By Bret Rachlin on
8/28/2008 2:41 PM
With schools across the country either already back in session or about to start, here’s a school safety checklist to help determine if schools are meeting or exceeding good safety guidelines (Source: Education Development Center, 8/2008, School Safety Checklist). Most importantly, the article highlights that “school safety is everyone’s business.”
Overall, when reviewing this list it’s interesting to think about how technology supports many of the safety practices. For example, item number four asks if your school is “addressing ways to prevent as well as respond to crises.” To answer this question, does the school have an emergency notification system to communicate to students, parents, and staff in the event of an emergency? Does the school have network video surveillance, so local law enforcement can monitor an incident as it occurs to ...
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By Bret Rachlin on
8/21/2008 4:21 PM
A recent fight at Butler High School in Augusta, GA, left one student beat up. The male victim claims that he was rushed by a group of boys so quickly that he doesn’t know what happened (Source: WJBF-TV, 8/20/2008, Parents Say Richmond County School Video Surveillance Is Faulty). The student’s grandmother asked the school to provide video of the fight, but “no footage could be produced.” While she theorizes that the cameras were actually ‘dummies’, the school district superintendant countered that the schools “have very few that are not live cameras. If they malfunction, it is incumbent upon the school to report it, turn in a work order, and get it serviced.”
According to Butler High School representatives, all of the cameras were off and they submitted a work order to fix the cameras on August 14th.
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By Bret Rachlin on
8/14/2008 10:58 AM
Recently UCLA conducted a mock campus shooting (Source: Daily Bruin, 8/11/2008, UCLA simulates campus shooting) as part of a “training exercise that included more than 300 members of the Los Angeles Police Department and fire department, university police, FBI and members of the city’s SWAT team. More than 100 students volunteered playing the role of injured students.”
This was a good example of multiple first responder agencies collaborating on a single university campus to learn how they would work togethe ...
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By Bret Rachlin on
8/6/2008 9:51 AM
After three shootings took place in Memphis school classrooms last year, the city’s schools will open August 11 with a heightened focus on school security (Source: The Commercial Appeal, 7/25/2008, Memphis city schools impose stringent security). In addition to requiring middle and high school students to pass through metal detectors every morning (at least for a few months), “new high-tech ID badges will allow administrators to scan a student’s badge to find out which class he or she belongs in and to determine the ...
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By Bret Rachlin on
7/31/2008 8:56 AM
The 2nd National Student Safety and Security Conference will take place at the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, from November 20th to November 21st. According to the July 23rd article in SecurityinfoWatch.com, the conference will provide attendees "the opportunity to take part in hands-on activities and also listen to speakers share their insights and knowledge about successful approaches to securing our nation's schools."
Based on the conference agenda, considerable r ...
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By Bret Rachlin on
7/25/2008 3:56 PM
The Leader Talk Blog is a group blog written by school leaders for school leaders that provides insights about how to improve primary and secondary education. The recent post Uncovering the Path (Source: LeaderTalk.org, 7/13/2008) by Barbara Barreda, a Catholic school principal in Los Angeles, highlights how she and other school leaders are constantly transforming and changing as they learn from each other about how to provide a better education for their students.
An example of transformation is the new technology tools that are available for schools to enhance the learning process. This year Ms. Ba ...
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By Bret Rachlin on
7/18/2008 10:39 AM
Some schools in Nashua, New Hampshire, lack the proper security measures to keep students safe (Source: Nashua Telegraph, 7/18/2008, Firm says schools lack measures to protect kids) according to the security-consulting firm the district hired to conduct the security assessment. The firm acknowledged that not only did the schools lack proper security measures, misuse equipment and have minimal plans and procedures for emergencies, but they also had not instilled a “culture of security” throughout the district.
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By Bret Rachlin on
7/9/2008 4:28 PM
How do schools determine the appropriate amount of discipline when their students misbehave? A Westchester, New York, school district recently grappled with this issue (Source: New York Times, July 6, 2008, In Schools, How Tight Must Discipline Be?), as it dealt with a student who committed a series of offenses who also happened to be the son of one of its school board members.
The 14 year old student was disciplined for several acts of bullying and repeatedly threatening violence, but many parents thought school officials were too tolerant of his behavior, especially because he was the son of a school board member. Ultimately, after school officials met with the student's mother, he was home schooled for the remaining two weeks of the year.&a ...
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By Bret Rachlin on
7/3/2008 11:19 AM
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By Bret Rachlin on
6/27/2008 3:06 PM
From network video surveillance to access control systems to mass communication systems, schools have many different solutions they can purchase to enhance their safety and security initiatives. Of course, funding those initiatives can be challenging as a great deal of school budgets continue to be cut. With that in mind Campus Safety Magazine’s “12 Common Mistakes Campuses Make When Applying for Grants” (Source: Campus Safety Magazine, 6/26/2008) is especially relevant now.
Some of the mistakes schools make when applying for grants include using boilerplate templates, which ...
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