My Yearly Soapbox for School Safety!

It is back to school for many children.  Mothers everywhere are rejoicing, glorying in the moment, while their children glumly contemplate their sudden lack of free time. School supplies are being bought, backpacks stuffed, new clothes arrayed in closets, lunches packed in brand new lunch boxes.

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What about safety?  Children spend eight or more hours a day at school, and we parents trust that the school will keep them all safe and protected from harm.  We often trust the school so much that we don't even ask questions.  That's a mistake.  I am not saying that every school is full of broken glass and knife fights every day.  Schools do their very best, and some teachers go above and beyond to keep their charges safe, as we've seen on the news. Teachers throw themselves in front of gunmen, or huddle with their students in the bathrooms during a tornado, or simply keep an epipen handy or an inhaler close by. 
 
1. Go to your child's school.  Open house, Meet the Teacher, whatever.  Walk around the school with your child.  Look for the exits to the building.  Pay attention to the fire evacuation map in your child's room, and make sure a secondary evacuation route is on there. Point the map out to your child, and if you have time, walk the route to the exit with them. Find the nurse's office in relation to your child's classroom, and locate the AED(Automatic Electronic Defibrillator).  Find the cafeteria, and observe where everything is.  Parents should have a passing familiarity with the layout of the school, even if they don't go into every classroom.    

2. Meet people.  Eyeball them.  Shake hands.  Smile.  Converse, even if it is just about the weather or the latest football scores.  Make friends with other parents in your child's class, even if they seem a little strange to you at first.  Set up a parent communication chain, if you feel so inclined, so that when something happens(even a birthday!), everyone is in the loop.  Bring gifts to the secretaries at the front desk and ask about their grandchildren.  Be polite to the custodians.  A school is a community, and ideally your child will be there for more than a year.  Become part of that community. The reason for this goes beyond good manners or networking. If everyone knows everyone, then a stranger on campus will get noticed.

3. Ask about safety.  There is no reason why you can't ask questions. You're a parent, looking after your child.  So don't be afraid to ask.  Who monitors the safety of a campus?  Are all doors locked at all times? Do teachers have a first aid kit in their classroom? Does the gym teacher?  How about a phone or a call button? Who on campus is CPR certified?  In the event of a lockdown, how will parents be informed?  In the event of an evacuation from the school, how will parents be informed?  Once parents have been informed, what will be the procedure for releasing students to their parents?  Every person who works on a campus should have some passing knowledge of campus safety procedures.  If you don't like the answers from a teacher, head up the food chain to the principal, and on up. 

4. Any special instructions for your child?   If you have a student who needs extra attention during an emergency, never assume that the school knows, just because you talked to the school nurse that one time in the carpool line. Some kids don't like loud noises.  Some kids have seizures when they see flashing lights.  Some kids are allergic to bees. And peanut butter.  If a teacher needs to carry an epipen in the event of an evacuation, don't assume that she knows.  Write it down, make copies, and give it to anyone and everyone, and talk with them about what they can expect.  If you're a parent of a special needs child, put your information in an IEP, as in, "This is the IEP for when you have a fire drill", or "this is the plan to follow when this child has a seizure".  People do better in emergencies if they've rehearsed a scenario beforehand, so make sure that your child's school has all the information they need to support your kid should there be a crisis.

5. Show some respect.  Follow the rules.  If there's rules for the pick up line, follow them.  If there's rules about showing an ID to pick up your child, bring it.  Yeah, it is a pain. Sometimes it is darn inconvenient, especially if you're in a hurry and you wore those shoes that pinch.  Bite the bullet and do what you've been asked.  Rules are there for a reason, and that reason is usually safety.  In addition, by following the rules, you're a parent who is modeling appropriate behavior to your child.  Kids will do as you do, not as you say.  Rule breakers, people who don't believe that rules apply to them, tend to end up incarcerated, and no parent wants that.


School safety is everyone's responsibility, so be a proactive parent and head over to your child's school.  You won't be sorry that you did, unless you accidentally get volunteered to be chaperone on the fifth grade field trip! 

The A-List: School Safety

My precious baby is going to an actual school!  There's now so many more things for me, as his mother, to worry about!  Will he like his teacher? Will he stay in his seat?  Is he going to make friends?  Will he remember to put the toilet seat down and wash his hands without me yelling reminders?  Will he eat the sensible lunch I made him or trade it for some gummi bears and crackers?  Is he going to be safe?

When we registered Zane for this particular school, I immediately noticed that they have cameras everywhere.  I'm a bit obsessive about safety, so I notice things like that.  In the school office, behind the receptionist, is a bank of monitors which reveal what those cameras see.  That bank of cameras got me thinking about emergency planning and school safety, subjects dear to my heart.  We leave our children in the hands of others for at least 8 hours a day, five days a week.  I want anyone working with my son to have at least a passing acquaintance with school safety.   At the very least, they should know where the fire exits are!

There's a lot to think about, when it comes to emergency planning and schools.  This sunk in when I started taking some of the free classes offered online at the FEMA website, and hasn't diminished in importance over the years.  I am not just thinking of school shootings, but of the more 'mundane' types of emergencies, such as fires, tornadoes, floods, and hazardous spills.  Even if nothing ever happens, I feel better knowing that the school has plans in place to keep my child safe in the event of an emergency. 

In that spirit, here are some questions every parent needs to ask their child's school, either before school starts, or soon after the first day.  The school may label you as one of "those" parents, but that's okay.  These are questions that need to be asked, if only for your own peace of mind.


1. What is the procedure for contacting parents in the event of an emergency?   I'm not just talking about the sort of emergency where your child fell and cut themselves and now requires stitches.  If there is a fire at your child's school, if there is a hazardous chemical spill and the area has to be evacuated, how will the school contact you?  Some campuses have an automated system, others are on the Emergency Email Network or something similiar, that sends out a mass text or email to alert people to an event.  Whatever is in use, parents should know about it and be able to access it.

2. What is the procedure for releasing a child to someone other than a parent?    No parent wants to hear that their child was released to a complete stranger.  We also don't want to have to come down to the police station to pick up our mother-in-law because she tried to check Junior out of school early to take him to the dentist. Occasionally, a child's grandmother may have to pick up a child from school, or maybe an aunt or uncle or even a family friend.  Every campus should have procedures about who is allowed to pick up students.  My son's school requires that the people who might be picking up a student have their names, addresses, phone numbers on file.  Students are only released to the people on that list, who are required to show their driver's license in the front office.  Other campuses may require fingerprinting, background checks, driver's license numbers, etc. 

3. In the event of a "Shelter-In-Place" or a "Lockdown", what is the procedure?   If your child's school has no idea what these two terms refer to, I would be concerned.  Parents need to know what those terms mean and what those procedures may entail, no matter how farfetched. Knowledge is power in the event of an emergency.   Knowing some of the procedures may help a parent feel less anxious about the process, because these situations are scary enough.  What parents also need to understand is that it is not always possible to release students to their parents immediately or on demand in these situations.  We may want to spirit our child out of the situations, get them to safety, but sometimes it is safer for the kids to stay where they are. 

4. How do you monitor visitors to the campus? My son's campus has cameras all over the place, but they also lock the outside doors once school begins.  If a visitor arrives, they are required to sign in at the office, get a visitor's pass, and to ring the bell to get into the building.  That person must see the visitor's pass before they will open the door.  I like this procedure, even if it takes me a little time; it means that this school takes campus security seriously.  They want to know who is on campus, so they've taken measures to keep track.  That's a good thing. 

5. How can I help?  It's not just up to the school to think about school safety.  Every parent can help keep their child's campus safe.  In fact, it is your responsibility as a parent to do so.  Knowing the procedures is a good start, but keeping the campus safe means following the rules.  That means no parking in the fire lanes because you don't feel like waiting in the pickup line.  No propping open doors that are supposed to be locked so you don't have to go to the office and sign in.  No speeding through school zones while yakking on a cell phone.  Being safe also means reporting those parents who don't follow the rules. It's not tattling; it's keeping everyone safe.  

Now that I've scared everyone, I'll offer this:  I've worked in schools for over twenty years, and in my experiences, schools are a pretty safe place.  While emergencies happen, they are not a daily occurrence.  Still, knowing what procedures are in place, and knowing a little bit about emergency planning, helps me feel much better about leaving my child in that classroom all day. 

Is Your Child's School Prepared?

Whenever I enter a new building, I automatically do two things. The first is obvious: find the location of the nearest bathroom.  The second is to visually locate any and all exits.  It makes me feel safer to know where the exits are, whether there's a reason to use them or not.  It's a "just in case" thing.   

Emergency planning is, unfortunately, not a high priority for most schools.  Parents need to know this.  Many schools go through the required fire drills, tornado drills, etc.  Some schools have fancy flip charts that are immediately put into a teacher's desk and forgotten. 

There's just not really a budget for emergency planning, and if there is some sort of organized effort in a district, the ball gets dropped when the people pushing for the planning retire or move on.  Nobody wants to consider that emergencies might happen. There's a sense that to do so will invite disaster, and schools are supposed to be happy places where stuff like that never, ever happens. Until it does.

I am not trying to bash public schools in any way.  Let's get that out of the way.  Public schools do the best that they can in spite of all the crap they endure in the form of standardized testing and lawmakers who are more interested in being re-elected than in doing what is right.  After Columbine, schools all over the place briefly got serious about school safety, but it's been awhile.   Interest fades, and we all fall into the "It will never happen to me" mentality.  Emergency planning means that you consider that it CAN happen, and you have a plan that keeps everyone safe.  Sticking one's head in the sand about safety is not healthy for anyone, least of all the students who are in the hands of a school for eight hours a day.

Parents can do something about this. 

Go to your child's school and ask about the emergency plan. You may be surprised by the answers you get, but at least this can be a starting point.  Are any school personnel trained in NIMS(National Incident Management System)?  How many people in the building know CPR/First Aid?   Does the school only use the primary evacuation route for fire drills or have they practiced the secondary route in case the first exit path is blocked?  Ask about where the evacuation site will be and if there is a secondary evacuation site. Ask what the procedures are for a shelter-in-place versus a lock down. Ask what the pickup procedure will be if there is an emergency.  (For example, will you need two forms of ID before your child can leave with you?)

If you have children with special needs, ask what procedures are in place for them as well.  How the heck are those students getting out of the building?  What are the plans for evacuating the students who are non-ambulatory, for instance, wherever they may be?  In addition, there are quite a few children who simply cannot tolerate the sound of a fire alarm or the flashing lights that some alarms have.  If the child has a seizure due to the lights, what are the plans for that?  If the loud sounds cause a meltdown, what are the plans for that?

Have I freaked everyone out?  Good.  I'll stop now. 

Now you will all be thinking about this, and you'll ask your kids about it.  Then you will ask the teacher, the principal, then up the food chain, until maybe, just maybe, everyone starts thinking about this stuff in a more systematic, organized fashion.  This is some thing that ALL schools can embrace, that involves students and parents too.