A School Leader’s Review of Campus Safety and Security

Directions:

As a campus administrator you wear many hats that align to diverse responsibilities as a school leader. One of those hats is to be responsible for maintaining oversight of the varied safety and security elements of your campus. In leadership, one person cannot do all things, which is why campus leaders share leadership and oversight responsibility with other key campus personnel. Additionally, the school district is actively involved in the review of campus and district safety and security needs, and maintains policies that meet the state’s requirements for school safety and security.

In this assignment you will review the K-12 District Facility Safety and Security Audit Checklist. You are not being asked to complete this audit, rather to review the information being required within the audit. You will review information required in the following tabs: Demographics, Intruder, Risk Factors, Instructional 1 of 2, Instructional 2 of 2, and Administration. You will notice there are additional tabs, but they are not a requirement of this assignment.  This checklist is formatted as an Excel spreadsheet. In many of the sections you will be asked to click on the dropdown menu. To do this, you will put your cursor at the right margin of the checklist and ‘right click’ which will provide the dropdown menu. You will also read the Education Week article, “What Principals Can do to Keep Schools Safe Amid Shooting Fears”.

Using the information from the checklist and the article, approach this assignment as if you were the campus leader. As you review each tab, consider what actions, plans and requirements you would put in place at your campus. How would you prioritize your campus safety and security needs?  How would you involve your faculty and staff in this process? In what ways would you communicate with your district leaders regarding safety and security needs on your campus? How would your knowledge of and communication with your school’s families and community members, impact how decisions are made on your campus?

Your response should be a minimum of three paragraphs, responding to the questions listed above.