Parents are preparing for another school year.
With a hectic schedule of back to school shopping, practices and meetings, and the exciting prospects of another school year, parents (and children) also find themselves facing the return to school with unsettling fears and anxieties about school safety.
Vision Tactical director Yaseen Theba says that school safety is about more than just school violence, and that making sure your children are safe at school is not just the job of teachers.
“As a parent, crossing your fingers and hoping for the best is not good enough. It takes collaboration between all school stakeholders - educators, parents, students, and emergency responders - to make our schools safer,” she said.
Theba outlined tips you can follow to keep your children safe returning to school.
See Something, Say Something Is Not Just For Adults.
Children are often told not to piemp each other. But disclosing information related to safety is critically important - and children need to know that.
Talk to your children about what to do when they see or hear concerning statements or social media posts, or witness behaviours that are odd or unsettling.
Emphasise to your children that they are being asked to disclose incidents, actions, and statements that are suspicious, disturbing, or just “off” in some way.
Discuss ways to report threats or incidents to adults - not just sharing concerns via social media or talking with other students. If your children report information to you, make sure to share it quickly, accurately, and confidentially, not with other parents in the stands at a game or on social media, but directly with the school or law-enforcement officials.
Another Reason To Think Before You Post.
Research by the Educators’ School Safety Network indicates that in the 2017-18 school year, more than 50 school-based threats of violence were made, distributed, and shared via social media.
Talk to your children about the appropriate use of social media (and technology in general) and don’t be afraid to limit and/or monitor its use. In particular, make sure your children understand that making what they might consider “jokes” about shootings, bombs, or other violence is not acceptable - and has dire consequences.
No matter their age, your children need to be active participants in keeping themselves safe, not simply passive bystanders or people waiting for help.
Make sure your children understand and can apply basic safety procedures.
Things such as “stop, drop, and roll,” public transport safety, or “stranger danger” might be taught in school, but should also be reviewed and reinforced at home. Emphasise that no matter the situation they must act quickly to move away from the danger to safety.
Family emergency plans.
Safety tips
- Develop and discuss a family emergency plan.
- Make sure your children know (and have access to) important emergency contact information such as names, addresses, phone numbers, etc.
- Your children should know and understand who is authorised to pick them up, who they are allowed to go with, and how they should get in contact with you in the event of an emergency.
- Make sure the school has the most updated and current information for emergency contacts - and update them every time they change.
- Advocate for school safety every day. Parents are powerful advocates for important improvements in school safety.
Don’t know where to start?
- Have all school staff members been trained in all aspects of crisis response (such as medical emergencies, severe weather etc), not just an active shooter?
- Is the school’s crisis plan or emergency operations plan reviewed and revised each year?
- Does it deal with all hazards, or just an active shooter? Have students been given all hazards crisis response training that is appropriate to their age and developmental level?
- Does your school have a parent reunification plan to reunite parents and learners after an emergency event?
Better still, there is so much that can be done to increase the safety of children in schools and in public - don’t underestimate your power as a parent to make it happen.