Strategies to Improve School Safety

Improve School Safety

Over the past decade and a half, the United States has experienced an unprecedented level of violence within the school setting. The first, prominent display of a mass school shooting occurred at Columbine High School in 1999. This called for national change to take place where every school in America became required to conduct a Code Red Drill for school lockdown to prepare adults and students in the case of another incident of this nature ever happening again.

Throughout the day on December 14th, 2012, I was receiving many birthday wishes from faculty, staff and students where I teach here in Connecticut. Before the start of one of my afternoon classes, a group of students rushed into my classroom frantically and informed me of the horrific mass school shootings that had transpired at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT. Words cannot begin to describe the gruesome nature of this shooting rampage that took place just 25 miles down the road from where I grew up. Unfortunately, this was the third time in 2012 that a school shooting has taken place in the U.S. However, this tragedy marked the worst shooting in a K-12 school in history leaving 26 people dead, 20 of them being students and 6 of them adults (excluding the murder of the assailant’s own mother in her home).

Political leaders and school officials are discussing ways to prevent against copycat acts of this nature from ever happening again. Here are some points to consider for safer schools:

1. Crisis teams at schools will need to evaluate their security protocol for allowing visitors access into the school (i.e. security guards at all schools, cameras inside and outside of the school, central button in the main office to electronically shut classroom doors and go in lockdown, etc.)

2. Impose stricter gun control laws. 60-80% of homicides in America occur by firearms. Parents who have guns should be responsible in keeping them in safe, out-of-sight, uninformed locations so children are unaware and unable to access them.

3. Schools should evaluate their protocol for regularly reviewing a child’s academic and behavioral progress in school. This will best prevent a child from “slipping through the cracks” and will allow for a better identification of any early warning signs for indifferent or erratic behavior. At our school, we have a weekly “HANDS UP” meeting where we go through every child and address specific concerns, interventions that will be imparted and subsequent follow-up procedures.

4. Focus on a community-based approach so the child is aware that the parents and teachers are in active communication. The fact that unresolved mental disturbances of one individual manifested into a catastrophic outcome affecting the lives of so many signifies why it is important for ALL parents and educators to truly care about a child and provide a foundation of support, love, hope and encouragement throughout their life.

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Douglas Haddad, is a clinical nutritionist, full-time public school teacher in Connecticut and the author of parenting/child guidance book Save Your Kids…Now! The Revolutionary Guide To Helping Youth Conquer Today’s Challenges and co-author of Top Ten Tips For Tip Top Shape: Super Health Programs For All Professional Fields.

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This post originally appeared on our January/February 2013 Magazine

Strategies to Improve School Safety

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