Lessons in school safety

Far from being helpless, parents can be important players in making schools safer, security experts say. Recent school shootings may be causing some parents to ask questions of their own schools – and that can be a good thing.

“Parents are the No. 1 source that can make sure safety is kept on the front burner,” said Kenneth Trump, president of the National School Safety and Security Services consulting firm in Cleveland.

Parents can help in several ways:

•Ask good questions to understand school procedures about violence drills, just like you would fire drills and storm drills.

Ask respectfully, but don’t worry about sounding paranoid or overprotective.

“It’s fair for students and parents to expect their schools to be safe – and they mostly are,” said Anna Weselak, National PTA president. “If school is a safe place for children, then they can learn. And teachers can’t teach either if schools aren’t safe.”

Trump urged parents to ask pointed questions of school administrators, though he cautioned against taking a finger-pointing approach.

First, ask if the school district has a crisis team, he said. The answer should be yes.

Then ask how often it meets, and how often police review the emergency plan to make sure it works.

Trump, who has worked with schools in 45 states, reported that it’s not uncommon to have outdated plans, with either retirees or even deceased people listed as top-tier contacts.

•See if your school invites parents to get involved in devising anti-violence policies.

Bruce Snelling, operations commander of Denver Public Schools’ safety and security department, said parents there are probably are more aware of security issues since it’s less than an hour’s drive from both Littleton – site of the 1999 high school shooting rampage that left 12 students and a teacher dead – and Bailey, where six girls were taken hostage and one fatally shot in September.

Even there, though, parents can become preoccupied with test scores, resulting in apathy about safety, he said.

To combat that, the school system now includes parents in its emergency response plan, requiring at least one parent to be on the crisis team for each building along with administrators and law enforcement.

“The key for us is making sure everyone knows that security is everyone’s responsibility,” he said.

Even parents not on a formal committee should become familiar with the physical plant of the building – be it by attending band concerts or chaperoning dances – and then make suggestions on how to improve limited lines of sight, lighting and the perimeter of the school, said Ann Harkins, vice president for programs at the National Crime Prevention Council.

•Support security measures.

Don’t scoff at being asked to use a certain door for entry or to check in at the office, Weselak said. Urban areas tend to be more receptive to security measures – even metal detectors – because they don’t have the “it-can’t-happen-here” mentality, Trump said, even though school shootings actually are less common in big cities than suburban or rural areas.

Children and parents might first be intimidated by additional security, but, just like most people feel about airport X-rays, they’ll ultimately find reassurance in it, said Alec Miller, chief of child and adolescent psychology at Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.

•Encourage children to talk about what’s going on in school.

Never underestimate what a seventh – or even a second – grader says about something that’s a cause for concern, Harkins said. Other kids can often tip off adults to a pending safety problem, she added.