School Safety in the News 5-9-13

Pierce Co., Washington emergency management wins national school safety award

School board reviews school safety action plan

Penn State holds campus safety seminar

County's school safety efforts protect 30,000 students

Governor Pence signs school safety funding bill

McGruff, the Crime Dog, has a new gig

Sheriff considers school safety ideas

Some Thoughts on the Aurora Shooting

Aurora, CO
Like many others, I woke up this morning to the news of the spree shooting in Aurora, killing 12 and wounding 50.  It was a midnight showing of "The Dark Knight Rising".  It makes me angry when wolves prey on the innocent.

Michael Dorn has an excellent blog on the topic in which he gives his take on the shooting.  My take is a bit different.  Already on the the news, talking heads chatter on about things like gun control, psychology, seek to know why the gunman would do this horrible thing, and wonder what could have been done to prevent it.

 The awful secret to school safety, as well as emergency management, is that it is impossible to stop bad things from happening.  There are things that can be done to mitigate a disaster, and can help prevent an attack, but there is little that can be done from stopping a dedicated person from acting upon the evil in their hearts.

That doesn't mean we don't do everything we can to prevent an attack.  It just means that we should do what we can to understand why an attack occurred, and improve the way we prepare.  We should spend little time, if any, pounding our chests and crying, "Why?"

Sheepdogs adapt, change, and then overcome.

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Expert Witnesses: A Current Hot Topic Part II

Further research on the Internet revealed a blog article by Ken Trump, Buyer beware: Risky school safety consultants, expert witnesses.  This article provided some relevant info.  His first question, "If a consultant represented himself as having written dozens of “books” in a short period of time, did he really write “books” or perhaps a series of short pamphlets or booklets instead of real books?"  This question should be one a school administrator asks when viewing a person's resume.  However, this is clouded by knowing what constitutes a "book."  The dictionary tells us that a book is:  1. A set of written, printed, or blank pages fastened along one side and encased between protective covers.  2.a. A printed or written literary work.

There is nothing that mentions length of time between books, or the length of the books. A booklet is a thin book, and a pamphlet is usually just a few pages without binding.  What is more important than the length of work is the content of the work.  Consider the impact of Thomas Paine's pamphlet Common Sense.  So consider the content, not the length of work or other extemporaneous details.  

Of more importance is the technical expertise of the expert, and for what particular reason you need this expert.  Mr. Trump goes into this a bit as well with his next question, "Did the “expert” actually work in K-12 school settings specifically on safety, security, and emergency preparedness issues or were they employed in capacities where, at best, they were remotely involved with such responsibilities?"

The key here is to ask yourself in what regards do you need this school safety expert, then ask in what capacity that person worked with the schools, and what they accomplished in that position.  A security guard may be well grounded in security, and in some aspects of safety, but may not necessarily have a similar background in all matters of safety, or in emergency management.  A security guard may have knowledge of emergency management, and if that is what you need the expert in, you would need to ask them about their knowledge of emergency management.  An EMA director should have excellent knowledge of emergency management, but they may not know the various issues in implementing such measures in a school setting.

Remember, often among peers in any line of work, a certain amount of competition or rivalry develops which can color viewpoints. It's worthwhile to look to what is fact and what may be nothing more then innuendo. Don't assume you're getting the correct information until you've done a little research on your own, to verify the veracity of what you're being told.  

The lesson here is caveat emptor, "Let the buyer beware."  Mr. Dorn, Mr. Babitsky and Mr. Trump are telling us to look into the backgrounds of people who will be working for us, and to not take anything at face value.

Good advice.

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