A Safe and Secure Environment for Teaching and Learning, Are You Ready For 2022-2023?
As far as school shootings go, the Uvalde school shooting is not an isolated event. As reported by Education Week, July 7,2022: “There have been 27 school shootings this year. There have been 119 school shootings since 2018, when Education Week began tracking such incidents. The highest number of shootings, 34, occurred last year. There were 10 shootings in 2020, and 24 each in 2019 and 2018.”
Echoing from Columbine, Sandy Hook, Parkland, and now Rob Elementary, is the thinking that it is not a matter of if a shooting will happen at your school, but when?
21st century Risks and Threats
Schools are not exempt from all that is happening in society today. Gun violence, political polarization, and global pandemics are some of the conditions generating fear, anxiety, and depression. All of these are adding to the expectations and responsibilities of principals, teachers, support staff, superintendents, boards of education, and community stakeholders to keep kids safe and well while at school. The landscape of public education is now different.
For school leaders, school boards, parents, and community stakeholders, school shootings are just a part of all that must be considered in creating a safe and secure environment for learning. Traditional risks and threats have evolved from “trips and falls” and physical plant security, to now include cybersecurity, mental and physical health, and wellbeing. Optimizing teaching and learning by providing positive working conditions for school staff and students now requires new thinking, procedures, and policies. Old thinking is no longer viable.
How did we get here?
My safe and secure school experiences began as an Iowa high school social studies teacher, with fire and tornado drills, practiced twice a year. Moving into administration, it then included school bus evacuation. Before the Columbine High School shootings, as a middle school principal in a high-needs school district, we recognized the benefit and secured grant funding for a school resource officer to be assigned to the building. At the time, this was unheard of. A uniformed, armed deputy sheriff in a school, to many educators, was considered as unnecessary. I received criticism for not having control in my school. After the Columbine shootings, the criticism stopped, and many asked how I was able to make it happen!
As a high school principal, and later as a superintendent, safe and secure school expectations grew. Updated planning through lessons learned from school shootings grew to include building evacuation to a secure site, parents’ reunification with their children, and how and what to communicate to parents and community stakeholders. As I look back now, it’s interesting to note that after-action long-term mental health care was not part of the operational planning.
When the school district I led as superintendent became one of the first in the nation to go “one to one,” that is to provide all students grades 6-12 a digital device, new dimensions of school safety and security were discovered. Cyber security needed to be added.
Preparing to be a school principal, and later as a superintendent, school safety and security was only briefly covered by college preparation classes. Specifically, as a superintendent, priority one was student academic achievement, then the dreaded “Bs” of buildings, budgets, boards, and buses. School safety was important, but instead of it being the first thing, it was but one of many.
I would venture to say my peer superintendents in Iowa, Tennessee, and those I connect with through social media nationally are all very much concerned with safe and secure schools. Like it was for me, it’s hard to stay abreast and keep the entire district, and all employees, diligent and engaged. It is important to note that those who choose to go into teaching, and those who go on to be become principals and superintendents, have a much different mindset and disposition than professionals in security and law enforcement. One is nurturing and trusting, the other observant and questioning. Both are needed to keep students and staff safe.
Preparing for the Unimaginable and Unpredictable.
As was illustrated in Uvalde, even with planning and preparation, a breakdown and human error can be tragic. The Education Risk Intelligence Center (ERIC) and the Center for Educational Leadership and Technology (CELT) understand this.
Beginning with the COVID lock down, I have been fortunate to work with these two organizations in developing processes and procedures to build capacity with school and community stakeholders to enhance school safety. ERIC’s focus on Risk Intelligence, and CELT’s work creating an Educator’s Holistic Perspective on School Safety and Security complement each other. Implementing them together will enhance the learning environment
Risk Intelligence
From the ERIC website, Risk Intelligence is described as “practices that go before, along with, and beyond risk management. Whenever there is a concern for safety and security, there is also the necessity of risk intelligence. Risk intelligence is an antidote for excessive fear and doubt. Organizational strategists apply risk intelligence when discussing integrative systems. It belongs in any conversation about improving readiness, reliability, resilience, agility, governance, compliance, strategy, value creation, well-being, and leadership.
“Risk intelligence is a school district’s shared knowledge about the effects of uncertainty, combined with the essential language, skills, and tools it chooses to help achieve better outcomes.”
This means that throughout the district, in every school, classroom, lunchroom, or on the bus, all staff think holistically about the effects of uncertainty, have a shared language abouts risks, can articulate them, and understand expectations and actions to mitigate them. This is the essence of a Risk Intelligence mind set.
CELT: Educator’s Holistic Perspective on School Safety and Security
CELT has been working for several years to define the landscape, stakeholders, conditions, and dispositions to address the threats and vulnerabilities to the learning environment. The result is the Educator’s Holistic Perspective on School Safety and Security.
CELT’s Comprehensive and Integrated School Safety process is a holistic approach that engages stakeholders and service providers to create a safe and secure learning environment. With school safety and security at the center, it builds out through the domains of Social and Emotional (red), Digital (light blue), and Physical (dark blue). Resources and stakeholders are identified in the red boxes and connected to the target creating a framework. Utilizing and leveraging technology as the connective tissue between the framework domains, school safety and security can be enhanced, monitored 24-7, and have the potential to be proactive instead of reactive.
Here come the students
The beginning of the 2022-23 school years is at hand and the question to be asked is, are you totally ready? I know firsthand what all goes into the start of a new school year, and the excitement, anxious energy, and last-minute adjustments that need to be made. Teachers have attended pre service workshops, worked in their classrooms, and had back-to-school night open houses. Principals have worked with custodial staff all summer long for this moment, hired staff, met with the superintendent and district office personnel, and are ready to go. Bring on the students!
The thing is, in all the preparations, has school safety and security been a focal point? Do all staff members recognize, understand, and think about the risks and dangers they will face with school in session? Have the physical plant and grounds been inspected? Do all the security cameras work? What is the process for controlling visitors' access into the building? Are student and staff information kept digitally? Is network infrastructure secure? How will student and staff dealing with stress generated outside the schoolhouse door be monitored and how will they be supported? Ready or not, the school year begins.
School safety and security is foundational to a healthy learning environment and place for employees to work. Creating and maintaining this in society today is a challenge. It requires focus, constant conversations, and deliberate actions. ERIC and CELT have done the research and have ready-to-deploy staff development and tools. Like you, they want to make a difference. I very much recomend visiting and reviewing the CELT and ERIC websites. Reach out and connect with them.
Educating our young people is foundational to our freedoms and civilization.
Have a wonderful school year. Good luck and blessings to you all.
