Securing Our Schools One Day at a Time

I believe in a world that is every changing and the violence that is being shown more and more on TV, the security of our schools is becoming one of the top priorities within our school systems.  I know there have been some bomb scares on university campus just within the start of this school year and some of our students have questioned their safety and what guidelines we have in place.  We practice lockdown drills and it never fails that students question us on what would happen if it were real.  As a teacher, you see that this often makes kids realize the seriousness of the situation.  Security also refers to things like stealing and bullying – again, issues that are becoming more problems throughout schools. 

Our school has a vision statement like every school does.  The point of our vision statement that applies to my plan is:  The learning environment should be safe, respectful and honest.  Obviously, as previously discussed, we do already practice lockdown, fire, storm and disaster drills on a regular basis.  We also have in place a hotline students can utilize when they are feeling bullied or even overwhelmed and just need someone to listen to them.  I do not really know how much this hotline is being used nor how effectively, so, this is going to something that I focus on improving.  I am not really sure how to make this a measurable goal and is something I will discuss with my campus mentor.  One goal I would to make sure is 100% is ensuring that all staff and visitors have or get a badge from the front office upon entering our building.  This will be a hard task and will require the effort of many on our campus.  I would like anyone who notices an adult on our campus without a badge to report that offense to me and this can be very quickly done through an email.

One of the articles I researched discussed a program called “COPS Secure Our Schools.”  This program is a nationally funded program that gets the local police department involved in securing our school and is grant funded.  The look into helping with 3 major topics:  Community Partnerships, Organizational Transformation, and Problem Solving (Dept. of Justice, 2012).  Their job is to ensure that not only is the school safe from shootings, but also to provide counseling help for students who may need it.  There is also a push to keep gangs out of our schools and one of the associations is G.R.E.A.T.:  Gang Resistance Education and Training.  They are geared towards developing “partnerships with nationally recognized organizations, such as the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, Families and Schools Together (FAST), and the National Association of Police Athletic/Activities Leagues, Inc (PAL) (Gang Resistance Education, 2012.)  This really isn’t too big of a deal at my school, but at a nearby school, gangs do play an issue, so, this article could be extremely beneficial to them.  Something that really surprised me when researching articles was the correlation between sports and security.  I always hear about youth leagues and how out-of-hand parents can be, but I never really thought about how it relates to school sports.  One article I found cited may different incidents relating to security at games.  Most of the issues occur during football games and when an incident occurs, school response to the problem varies.  Some administrators fall somewhere between denial and bargaining (Upton, 1).  Overall, the majority of school security articles that I could find were related to shootings and mass destruction, I couldn’t really find anything on a more basic level like just security in general.  I really did like all the articles I found and was really surprised by all the violence that goes on in our schools and how unaware we are until we take the time to do the research.

I articulated this vision with staff, parents, students and community through a memo sent out to our faculty and staff.  It detailed the reasons why I was interested in choosing to research not only the security of our school, but of schools in general.  I cited some incidents that have occurred in our school that prompted me to look into this subject.  For instance, there were items stolen one night from offices in our front office that were supposedly locked, instances of theft among students, destruction of bathrooms and the just the ever-scary of knowing we could face disastrous situations at anytime.  Many replied with shocked answers saying knowing they had no idea that some of these incidents had even occurred.  I also explained my vision to the parents and students through the surveys I sent out.  At the top of each survey, I included what the project was for, the role they would play, and how I planned to use this information to better our school.  I haven’t really discussed my vision with community members except for some of our parents who own local businesses and may be interested in donating to help make some of our ideas possible.

As of right now, all the organization has lain on me.  I have been responsible for creating the surveys and deciding how/what to research.  However, I will be handing out the surveys next week and will be relying on those who are given the surveys to complete them and return them to me.  I have also asked my principal and vice-principal to begin gathering information on the current security programs we have in place and why they were chosen.  I have told them that I would like to look at ways that we can improve them.  I am also giving surveys to other teachers that have students that I don’t in class, so, I am relying on them to send out and receive that information as well.  I am also going to talk to someone at central office to gather data on how all the schools in our district manage security.  Overall, I think I am delegating some responsibility, but of the workload will be done by me

Well, like I stated in my previous assignment, I kind of dropped the ball with my action research plan.  So, I kind of started to panic a little bit and my new vice-principal came to the rescue and helped me develop a plan that was both needed at my school and easier to measure than my previous plan.  She also helped me evaluate all the different areas we could explore and different ideas for how to improve our school in these areas.  I also talked with some fellow teachers to see if they felt that security was something that needed to be addressed, looked at and possibly enhanced.  I was surprised when many answered that yes they did think it was something that could possibly be kicked up another notch.  They brought up some good points that many people get here early and stay late and that at some spots around the building, there isn’t adequate lighting.  There is also the issue that the only keypad that works all the time (and not just 8-5) is the keypad by the front office.  Unfortunately, there is limited space in the parking lot closest to the office so many teachers have to park far away and this could potentially lead to a dangerous situation.  They were very onboard with me trying to figure out ways to help with this situation.  I haven’t actually resolved any conflicts yet, so, this is hard to answer.

We already have some things in place to help protect our special needs students.  For instance, parents are required to drop their children in front of the building in our front parking lot.  However, our special needs parents are required to drop their children off in the side parking (only allowed for staff members) and is right next to our cafeteria doors where all students convene in the mornings.  There are hardly any cars and teachers know to be on the lookout for stopped vehicles or students exiting vehicles.   We also have our special needs students get picked up in the same area about 45 minutes before the rest of our students are dismissed.  I haven’t aimed anything specific at the protecting the needs of our special students, but this is something I plan to discuss with my mentor.  As far as how my plan will help students with diverse backgrounds, I think my plan will help all students.  I am not going to really gear towards any one specific culture, economic, or special interest group because I don’t security is biased against any of those.  The only one that might affect specific groups is bullying; if I see this arise in my research, then I will re-asses how to handle and try to eliminate this problem. 

Now that I have such a great idea for a project, I am really excited to get started and begin collecting data from teachers, parents, and students.  I can’t wait to see how I can make my school a more secure place.

References:

United States Department of Justice.  COPS:  Community Oriented Policing Services.  Retrieved October 25, 2012, from http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/Default.asp?Item=35.

Gang Resistance Education And Training.  Prevent Youth Crime, Violence and Gang Involvement.  Retrieved October 27, 2012. http://www.great-online.org/.

Upton, Jodi.  Violence at Games Means Trouble for All:  School Districts, Fans Suffer Consequences.  Retrieved October 28, 2012. http://www.great-online.org/.