Establishing and Enhancing Clear School Policies Regarding Appropriate Behavior

• Create a climate of ownership and school pride, for example a graffiti and community clean-up program.
• Ensure that behavior expectations are clearly communicated, consistently enforced, and fairly applied.
• Develop and enforce a school dress code. Students and staff tend to behave the way they are allowed to dress.

Developing Threat Assessment

• Develop threat assessment procedures. Include descriptions of the early warning signs of potentially violent behavior and the procedures for identifying children with these signs.
• Refer troubled, agitated, ot depressed youth to mental health services and make sure that they get help.
• Identify and track repeat offenders. Most school crime problems are caused by a small percentage of students.

Enhancing Students' Personal and Social Skills

• Ask students to sign a pledge not to tease, bully, or put down others.
• Encourage students to report suspicious individuals or threats. Provide a toll-free anonymous hotline to report weapons and other criminal activity.
• Actively involve students in making decisions about school policies and programs:
  • Implement a peer-counseling and peer mediation program.
  • Involve students in managing student events and campus beautification projects.

Building Family Partnerships

Conduct formal discussions with parents about safety and security:

• Encourage parents to teach their children healthy ways of responding to bullying, teasing, and harassment at school.
• Advocate home security for weapons and promote gun safety instruction for all family members.
• Give parents information on effective parenting practices and offer training to those who seek additional support.

Fostering Diversity

• Create written policies that prohibit all forms of harassment and publicize them.
• Promote cultural diversity and tolerance through classroom discussions, lesson plans, etc.

Influencing School and Community Norms Related to Violence

Identify appropriate research-based programs and strategies to promote student safety:

• Teach conflict resolution, anger management, mediation, social problem solving, etc.
• Bully-proof schools by adopting effective, anti-bullying/harassment programs.

Securing School Grounds

• Provide a safe physical environment. School grounds should be assessed for such things as ease of access by dangerous individuals and natural barriers to surveillance, such as shrubs. Eliminate dark, secluded, and unsupervised spaces.
• Control campus access. Minimize the number of campus entrance and exit points used daily:
  • Establish uniform screening procedures to monitor visitors and potential intruders.
  • Require picture ID cards for all students and staff.

References

Adler, A. Schools Checklist: Creating a Positive and Safe School Climate. Jacksonville, FL: Silence Hurts

Oregon School Boards Association (2002). What Can Schools Do? Salem, OR.

Stephens, R. 40 Ways to Safer Schools. Westlake Village, CA: National School Safety Center.