Prevent

Campus/Building Security

  • Isotec Security: Isotec Security is a security system designed to protect entrances and exits. Each entrance and exit monitors who goes in and who comes out. The system used by this company is also used to protect the President, guard the nuclear arsenal, and prevent armed robberies. This highly secure system uses door access control entrances to ensure the safety and wellbeing of everyone both inside and outside of the building.
  • ASR Alert Systems: ASR Alert Systems connects automatically to local law enforcement officers. Approved teacher and school administrators are given an alert key that when pressed sets off alarms throughout the entire school. This technology includes video cameras to allow for law enforcement to locate the threat.
  • Guard 911/School Guard: Guard 911 is an app alert system that approved teachers and school administrators download on their smartphone in order to connect directly with law enforcement as well as notify all staff personnel. Also allows for smaller alert notification to specified school personnel in non-life-threatening emergencies.
  • App-based school alert system: An Indiana lawmaker wants to implement an app-based school alert system that both students and school administrators can use.
  • NetTalon: NetTalon is a company that provides a program called Virtual Command. Virtual Command is an alert system that connects automatically to local law enforcement dispatch centers. Each teacher and school administrator is given an alert key that when pressed sets off alarms throughout the entire school. This technology includes video cameras, motion detectors, and controlled door locking to allow for tracking of a threat, location of a threat, and restriction of threat movements that allow law enforcement to better remove of the threat.

Warning Signs

  • The Columbia Lighthouse Project: The Columbia Lighthouse Project is an initiative with the goal of assessing the risk of students to prevent suicide. They use the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale (C-SSRS) to screen students with the intention to allow more teachers to recognize the early signs that often lead students to commit school shootings.
  • Safe2Tell: Safe2Tell is a mobile app that anyone can download onto their smartphone. The company is based out of Colorado and allows all students, teachers and school personnel alike to report anonymously about concerns or threats to their school, community, friends or family. On their online website they also have resources with presentations and training for school personnel, community groups and law enforcement.
  • CSPV at the University of Colorado at Boulder: The Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence is a research center that focuses on how to prevent violence. They partner up with various lobbying firms and work with legislators to change policies with the main purpose of making the world a safer place. They have compiled a list of resources on the best programs, practices and policies to prevent violence.

Example Resources

  • SAMHSA School and Campus Health: The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration provides school administrators with resources to make school safer, prevent bullying, and decrease the amount of underage drinking so that there is a minimized risk of violence.
  • ASCD School Safety Resources: The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development has put together a list of resources for school administrators to keep students safe and help students dealing with mental health issues.
  • NSBA Center for Safe Schools Program: The National School Boards Association provides resources for school personnel to enhance student and school safety. They work with state school board associations to tailor their resources towards the needs of the school that they are assisting. They also host an annual conference to allow school personnel to share knowledge and resources.
  • Safety and Security Guidelines for K-12: Security experts have partnered up to help school administrators pick the best resources for strengthening their building security. They provide a tiered recommendation system so that administrators, no matter what the budget, can prepare for the worst situations in their school. Their system is also tailored to best fit the school that they are working with to ensure that the best methods for that particular school are being followed.
  • Indiana School Safety Guidelines for Emergency Response Systems: The Indiana Department of Homeland Security has compiled a list of their minimum standards and best practices to ensure school safety. When compiling this list, experts from across Indiana were consulted. These experts include the Indiana Sheriffs’ Association, the Indiana Association of Chiefs of Police, and the Indiana Department of Education. These experts encourage these recommendations to be implemented in every school, not just across Indian, but across the entire country. These safety guidelines ensure that schools are using the best practices and assist schools is directing their funding towards safety and security.

Sample Plans

  • How Schools Have Successfully Prevented Violence: This is an article on the steps to take in order to prevent violence in schools by minimizing threats, securing a school from active threats, and quickly and effectively informing law enforcement of a threat.
  • REMS Technical Assistance Center: The Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools Center provides plans and tools for every step of the process involving a school shooting including plans on how to prevent, protect, mitigate, respond, and recover from a school shooting.
  • Secret Service NTAC Enhancing School Safety Brief: United States Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center recommended targeted school violence prevention plan.
  • FC on School Safety: The Federal Commission has compiled resources past school safety reports, reports on past school shootings, and federal and state resources to reach out to better prevent and deal with acts of violence
  • Southwestern Consolidated Fact Summary: The Southwestern Consolidated School District’s Emergency Response System is an example plan of one of the safest schools in America. This plan has been endorsed by Indiana Chiefs of Police. SWAT Associations, the Indiana State Teacher’s Associations and the Principals and Superintendents Associations. This plan contains all the information that school personnel would need to create a plan for their school.

Sample Legislation

  • Indiana Senate Bill 2: Indiana Senate Bill 2 states that school buses must have black reflective tape mounted in certain areas of the school bus as well as the daytime running lights illuminated at all times during the operation and transporting of passengers. Anyone who commits a school bus stop arm infraction will have a suspension on their driving privileges.
  • Indiana House Bill 1398: Indiana House Bill 1398 states that law enforcement is permitted to share private investigation records with school personnel to enhance school safety without losing the discretion of confidentiality.
  • Indiana Senate Bill 127: Indiana Senate Bill 127 allows a school corporation or personnel to place a referendum on the ballot to impose a school safety tax that allows a school to get money that they may spend on improving school safety.
  • Indiana House Bill 1253: Indiana House Bill 1253 allows school personnel to carry a firearm in or on school property once authorized by the school board. The authorized personnel must complete and provide proof of completion of specialized weapons training and a mental specified health screening.
  • Indiana House Bill 1225: Indiana House Bill 1225 allows school personnel along with their local sheriff to apply for a grant from the Indiana secured school fund to provide for the initial costs of setting up an active event warning system.
  • Indiana House Bill 1224: Indiana House Bill 1224 establishes a pilot program that pairs students with individuals 55 years or older in order to help improve school safety. The bill also grants schools, selected by the Department of Education, to apply for grants to help administer the program.
  • Indiana House Bill 1063: Indiana House Bill 1063 adds a bleeding control kit as required school safety equipment. The bill also required school to introduce a Stop the Bleed program to learn the use of bleeding control kits.
  • Indiana House Bill 1004: Indiana House Bill 1004 allows for the use of the Indiana Secured School Fund to provide grant matching that allows a school to employ a law enforcement officer.
  • DOJ Attorney General Announcement: The Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, announced his future implementations to improve school safety. These implementations include things like hiring more school resource officers, emergency funding to schools that suffer from school shootings, and holding federal agencies accountable to conduct thorough firearm background checks.