School safety, security, and violence prevention resource

If you read Part I, you already know my contention here: Nothing, and I mean nothing, as in no one, is unstoppable.

Let’s just start there, ok? If it’s not okay, please write and tell me why; I would love to hear from you.

But, Dear Readers, since I am banging out this post and I don’t see anybody else in the room, let’s suspend disbelief for the moment and forge ahead. I hope you listen hard, too, because, as I noted in my last post, I believe there will be more spectacular school violence, and, this according to an Israeli counter-terrorism expert who had warned the White House about a spectacular airplane attack against New York and Washington only a few months before 9-11, there will be another (series of) terrorist attacks forged by Middle Eastern born terrorists presently living in this country; but these attacks will now target, among other venues, many of our schools. Think of it: What could stop America’s social, familial and economical systems cold faster than 12 of our primary and secondary schools being sprayed by machine gun fire and gutted by suicide bombs, killing hundreds of our children simultaneously in 12 different cities across the country?

WHAT SCHOOLS CAN DO?

For now, however, I’ll concentrate on thwarting the more conventional school terrorist: The Emotionally Disturbed, Suicidal/Homicidal and/or Payback Shootist. More likely than not, we are talking about a current or former student with a grudge. This will not be a piece of cake by any means, but the school systems in tandem with law enforcement, parents, teachers, and even the government, need to do something. Below are some of my suggestions:

Warning: Some of these suggestions have already been touched upon in past postings. Reading them might activate your boredom threshold. Still, I cannot complete this post without touching upon them. They just make too much sense.

1. TRAINING. Nothing I suggest will either make sense or be even partially doable unless training is at the core of the plan. Courses like Disruptive Student Management would be a great way to make staff aware of the dangers – not that they don’t already know – and, most importantly arm them with the skills for handling student-violence and disruptive behavior in the most tactically, medically (effective and safe for both the teacher and the students), and legally (court defensibility) acceptable methods possible. But it must not end with DSM. Other key issues to be trained must be:
   • Advanced Defusing (Verbal Intervention Strategies) Techniques.
   • Tactical Coordination of Law Enforcement, School Security Staff; Physical Facilities Personnel; Fire and other Emergency Services Personnel; teachers, staff, and other school community members.
   • Formation and training of a Safety and Violence Prevention Committee.
   • Students should receive some training and/or classes on properly responding to several possible “terrorism-scenarios,” including but not restricted to:
     • Shooter in the Classroom.
     • Shooter in the School (other classroom).
     • Evacuation and Lockdown Procedures.
   • Personal Safety/Survival Management Skills (The Survival Psyche; Tactical or Cycle Breathing; Positive Self talks; Using Escape Routes and/or Barricades in the Environment to escape, evade and possible stop the shootist).
   • Develop a Counter-Terrorism Protocol, Circulate and Train (Research and develop the protocol, create an effective Chain-Of-Command for managing the various levels of threat. Make appropriate physical changes to the physical plant to accommodate the necessary security changes. Make certain that local, state and federal law enforcement bodies are involved in the development of this protocol and include parents, community leaders and all relevant parties in this protocol.
2. COMMUNICATIONS is crucial. Develop a way to communicate with everyone in the Chain-of-Command immediately upon recognizing that a significant act of violence is either happening or about to go down.
3. REPORTING can not be stressed too much here. Over 88% of Workplace and School Violence, according to OSHA, could have been avoided if the signatures of danger had first been recognized (see my last post where I went into the Signatures of Danger culled from over 20 school shootings). Fact is, though, a lot of times a student, teacher or parent recognizes the danger signs or gets a gut feeling that something is wrong, but it is rare that these danger signs are reported. The schools must establish an atmosphere that encourages and enables students, teachers, and parents to report threats and (potential) acts of violence.
4. CHANGE THE CULTURE: Few can argue that, since 9/11 our way of life has been altered forever. This calls for a major culture change in almost every aspect of how we regard and respond to catastrophic threats. For instance, I doubt we will see another airplane-centered terrorist attack again. Why? Ever since 9/11 passengers have undergone a radical culture change. Passengers will probably never sit passively by and allow a single or even group of terrorists take over their flight (which was the culture before 9/11) and fly them into a building. Teachers and students also must drastically alter how they react to a shooter in the classroom. With proper training, including Survival (Fire) Drills (Stress Inoculation and Dynamic Scenario Drills, which I will go into in Part III), I believe the classroom can not only survive but prevail in many Shootist-Scenarios by actively counter-attacking the shooter.

Up next Part III — What The Classroom can Do To Turn the Tables on the Shooter.

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Posted on May 29th, 2008 by Harry A Widger
Filed under: Administrators, Building safety, College, Disasters, High School, K-6, News, Parents, People Involved, School Grade Level, School Safety Issues, Security, Shootings, Students, Violence