While the media may focus intently on mass casualty school shootings, the typical school weapons assault bears little resemblance to these catastrophic and tragic incidents.   And while it is important for us to work diligently to try to prevent and prepare for mass casualty school shootings, we must also work to address the far more common forms of school violence.  Leading school violence experts recognize that the majority of school weapons assaults do not involve fatalities and do not result in mass casualties.  In fact, the majority of school violence incidents involving weapons are carried out with edged weapons and blunt objects rather than with guns.  In fact, most of the school weapons attacks we have worked involve box cutters, razor blades, and relatively small knives.

Evaluating hundreds of these incidents reveals some noticeable and important patterns.  For example, we have noted that the most common denominator for school weapons assaults is the common schoolyard fight.  While the incidents are typically not mass casualty events reported in the national news, most school violence incidents involving weapons occur just before, during or immediately after a fight.  One means to reduce the chances that a school violence incident involving weapons will occur is to work to reduce the number of fights at schools and school events.  If twenty-five fights per year occur at a middle school, the chances that a school violence incident involving a gun, knife, or other weapon will occur increase.  If staff at the school can reduce the number of fights by 80%, the chances of weapons being used in a school violence incident decline markedly.

We feel that it is also very important to remember the negative effect of fights on school climate and culture.  Fights degrade the learning environment by causing distraction and tying up considerable staff time.  While no single strategy will eliminate the threat of school violence, the reduction of triggering behaviors such as fights is one effective part of a comprehensive approach to school violence prevention.

One of the most effective ways to improve school safety is to focus on effective student supervision.  Though a much less expensive approach than security cameras, improving student supervision can protect students from a wide array of hazards ranging from taunting to terrorism.  Student supervision is one of the most effective school safety strategies we have seen.  Whether the danger is from a tornado, gang activity among students or an active shooter, improvements in student supervision at school and on field trips can be a powerful preventive school safety tool and can dramatically speed up emergency protective actions such as lockdown, evacuation, severe weather sheltering or shelter in place for hazardous materials. 

Students who are not being effectively supervised are not only more vulnerable to victimization by others and involvement in accidents, they are also more difficult to move to safety rapidly.  Making an effort to develop and maintain effective student supervision is a powerful school safety strategy.

While qualified school security consultants will provide benefits far beyond the fees they charge, school officials should always carefully consider whether quality free resources can be obtained before retaining school security consultants.  Many state agencies provide high quality and free school security consulting resources.  Two of our analysts provided free school security consulting services while we served with the Georgia Office of Homeland Security and another Safe Havens analyst did so as an intern.  Then as now, we were often troubled to see school officials pay school security consultants for services they could have received for free from government agencies.

While several school security consultants have become upset when we advise schools of this, our purpose as a non-profit school safety center is to make schools safer and helping schools utilize their available funding more efficiently is one of our goals.  The best school security consultants have to routinely turn away paid work and should not be offended by school officials who seek to wisely utilize their limited fiscal resources.   School officials should consider pushy or aggressive actions by school security consultants as a potential warning sign.