School safety, security, and violence prevention resource

At least that’s how they describe their school safety plan – “souped-up.” I actually like the sounds of it. You know, we soup things up, beef them up, in an effort to make things so much better. Although it is a very casual way of describing things, I think that a souped-up school safety plan is what is needed in every single school in the country.

If you are not convinced, think about the biggest school “disasters” that we have experienced in the past years. Think Columbine. Think Virginia Tech. Although I still maintain the stand that these incidents could have been prevented had we been more vigilant and sensitive to the issues of the perpetrators, dealing with the incidents themselves could have been better, had the school safety programs been firmly in place.

This is what the people of Ingham County is trying to do with their souped-up school safety program. WILX News ran this story:

It can happen in an instant.

And even if incidents of school violence like Columbine are extremely rare and happen miles away, Ingham County officials want to make sure they’re ready should something like a high school massacre happen here.

“There’s nothing more important to any parent or certainly superintendent than the safety and welfare of students,” Superintendent of Leslie Schools, Corey Netzley says.

That’s why Netzley and other Ingham County superintendents have spent the last year working closely with the sheriff’s office to chalk up a new detailed security plan.

“The teaching staff in this area… they do a good job day in and day out, but they’re not police officers. So we need to give them some tools to make their work environment and classrooms safer,” Ingham County Sheriff, Gene Wriggelsworth says.

And safer they’ll be, but how?

“We’re locking doors, we’re closing down campuses, we’re informing police,” Ingham Intermediate Superintendent, Stan Kogut says.

Looking at Stan Kogut’s statement, it may seem that their approach is nothing special.  In fact, it is quite similar to what we hear from many school safety officers, right?  However, he went on to provide some details about their plan.  For example, they are assigning numbers to doors so that if police have to reach a certain destination within the school campus, they know exactly where to go.  Instead of using descriptives such as “enter the first grade door,” they can be told to “enter door #so and so.”  These may seem minor things but accuracy when it comes to information may very well spell the difference between being able to diffuse a situation and making a situation worse.

Also, as even the school authorities admit, the best plans cannot guarantee the safety of everyone.  However, knowing that you are doing whatever you can to ensure safety helps you sleep better at night, doesn’t it?  Kudos to the authorities at Ingham County for their efforts!

Don't miss another post -- subscribe by email or RSS today!