After every school shooting on a K-12 campus, there is no shortage of tips, suggestions, or demands for change. Not all of these approaches are practical or possible; some are expensive, infeasible, and do not take into account the culture of the school district and the surrounding community.

Many experts offered by the media offer solutions that can hardly be done on most campuses: lock down every facility, hand out key cards to every student, install expensive cameras or panic alarm systems, try to monitor every visitor , ask the local police to place a full-time officer on site. So what will work to prevent these unpredictable (and rare but catastrophic) events?

It’s time to return to a calmer, common sense response to this national discussion, using tools and ideas that already exist or can be put to use on campus. This requires an approach to utilizing the critical components of school safety and violence prevention: safety planning, adjusting existing policies, installing cost-effective security devices, creating district-led threat assessment teams, and use of threat management protocols in real time.

We can also take guidance from the 2002 “Safe School Initiative” report created by the US Secret Service: Most shooters do not warn their targets directly; they tell a third party, and many of them feel disconnected, discontent, depressed and vindictive. A team is needed to lead our schools and districts; a team will be needed to respond to the problem of school violence. Consider these must-haves for our K-12 schools:

1. Hire more school counselors (trained in threat assessment and response).

The ratio of counselors to students is painfully low. They are pulled in many directions and are not always able to talk to as many students in crisis as they would like. In addition to increasing their number state by state, they must be fully trained in best practices for threat assessment and violence risk assessment.

2. Parent involvement (in school safety and behavior problems).

The DARE violence and drug abuse prevention program uses a triangular model, soliciting the support of schools, police and parents. Parents are sometimes the least supportive and that helps the concept fail. Each campus must have current contact information for each student’s parent or guardian. They need to be brought in to discuss what they are seeing at home with high risk students.

3. Gun safety education (for kids, and urgent for parents to use trigger locks and safes).

College shooters often get their guns by stealing them from their families. Many people still believe that their children will not find their weapons, so carefully hidden in dressers, bedside tables, under beds and in closets. We need a national campaign to secure every gun in every home. We need to use federal grants or funds, and even giveaways with low-cost trigger locks or gun safes, provided by gun manufacturers.

4. Gold Star Program (reaching those children who have fallen into oblivion).

This unique idea is simple: During staff development days, print lists of the names of all the students in the school and post them on the walls of unused classrooms. Ask teachers to place a gold star next to the name of any student with whom you have not had contact. Patterns will emerge quickly, showing kids that they haven’t had support or interaction from anyone on campus (a risk factor in the Secret Service study).

5. Anonymous tip lines (for threats, pending fights, and other security issues).

Students who tell us after a shooting that they knew it could happen (another factor in the Secret Service study), demonstrate the need to be able to tell adults, anonymously and in a protected way. This includes recorded message lines, Twitter accounts, or other privacy-controlled social networking sites, where campus administrators can monitor, investigate, and determine the validity of the information.

6. Security officers and campus devices (cameras, better door hardware, classroom phone lines, etc.).

In a perfect world, where cost was not a factor, we would have the luxury of putting a trained, handpicked, and armed security officer on every campus. Until then, the use of trained, selected and vigilant security agents has deterrent and early warning value. Cost-effective security devices are available to create entry bottlenecks, stronger classrooms, and mass notification systems. Security is not someone else’s job. Every employee should know that he or she is in charge of keeping themselves and everyone else safe. Teachers and staff who raise potential safety concerns with the principal or police should be rewarded.

7. Media plans (already implemented).

Just as the police and military have a “go bag,” school districts should create multiple copies of an organized and up-to-date media kit. They need a trained spokesperson, who has already met with the Public Information Officer or local police chief, and can speak accurately on behalf of the district and its campuses.

8. Regular drills (evacuation, safe rooms, fire, earthquake, tornado).

Under stress we respond as to how we have been trained. If you’ve never been reminded to dial “9” first to get an outside line before dialing 911, or that if you dial 911 on your cell phone, the state highway patrol may respond, then under stress it’s may not respond. correctly. Students, teachers, administrators, and staff must participate in regular active shooter drills; lockdown/shelter-in-place/or safe room drills; and fire and disaster drills. The key to success against an armed perpetrator is safe evacuations, barricaded safe rooms, or fighting until the police arrive.

9. Daily police presence (and interactions with students).

If there is no assigned school resource officer, local police and sheriffs should increase their patrols of perimeters, parking lots, and even taking walks on campus, every day, at irregular times. The more they can see and be seen by students as a source of help, and not the enemy, the better.

10. A District-led Threat Assessment Team (which meets regularly).

As with workplace violence prevention efforts in organizations, there is great power and intelligence harnessed when stakeholders in a school district can meet in person or by conference call, for high threat situations. This includes bomb threats; gang problems; a student making veiled threats or creating disturbing essays or drawings; threats to or by the employee, including domestic violence; angry, disruptive, or threatening parents; or any event that poses significant liability or risk to the District, staff, and students. Members of the Threat Assessment Team (TAT) often include District administrators and school business officials, risk and security managers, principals, expert teachers, counselors, psychologists, attorneys, and security officers.

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