School safety is something many of us worry about every day, whether we have students in our lives, work in schools, or simply hold concern for school as a part of our communities. This series will explore ways superintendents and administrators can ensure schools are as safe as possible.

K-12 Safest Schools: for Superintendents & Administrators – – Who are the “Stakeholders”? – Part 2 of 10

To understand who plays a part in keeping schools safe and why it matters, we first must explore the stakeholders. Who are they, and what is their stake? We will look at all parties involved in school safety, including students, families, faculty and staff, administrators, and the broader community, including counselors and law enforcement.

What is at stake for school safety differs between each of these parties, while they all share some common ground as well. For example, administrators may have a bigger picture of school safety while students are focused on the day-to-day experience. Law enforcement and the community may worry less about education and more about overall wellbeing and security. Understanding these motivations is key to ensuring each school is safe.

K-12 Safest Schools: for Superintendents & Administrators – – Why Efficient Training & Tracking of Safety Issues is Fundamental  – Part 3 of 10

Every stakeholder needs the training to identify safety issues and good examples of safety to celebrate. They need to access this training or any questions they may have quickly and efficiently to make the right decisions in a minimal amount of time. 

We’ll explore why training and tracking are vital to ensuring accountability, collaboration, reporting, resolution, review and improvement, and knowing when to escalate and delegate — all in a simple, doable way.

 K-12 Safest Schools: for Superintendents & Administrators – – Simplify, Simplify, Simplify – Part 4 of 10

Speaking of simplification, the following article will delve deeper into that topic. School safety needs to be an everyday, almost automatic action that supports every other decision and step a stakeholder takes. Simplifying all of the school safety steps ensures they are functional and easy to repeat.

K-12 Safest Schools: for Superintendents & Administrators – – What Incidents to Address – Part 5 of 10

Not every school safety incident is alike. In this article, we’ll talk about what incidents to address while showing examples of school safety success. We will identify red flags like behavior concerns, abuse, weapons, and other incidents of concern based on what we already know about school safety. 

K-12 Safest Schools: for Superintendents & Administrators – – Nothing Falls Through the Cracks – Part 6 of 10 (Coming Soon)

Building on the previous article exploring incidents to address and red flags to note, this article will emphasize encouraging all stakeholders to submit incident reports. It will also discuss why it’s practical to pave a path for people to do this quickly and the importance of a paper trail to reduce liability and show respect to stakeholders. Data allows stakeholders to follow trends, which means that nothing falls through the cracks. 

K-12 Safest Schools: for Superintendents & Administrators – – Escalating important issues – Part 7 of 10 (Coming Soon)

Here, we will look at real-life examples of what kinds of issues can be escalated and how they can involve various stakeholders’ input. We’ll also discuss privacy concerns while escalating essential issues, including federal, state, and local law and how it may apply. 

K-12 Safest Schools: for Superintendents & Administrators – – Accountability – Part 8 of 10 (Coming Soon)

A good school safety tracking and reporting system ensure all stakeholders show respect and concern for every other stakeholder and their wellbeing and success. This means that accountability is enforced, and positive results will follow. We will show you what happens when accountability fails — and what happens when accountability works well, to the benefit of all.

K-12 Safest Schools: for Superintendents & Administrators – – Resolution and Celebration – Part 9 of 10 (Coming Soon)

Ideally, every school safety issue is resolved and that resolution is celebrated! We will show you how other school safety stakeholders have done precisely this.

K-12 Safest Schools: for Superintendents & Administrators – – Summary – Part 10 of 10 (Coming Soon)

Finally, we’ll summarize all of the above topics and what you should take away as a key point from each article. This is an excellent way to have a quick reference for the most important topics, while you dig deeply as needed using each longer article.

GroupLink’s platforms, including GroupLink for SafestSchools, GroupLink Workflow Process & Incident Tracking and GroupLink everything HelpDesk help stakeholders increase student safety and operational efficiency, collaboration, and accountability, while significantly reducing liability and risk associated with safety issues. Connect with us online or call us at 801-335-0700. You can also email us at info@grouplink.net to learn more.