August 19, 2002—To increase the safety of the millions of students and teachers now returning to school, the non-profit American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) recommends that all schools develop effective policies, plans, and procedures to respond to emergencies and possible acts of future violence.
Researchers that completed a recent study on school emergency preparedness funded by the ASSE Foundation (ASSEF), recommend that each school system develop customized guidelines that can be incorporated into a comprehensive plan “that best serves its distinctive needs.”
The researchers also recommend that schools work with local authorities and submit current scale diagrams of their facilities to local first-responder authorities such as the police and fire departments; conduct school drills to prepare all for such a crisis; hold bi-annual assemblies to discuss conflict resolution and how to identify violent behavior; and improve school security by installing magnetic metal detectors and setting up other ways to keep a “closed campus.”
The ASSEF study of several West Virginia junior and senior high schools on violence preparedness found that the schools from three counties participating in the study lacked effective policies, plans, and procedures to respond to acts of school violence and terrorism. As a result of the study, those schools are now developing and implementing programs to address this.
For the complete findings of the “How to Cope with Terrorism/Violence in the Schools” survey, as well as more information about the ASSE Foundation, which funds several individual scholarships and research projects each year, visit the ASSE Web site under Foundation or call 847/699-2929.
