills (Source: 9News.com Denver, February 12, 2010, Lawmakers toss out bill requiring school safety drills). While normally this news would be shocking, especially given Colorado’s tragic history regarding the 1999 Columbine shootings, the bill failed mainly because of expert testimony explaining that most school districts already have safety drills in place.

Overall, schools shouldn’t need legislation to require regularly scheduled security drills, as it simply is common sense to hold drills. ... Read More »

By Bret Rachlin on 2/19/2010 12:30 PM

Does your school district have difficulty maintaining its security equipment? Are broken cameras not fixed for months? How fast do you repair broken panic alarms (Source: KTRK-TV Houston, February 16, 2010, What good is security equipment that doesn’t work?)?

Recently, the local ABC-affiliate in Houston, Texas, reported that several Houston Independent School District (HISD) schools had inoperable security systems. Certainly, any large (or small) district would expect to find broken security equipment from time to time, but it’s the amount of time that these systems remained broken that is newsworthy. For example, one high school had broken security cameras “for up to 147 days.” Another school reported that panic alarms did not work in several classrooms for many months. Ultimately, the HISD communications representative explained that the dis ... Read More »

By Bret Rachlin on 2/12/2010 9:58 AM

Earlier this month a borough in Greencastle, PA, rejected a state grant to fund a school resource officer (SRO) position. The main reason for the rejection, however, was that the local school board did not like the idea of adding an SRO (Source: The Herald-Mail, February 1, 2010, Borough says no to school safety officer). Citing “peer-reviewed articles on the efficacy of resource officers,” the research showed that SROs did not “make a significant difference in the amount of criminal activity in America’s schools.”

Unfortunately, the choice to reject the additional SRO position is not what’s most disappointing about this story. What’s upsetting is that the school community is left not knowing the state of its school district’s security. The debate left the community polarized with many parents upset that there would be no new SRO. Add ... Read More »

By Bret Rachlin on 2/5/2010 5:22 PM

Two weeks ago this blog highlighted the challenges schools have when reporting safety and security incidents. While that article dealt with a Maryland school district, it’s apparent that Pennsylvania schools grapple with the same issue (Source: readingeagle.com, February 1, 2010, School safety reports imperfect, Berks educators agree).

This article explains how a conservative school district may appear to have more incidents per student because it reports more incidents, but that it doesn’t mean that it’s more unsafe. In fact, it may be safer due to its focus on identifying issues and resolving them. People reviewing the reports should not jump to conclusions. Frank Vecchio, Reading’s acting superintendent, said it best, “You have to be careful with the data.”

Over ... Read More »

By Bret Rachlin on 1/29/2010 1:35 PM

For many schools across the country, drugs are a big problem. However, often illegal drugs are less prevalent than the improper use of prescription drugs. In light of this, the Benton Police Department in Arkansas plans to conduct Operation Medicine Cabinet on Saturday, February 6th. The program encourages parents to dispose of old medicine properly and rewards parents with gift cards that drop off medicine at the police department and other locations next Saturday (Source: TodaysTHV.com, January 20, 2010, Operation Medicine Cabinet to combat prescription drug abuse in Arkansas).

According to the article, many teenagers in this Arkansas community have abused prescription drugs that come from their parents’ medicine cabinets, and some have even sold the drugs in school to their classmates. Obviously, this community recognizes that it has a pre ... Read More »

By Bret Rachlin on 1/22/2010 3:30 PM

Is the reporting of school safety and security incidents an art or a science (Source: WTOP.com, January 15, 2010, Montgomery County grapples with school safety report)? If it’s a science, then schools simply would note their security/safety incidents and let the report speak for itself. If there were 20 fights during the school year, then that’s how many would be in the report. If it’s an art, however, then of those same 20 fights, it’s possible only 10 would appear in the report.

Montgomery County, Maryland, is not the only district dealing with this issue, but it is the district covered in the highlighted article. With several groups weighing in on the latest School Safety and Security at a Glance report, including county officials, school security representatives, and Maryland State’s Attorney’s Office, it’s no wonder that there’s disagreement about what incidents should ... Read More »

By Bret Rachlin on 1/15/2010 3:42 PM

Thieves stole nine flat-screen televisions, television production equipment and an undisclosed amount of money from Johnson Middle School in Melbourne, Florida, on New Year’s Eve (Source: Florida Today, January 11, 2010, School slowly returns to normal). Additionally, they vandalized the school, breaking windows to access classrooms and destroying musical instruments such as cellos. Overall, the break-in “resulted in more than $30,000 in damaged and stolen school property.”

There are two main issues concerning this crime that warrant attention. First, the school did not have video surveillance. While video surveillance may not have deterred the perpetrators and prevented the incident, it likely would assist police in catching the thieves. Since most of the school’s students understandably were upset and concerned becaus ... Read More »

By Bret Rachlin on 1/8/2010 4:58 PM

Schools in Lynn, Massachusetts, plan to upgrade their security programs with access control systems this year (Source: The Daily Item, December 27, 2009, Security upgrade coming for Lynn schools). Eighteen schools will benefit from the upgrade, which costs $75,000. With the new system, the school will issue access control cards to employees, allowing administrators to keep track of people entering and leaving buildings.

While the article simply highlights the basics of the new security upgrade and explains that the mayor-elect wants to bring back school resource officers, it’s the comments section that is most interesting. Obviously, many people who comment often hide behind obscure usernames, and it’s usually those most passionate that take the time to comment. Unfortunately, the majority of the 10 comments are negative about the security upgrade. Some blame pa ... Read More »