A team of law enforcement officers practicing responses to an active shooter incident in Ashville, North Carolina. While intensive media coverage of mass casualty incidents has heightened our awareness of school violence, the types of horrific events date back to the first mass casualty school attack in America in 1764. As with drunk driving and child molestation, our awareness of problems that have existed for decades has increased more than that actual rate of incidents.

Was school violence an issue in 1979?

1979 was a rough year at Central High School in Macon, Georgia. In the most brutal act of school violence I have ever witnessed, I watched a girl smash a soda bottle against a brick wall and savagely slash another student twice across the chest with the jagged glass during a fight. I will never forget the young girl being strapped to a stretcher drenched in her own blood – at my high school.

Another student was stabbed with a pocketknife and one of our favorite teachers was beaten to the floor of his classroom. His attackers were a group of thugs who entered an unlocked side door armed with pool cues. It seemed so terribly wrong to me that a man who had dropped into Normandy by parachute to defend our nation and came home to serve as an educator could be treated this way.

The school was truly dysfunctional in 1979. Towards the end of the year, I was slashed with a box cutter when a faculty member left my class unattended in a gym. The school principal opted not to call the police because he “didn’t want to hurt the school’s long standing reputation”.

School safety myths

As we demonstrate with careful, research in our book Staying Alive – How to Act Fast and Survive Deadly Encounters, many students and staff have died in mass casualty attacks on K12 schools in the United States long before the Columbine and Sandy Hook massacres. While these terrible attacks were truly catastrophic events, the brutal murder of 95 staff and students by means of an arson fire at the Our Lady of Angels Sacred Hearts School in 1958 was also a horrific and painful event that we should not forget. Dozens of major acts of violence in K12 schools in America go as far back as colonial times with the brutal murder of headmaster Enoch Brown and all but one of his pupils in western Pennsylvania. I am not minimizing modern day mass casualty attacks, but rather attempting to correct a common school safety myth that such attacks are a new phenomenon.

Accurate perspectives result in safer schools

Like tornadoes, school fires, earthquakes, accidents, and medical emergencies, school violence has been with us since the days of the one room school house. Lessons from these tragedies still have much value today. Understanding this can be a life and death matter. Having a balanced, analytical, and logical approach to school safety is the best way to prevent any life-threatening event.

I have had a great time keynoting two school safety conferences for the Maine Department of Education last week. I have been fortunate to have been asked to keynote conferences for the Maine Emergency Management Agency, the Maine Department of Education, and the Maine School Facilities Director’s Association earlier this year. This week’s conferences near Bangor and Portland were also well-attended and productive events. It was truly a pleasure to interact with so many dedicated and caring advocates for the children in this beautiful state.

School Safety Efforts Based on the All-hazards Approach

Like their counterparts in many other state departments of education we have worked with recently, the Maine Department of Education has been emphasizing the need for school and public safety officials to maintain a balanced and assessment-based approach to safety. With alarmist and emotive approaches to school safety that have not been validated becoming so common, we are pleased to see so many state departments of education taking thoughtful and fact-based approaches.

Multi-disciplinary Collaboration is a Key to School Safety

The Maine Department of Education has been collaborating extensively with the Maine State Police, Maine Emergency Management Agency, and Maine State Fire Marshall’s Office.   State agency personnel and representatives from many professional associations have also been working closely with one another to help further enhance the state’s efforts to support local school systems. The state legislature has also been a driving force in what has been one of the more thoughtful statewide approaches to school safety assessment in the wake of the Sandy Hook tragedy.  This has helped to prevent the highly emotive and ineffective knee-jerk reactions we have seen in a few regions of the country.

An Assessment-based Approach to School Safety

The Maine legislature directed the Maine Department of Education to conduct a statewide school safety assessment in 2013. Safe Havens was honored to be selected to assist the Department in conducting this assessment. More importantly, we are thankful that the leadership from so many key organizations in Maine have collaborated in school safety approaches that are based on a thorough assessment process. We applaud the thoughtful, patient, and practical efforts that are providing so many free resources for Maine school officials and community partner agencies.

Most of the best school emergency kits we have seen were assembled by school employees. These kits were assembled by staff from the Indianapolis Public Schools System (IPS). IPS personnel issue the kits each fall, retrieve them each summer so they could be inventoried and re-issued to each school before school resumes in the fall.

School Emergency Kits an Old but Good Idea

About two decades ago, I first heard someone talking about emergency evacuation kits. Since that time, I have heard them referred to as crisis kits, go boxes, emergency kits, and a number of other names. Regardless of what you want to call them, they are a great idea for any school. School emergency kits are relatively easy to assemble and use and can make a huge difference in a school crisis situation.

What is a School Emergency Kit is

A school emergency kit is a relatively small and portable bag which contains information and supplies that the school crisis team will need to address a crisis once an evacuation or protective sheltering has taken place. The most practical kits we have seen are rolling back backs with a collapsible handle. The handle or backpack straps allow school staff to easily transport the kits down a flight of stairs or across uneven terrain, muddy or snowy ground. The folding handle and wheels can make it easier for someone to roll the kit for a mile down a paved road or sidewalk if an off-campus evacuation by foot is required.

Making Your Own School Emergency Kits

While a number of vendors have offered commercially available school crisis kits over the years, the four or five most impressive kits I have seen thus far have all been assembled by school crisis team members. While some of our clients have reported good success with commercial kits, we suggest school officials consider buying kit contents and assembling kits themselves.

What the School Emergency Kit Should Contain

While a group of school safety experts could debate the ideal specific contents for a school crisis kit for hours if not a full day, the following categories of items should be considered:

• Valuable information such as school crisis plans, emergency photo tour, and building floor plans
• Emergency medical supplies
• Flashlights, bullhorn and extra batteries
• High visibility vests
• Rescue whistles and other emergency signaling devices

Practice Using School Emergency Kits

A school emergency kit that has been forgotten in the high stress and fast breaking action of a major school crisis is of limited value. One way to reduce the chances that school emergency kits are left behind during an emergency is for staff to practice taking the kits with them whenever a drill requiring evacuation or sheltering for severe weather is conducted. By routinely taking the kits with them during drills, staff will increase the chances they will remember to do so during an actual emergency.