School officials sometimes use rubber bands, magnets and other devices to allow them to pre lock classroom doors to speed the process of lockdown

Three Steps to Faster School Lockdowns

School lockdowns remain a hot topic.  Every time a mass casualty school shooting takes place interest in ways to improve school lockdowns increases.  A small but vocal minority suggests we abandon the concept of lockdown completely.  However, the many instances where school lockdowns have been successfully applied indicate that perhaps more emphasis on properly preparing school employees to implement school lockdowns is in order.  I have noticed six common opportunities for more reliable school lockdown approaches.

1. Physically prepare staff to implement a school lockdown.

Michelle Gay lost her child in the Sandy Hook School shooting.  Michelle related to me that her child’s substitute teacher had never been issued a key to the classroom making it impossible for her to lock the door.  While many people have been advocating that this substitute should have been provided military style close quarters combat training to enable her to attack the killer, a more practical observation is that she lacked a key to lock her classroom door.

2.  Properly train staff to implement a school lockdown.

Michelle also related to me that her child’s substitute teacher had never been issued a lockdown protocol, trained to perform a lockdown, nor participated in a lockdown drill.  Though these concepts are very basic requirements for reliable school lockdowns, this is still not an uncommon situation even after the Sandy Hook tragedy.

3.  Mentally prepare staff to implement a school lockdown without being told to do so.

Unfortunately, most schools still conduct “1958 style drills.”  These drills are the same type of drills that allowed an elementary child to murder 95 staff and students by burning down the Our Lady of Angels Sacred Hearts School in Chicago in 1958.  Though the school conducted nine fire drills each year, the principal always pulled the fire alarm during drills.  This accidentally conditioned employees that someone else would pull the alarm.  During the stress of the event, no teacher activated the fire alarm for an estimated five minutes after the fire was detected.  Safe Havens has developed research-based drill approaches that require school staff to respond to scenarios to initiate each drill.  This helps to mentally prepare staff to make the decision to implement protective actions rather than to wait to be directed to do so in an emergency.

These three opportunities for improvement are all very simple.  At the same time, they are extremely important ways to improve survivability in the event an emergency lockdown becomes necessary.  For more information on evidence-based school lockdown concepts, Safe Havens offers two free web courses at: http://safehavensinternational.org/school-safety-web-courses/

Today’s school shooting in Troutdale Oregon shows how important it is for all schools to address acts of violence in crisis plans, training and drills

School Shooting in Troutdale, Oregon Frightens Parents

A breaking news story relating to a school shooting at Reynolds High School in Troutdale, Oregon received intensive media coverage once local police described the shooting as an active shooter incident.  The school shooting in Troutdale has caused considerable fear.  As is typical of many of these incidents, details, and confirmed facts are scarce two hours after the event occurred.  Police are now reporting that one victim and the perpetrator are dead.

Confusion resulting from school shootings

Having worked seven school active shooter incidents, my experience has been that some facts are likely to change as the situation unfolds.  Police are still clearing Reynolds High School which is described as the second largest high school in Oregon with 2,800 students.  These types of clearing operations can take considerable time.  Though there have been conflicting reports, the latest statement by local police did not confirm any other victims.  We have seen a number of instances where school shootings were initially described as active shooter events when they were in fact single victim shootings.  The confusion of these types of incidents makes these types of misidentification of incident types more likely.

Fear of school shootings increases with each incident

Regardless of the motivation of individual attackers or the numbers of victims, these types of events are resulting in significant fear among parents, students, and school employees.  This fear has been growing steadily for more than a decade.  The fear generated by today’s school shooting in Troutdale, Oregon will no doubt add to the destructive level of fear.  Today’s school shooting in Troutdale has added to that fear. 

Focus on proven approaches to school safety

One fact that is often missed with each school shooting is how many school shootings are prevented.  We routinely learn of successful interventions where school, police, and mental health officials have been able to successfully avert planned school shootings.  While we must learn what we can from each tragedy, we feel it is extremely important to learn from the far more common success stories.  This approach can also help school officials focus on strategies that have been proven to work while we evaluate potentially beneficial but as of yet untested school security approaches.

The Reynolds High School shooting is a tragedy 

At this point, we cannot determine whether successfully applied strategies minimized the loss of life at Reynolds High School today or if the aggressor only intended to kill the one victim who was reportedly murdered today.  Having visited Troutdale after keynoting a statewide school safety conference in Portland after the Thurston High School shooting, it is a dire shame to see such an act of violence in a wonderful community.  Having visited so many communities where terrible acts of school violence have taken place, it is truly tragic to see the lasting effects of these terrible school shootings.   The school shooting in Troutdale will no doubt result in additional fear among parents, students, and school employees.

This photo was taken during one of our school hazard and vulnerability assessments. A staff member locked their keys in the band room and cut this hole in the door to unlock the door. This would not only make it easy for someone to steal expensive musical instruments, but makes an excellent safe room easy for an aggressor to enter.

School Hazard and Vulnerability Assessments – Screening Vendors

I apologize for the recent lack of blogs.  I have been conducting school hazard and vulnerability assessments for three straight weeks in Washington D.C, Richmond, Virginia and Ketchikan, Alaska.  With our other projects and the book release, I have not had time to post. 

Each of the assessment projects involved a very competitive bid process with careful screening of vendors and have gone very well.   At the same time, school safety assessment projects can go awry if the vendor and the hiring organization are not a good fit for one another.  This can happen even with the best school security firms and great school systems and non-public schools.  Fortunately, it can be relatively easy to screen vendors to find a good fit for school hazard ability assessment projects.

Finding a good fit for your school security project

The most common complaints I hear from school officials who have been dissatisfied with a school hazard and vulnerability assessment project are similar to those I often see in the school safety malpractice civil actions I work as an expert witness.  In both types of situations, problems with school hazard and vulnerability assessment projects usually stem from an inadequate screening of vendors.  There are ways school officials can identify firms that are a good fit.  These approaches also minimize exposure to school safety litigation:

Require at least a dozen references

Any firm that is qualified to perform school security assessments should be able to provide dozens of references from K12 school organizations.  We recommend that at least six references be checked and checking all twelve is an excellent idea.

Require a strategic report as well as a written report for each assessed school

For public school systems, a report which provides a comprehensive overview of opportunities for improvement as well as positive findings for the district is far more helpful than reports for each school and support facility alone. A detailed report of each school can also be very helpful for public school districts.

Require detailed and comprehensive reports

While busy educators naturally want concise reports, a ten to fifteen page report will likely serve as “exhibit A” when a school or consulting firm is litigated after an incident.  This is because a properly conducted assessment will require far more information than can be fit in such a short space.  Though an executive summary of five to ten pages is typical for a solid evaluation, a proper strategic report will normally consist of fifty to one hundred and fifty pages of data, photographs, and narrative content.  Individual school reports should typically range between thirty to fifty pages per school. 

Require a draft report and an opportunity to fact-check reports before they are finalized    

There have been horror stories of school officials who have been stuck with bad school security assessment reports.  Just as the hiring attorney in a federal civil action typically fact-checks an expert witnesses report before it is finalized, school officials should not take chances with consultants who are not open to fact-checking of their reports. 

These basic requirements can go a long way to help you select the best firm for your situation.  The time it takes to properly vet school security firms is considerably less than the time required to fix a mess created by a poorly performed hazard and vulnerability assessment process.