School officials, vendors, associations and other organizations should use the term “best practices” carefully when referring to school safety efforts. Inaccurate use of the term can create legal and public relations problems that can be avoided with more thoughtful and defensible terminology.

School Safety Best Practices and Litigation

The term “best practices” is used often in school safety field.   I think the term is sometimes used too loosely. I caution clients to be cautious about referring to any school safety measures they have implemented as a best practice. While there are several reasons for this, one of the most compelling is that school organizations may be required to prove in court that a particular approach was a best practice if they are litigated. Many of the approaches that are described as best practices will not survive this level of scrutiny. Using the term “best practice” to describe a strategy that does not really meet the definition for a best practice can open a literal Pandora’s Box. Used inappropriately, this term could turn a reasonably defensible position into an ordeal for the defendant organization.

Misuse of the term best practices in school safety is common

I have seen numerous vendors, state agencies, and non-profit organizations claim that planning approaches, training, products and services they provide are best practices without a valid basis for the use of this term. I have now seen at least two training programs that have failed badly under actual field conditions described as best practices. In both cases, there is no independent validation that the approaches are effective, reliable or safe let alone the best practice in the field. One of these training programs is about to be tested via a civil action by a school employee who alleges they were seriously injured as a result of the training program.

Sage advice from an old hand

School safety expert Bill Modzeleski first brought this concern to my attention many years ago when he served as the point man for the U.S. Department of Education’s safety efforts. He provided a rational and thoughtful explanation of why school and government officials should take great care in using the term “best practice” to describe school safety strategies. Bill made a good case and I think his sage advice is just as applicable today as it was then.

How to avoid creation of a best practice trap

I advise my clients to ask themselves how they would defend the use of the term “best practice” in front of a jury during a major civil action or in an interview with a major news organization. I tell them to imagine that a child had died in spite of the particular strategy when performing this mental exercise.   If you do not feel that you could easily provide evidence that the strategy meets this definition, it would be a good idea to find a more defensible yet positive way to describe the practice.

ALICE Training Injury Lawsuit Filed by School Employee

I was recently notified that a city in Iowa has now been served with a civil action filed by a school employee who alleges being injured during an ALICE training session. I have no idea if the suit has validity or if it will be successful. I am aware that more than $300,000 in emergency room bills have already been paid out for emergency room medical care for Iowa school employees injured during options-based active shooter training programs. I have also been aware that at least one major school insurance carrier began sending all school system policies to underwriting if this type of training has been implemented in their district. A popular options-based training program in many parts of the country, ALICE stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, and Evacuate.

Is ALICE Training Safe?

Regular readers of my blogs and our newsletter know that our analysts have reservations about a number of the options-based active shooter training programs. In January, I wrote a blog addressing some concerns about specific aspects of the ALICE approach http://safehavensinternational.org/alice-training-gets-canned/. I also wrote a feature article about additional concerns relating to ALICE and other options-based active shooter training programs in School Safety Monthly http://safehavensinternational.org/wp-content/uploads/School_Safety_Monthly-Jan_2015-Safe_Havens_Intl.pdf. I am not the only school security expert that has concerns about the various options-based active shooter training programs that have become popular since the Sandy Hook School shooting. I have spoken to a number of other school security experts who share these concerns. One school security consultant who is deeply concerned about ALICE is Kenneth Trump.

Though both of us have worked in the same field for many years, I had never met Ken until last month. Over the years, Ken and I have had some differences of opinion. Both of us are very passionate about our work and like many people have some strong feelings about our professional views.  There are also a number of areas where we share common concerns. The shift to options-based active shooter training programs that have still not been validated as safe or effective has been of concern to both Ken and I.

Ken has been recommending that that law enforcement and school officials should vet options-based active shooter training programs with their insurance carrier and legal counsel before implementing them. I think this is sound advice. Ken and I are both concerned that many school and law enforcement agencies will have difficulty defending at least some of these lawsuits.

Even Those with the of Best Intentions can be Litigated

I am also concerned that some instructors teach options-based active shooter programs without incorporation or obtaining liability insurance.   For example, I have met dedicated law enforcement officers who teach options-based active shooter training programs for schools while off-duty. These officers are typically highly motivated and are eager to help make our schools safer.  However, these officers can easily find themselves being named as an individual in litigation regardless of the types of school safety training they provide on a private basis. The cost of defending a civil action relating to even a seemingly minor training injury can be astounding.   The fact that more than 90% of all civil actions in America result in a settlement should also be considered by those who want to help others by providing private school security training without liability insurance and appropriate incorporation.

Seek Qualified Legal Advice

This civil action demonstrates how important it may be for school and law enforcement officials to carefully vet and to test any options-based active shooter training program before implementing it. The case also serves as a reminder of how important it can be to seek advice from a qualified attorney before providing school security training as a private individual. Based on this civil action, I concur with Mr. Trump’s advice to vet ALICE with legal counsel before implementing it.

Fixating on Guns and School Safety is Dangerous

Many American K12 school administrators have asked local police to assist them in conducting security assessments, improving emergency plans, and evaluating lockdown drills. While this type of assistance is valuable, I am deeply concerned that many our school security efforts are tremendously out of balance with reality. This is because the majority of school related deaths do not involve the types of school shootings that dominate discussions of school safety. During our school security assessments for more than 1,000 K12 schools in the past 24 months, our analysts have found that many public and non-public school organizations have been focusing far too much of their staff time, fiscal resources, staff development, drills, and energy on active shooter incidents in relation to the types of events that have claimed more than sixteen times as many lives. This overemphasis on guns in relation to an all-hazards approach to safety is making our schools less safe than they could be.

We are distressed that more than sixty students and school employees have been murdered by active shooters in American K12 schools during the past 15 years. However, we are also distressed by the more than 500 school-related traffic fatalities, 129 on-campus suicides, and the more than 400 homicides that do not involve active shooter events. We are also deeply concerned about the on-campus deaths from medical emergencies that the United States government does not have reliable data for.

We have found that schools have spent considerable amounts of money, time and energy on active shooter planning, drills, and training while cutting evidence-based suicide prevention programs and other life-saving measures. Current options-based active shooter training programs are not evidence-based an individual school is eight times more likely to experience and on-campus suicide than an active shooter incident. As twice as many deaths from suicide have taken place on our nation’s campuses than from active shooter events, we should be at least as concerned about these tragedies.

Many police tactical team personnel have visited area schools to try to help improve occupant survivability in case an active shooter event takes place. This is an excellent approach. However, if the same agency has not asked officers from their traffic division to observe morning arrival and afternoon dismissal to try to find ways to reduce the chances that a child is run over at a crosswalk or in the parking lot, emotion and not data is driving the school safety process. While it is popular and highly profitable for many people to talk non-stop about school shootings and active shooter events, the obsession with this as the primary focus of school safety efforts is resulting in student deaths. I believe that school children are dying because of gaps in our efforts to address emergency medical situations, common safety hazards, and a host of other threats that result in far more deaths in schools as well as we could because of the out of balance diversion of energy to this single threat.

While passion is a powerful asset to school safety programs, logical and fact-based school safety is also extremely important. Deaths that lack media coverage because they involve one victim at a time should concern us just as much as the extremely rare but catastrophic events that shock our conscious. Having worked eight of them, I know that active shooter incidents are deadly and horrific events we must work to prevent. At the same time, we should address all forms of potentially preventable deaths in K12 schools, not just those involving guns. Never in my 34 years in the school safety field have I seen our nation’s school safety efforts so out of balance in this regard.

I feel honored to have been selected to present at two different national conferences for Campus Safety Magazine this summer.

I feel honored and pleased to be presenting keynote sessions at two of the three Campus Safety Magazine – Campus Safety Conference events this year. Unfortunately, I will not be able to present at the Campus Safety Los Angeles Conference on July 23-24 due to a previously scheduled engagement. I am delighted to be able to present at the Campus Safety Chicago Conference on July 13-14 and at the National Campus Safety Forum in Washington D.C. on July 24-26. I have keynoted five previous Campus Safety Conferences but have not presented for the conference in a number of years. It is truly a pleasure and an honor to be able to participate in these awesome conferences.

I have always been impressed with the caliber and diversity of speakers and topics at Campus Safety Conferences and this year’s events will be no exception. Attendees will have excellent networking opportunities that can be as important as what they learn in the many information-packed sessions. Campus Safety Conferences also afford attendees the opportunity to visit a diverse assortment of vendor booths so they can see the latest offerings in campus safety technology solutions and service offerings.

My keynote presentation for the National Campus Safety Forum in Washington D.C. is titled “The Human Touch – How Brains, Human Spirit and Technology Saved Lives in Seven Seconds.”

The session description is as follows:

Today’s campus safety, security and emergency preparedness technologies are truly astounding. However, the effectiveness of virtually any safety technology is reliant upon human factors. This dynamic, powerful, and unforgettable session will show practical ways campus organizations can improve human performance to compliment and support today’s very best campus safety technology and equipment solutions. This Keynote will focus intensely on concepts that have been validated by research, deep evaluation, and real-life high-stakes campus events.

It will be a busy summer with ten keynote presentations for state and national conferences thus far, another trip to Africa and several consulting projects. As always, I am pleased to keep busy. I am also looking forward to interacting with so many awesome advocates for children. If you have a chance to make it to Chicago or Washington D.C. for one of the Campus Safety Conferences, please take a moment to say hello. As always, we welcome feedback on our blogs, newsletter, and our many free school safety resources.

For more information on the Campus Safety events, visit http://campussafetyconference.com/

Spring Tornado Season and Schools

We are about to release the March issue of School Safety Monthly. This issue is focused on ways to prepare schools for natural disasters. Steve Satterly was kind enough to conduct research and to author articles for this issue. My son Chris and our editor, Morgan Billinger, have also done an exceptional job of editing and formatting this month’s issue.

Effective ways to prepare schools for tornadoes

There are a number of concrete steps that school officials can take to reduce the risks associated with tornadoes and other natural disasters. While this month’s issue of School Safety Monthly will address natural disasters as a whole, this blog will be focused on ways to reduce the risks related to tornadoes.

Steve Satterly has not only extensively researched schools and tornado safety, he has done so because he has first-hand experience with a tornado damaging his school as an administrator.

When I asked Steve for a few key areas that school officials can consider for the Spring Tornado season, he provided the following key points:

Make sure everyone knows their safe areas

Satterly points out that just posting sheltering diagrams is not enough. He suggests that teachers be trained to know all tornado sheltering areas in their school. This is important because teachers and other staff may need to shelter students who are in transit when a tornado warning is received or a tornado is detected in the area.

Meet with your local EMA Director to go over your tornado plans

Your local emergency management agency (EMA) can be a valuable and free resource. Emergency managers are typically well-versed on the all-hazards approach and can often provide valuable information and assistance.

Practice your plans

While written emergency protocols can be important, training staff on the written plans and affording them a chance to practice implementing them is often even more important. Utilizing a drill process that requires individual staff to make the decision to implement the appropriate emergency protocol for a scenario they have been presented with can dramatically improve the ability of school employees to make appropriate and prompt decisions under the often highly stressful conditions of an actual crisis event.

Communicate with your community

Making a reasonable effort to effectively communicate what you are doing to better prepare students and staff for tornados can be very important in establishing and maintaining a high level of trust. Parents who are informed that school officials take the risks of tornado seriously are less likely to panic if a tornado touches down in the community during school hours.

For more information on this timely and important topic, be sure to check out the March issue of School Safety Monthly.

Are School Security Cameras a Good Fit for Your Schools?

Many of our school security assessment projects involve client requests to either evaluate their current school security camera systems or to help them determine if they should add a school security system for the first time. A number of these projects involve questions of whether a school organization should install security cameras in schools that lack cameras. Like many of the school security technologies we are asked to evaluate, there is not a correct and absolute answer for school security cameras. There are a range of competing safety, security and emergency preparedness needs that should be evaluated in relation to one another. This can make it rather dangerous to assume a one-size-fits-all approach which assumes that every school needs additional security cameras, fencing, metal detectors, or security personnel.

For example, during a recent school security assessment project, we determined that the client did not have a viable student threat evaluation approach or suicide prevention strategy. We found numerous instances where relatively inexpensive upgrades could significantly improve safety, security and emergency preparedness. For the cost of a few dozen good quality security cameras, almost each of these significant opportunities for improvement could be addressed. At the same time, our team determined that a million dollars’ worth of security cameras would likely not reduce danger as much as these less expensive strategies. Though we advised the client that a new security camera system would be well worth the cost, the priority for funding should go to the other opportunities for improvement.

In other cases, our analysts have found school security camera upgrades to be a high priority option for consideration. While many people question the value of school security cameras, our experience has been that they can help dramatically improve school safety, security and even emergency preparedness when they are utilized properly in many situations. For example, our analysts found that a large public school system in an affluent community with a low crime rate would benefit from a new security camera system for its high and middle schools because administrators were spending an inordinate amount of time investigating situations involving interpersonal conflict between students.

One important point relating to school security cameras is that they often capture the truth. This can be a major asset for schools with good supervision and where staff follow school security procedures. At the same time, school security camera systems are often very good at documenting instances of poor student supervision or unsafe school parking lot traffic conditions. When school security cameras capture blatantly dangerous situations, captured images can quickly turn into “exhibit A” during litigation or in media coverage of a school safety event. In addition, there are cases where security cameras can capture distinct segments of activity that are not representative of the overall situation. Rather than portraying the truth, these instances can result in an inaccurate and sometimes damaging picture of safety at a school.

For these and other reasons, we advise our clients to work diligently to utilize excellent security camera technology when possible. We also advise them to be sure to expend a reasonable effort to achieve positive human safety, security and emergency preparedness practices whether or not they have funding for good security camera systems.