LM March 2018

they plan an attack” or perhaps “if we talk about it too much, will that give them ideas”. At this point, keeping our practices a secret is not working. We need to take a page from the more than 500 pages of the National Fire Protection Code that expressly denotes all of the fire safety features we have instituted over time because we have learned from our mistakes. So if we are truly going to learn from mistakes, we need all of the efforts of our school and community to come together to identify how we move forward together or we will continue to languish in “what ifs” as a top-down committee of one. Conduct a threat assessment of the learning environment in a way that will motivate people, implement smart policies, and evaluate movement to provide for the mitigation of those threats. The U.S. Secret Service provided a framework for this several years ago when they suggested we “develop the capacity to pick up on and evaluate available or knowable information that might indicate that there is a risk of school violence and employ the results of these risk evaluations in developing strategies to prevent potential school violence from occurring”. But where do we start? The first amendment’s Free Speech Clause requires courts and school districts to weigh and balance two potentially contradicting ideas: 1. the need for a safe, orderly school environment conducive to learning and 2. the guaranteed American entitlement to speak or engage in expressive activity. It is not a secret that social media is the one thing that is different in the 21st century versus the days where we never really heard of school shootings. Social media IS the factor that must be a variable when considering your education climate. The threats that schools are receiving today are largely terroristic threats through some social platform and they are causing clear anxiety with parents, teachers and students across the nation. However, the good news is that at least they are talking about it and if we know about it—we can address it. The U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Department of Education studied 37 separate school attackers; 98% had suffered a recent loss or failure, 93% planned their attacks in advance, and 81% of shooters had explicitly revealed their intentions. Implement a way for people to provide information and maybe you can prevent tragedy. To start a basic assessment today, download CPTED guidelines (Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design) and identify how many of those you do or do not 2

have and contact your local law enforcement now to discuss how you are going to handle the next social media threat, because it is no longer a matter of if but when. Lastly, take a close look at your response plans. No, don’t simply put together another committee of administrators and teachers and maybe even law enforcement officers to analyze the plan on paper, we mean to put the plan in action and see if it works. We all have seen and most likely used the sample plans sent to us from the Illinois State Board of Education or some other entity long ago. That’s certainly a start. But what exactly are you training your staff to respond to and when? Who can institute a response? Teachers? The Principal? The Secretary? How about the janitor? Do they know it is their responsibility and do you provide them the necessary tools to effectively and efficiently institute a response or are we still in control mode? Do you hold scenario trainings at the most inconvenient times of the school day? Do your students know what to do if there are no teachers around to tell them what to do? In other words, having a plan on paper is not really a plan—it is a policy. Policy in action is a plan. As we continue down the road of “hardening our target” remember the words of Bruce Schneider—author of several books on general security topics, computer security and cryptography. “Despite fearful rhetoric to the contrary, terrorism is not a transcendent threat. A terrorist attack cannot possibly destroy our country’s way of life; it’s only our reaction to that attack that can do that kind of damage.” Schools are still one of the safest places a child can be. Our willingness to improve upon that is the key. 3

Review these sources regarding school safety: AASA Position on School Safety https://www.aasa.org/uploadedFiles/Resources/ AASAPositionSchoolSafety.pdf ABCs of School Safety from AASA

http://www.aasa.org/content.aspx?id=7354 IASA School Safety Guidance Memorandum: http://conta.cc/2EVSyCH School Safety Plans in Spotlight-School Safety Procedures-- Article from IASB Blog http://blog.iasb.com/2018/02/school-safety-plans-in-spotlight.html

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