Sometimes we all need a ‘refresher course’
School campus safety professionals are always scouting new and innovative ways to ensure a safe and secure environment for students, staff and faculty.
As important as it is to research and implement new safety techniques, it is as important to review the proven methods that are simple, inexpensive and most notably successful.
Here’s a short list of common-sense rules for a safer campus:
- Assure that campus security-police and staff members are visible, approachable and helpful with students and visitors. This open communication invites more individuals to report crimes, suspicious activity, or other potential problems.
- Require that all vehicles on campus be registered with security and display a decal, which will easily identify the vehicles that are permitted on campus.
- Require all visitors to check in with security and be given a visitors’ pass and temporary vehicle pass. Know who is entering and leaving your building and parking on campus.
- Many schools require students, staff and faculty to wear their school IDs while on campus. If this is a requirement at your school, enforce it. Consistency matters.
- Encourage students to arrive to class on time, park close to campus buildings in well-lit, well-traveled areas of the parking lot, and enter and leave class together.
- Remind students and staff to secure all valuable items (purses, laptops, cell phones, etc.) while on school property. Anything of value can and probably will be stolen if left unattended! Do NOT leave anything of value inside vehicles.
- Remind faculty and staff to review emergency procedures and discuss emergency response protocols (lock-downs, shelter-in-place, intruder alert, evacuations, etc.) with students at the beginning of each semester.
- Encourage a climate of “see-something/say-something.”. Any time you see a potential problem, conflict, or issue developing, confront it immediately and solve it before it explodes into a crisis.
This list is certainly not exhaustive nor is it a “one size fits all” for every K-12 school, college or university. However, these common-sense principles are a good start for maintaining a safe and secure campus.