Campus Safety Voices Campus Safety Magazine

Southern hospitality may be alive and well in much of North Carolina, but safety precedes manners at Buncombe County Public Schools.For Joseph Hough, district assistant superintendent of auxiliary services and school safety and a 2024 Campus Safety Director of the Year finalist, access control has always been a priority. Over the years, he has implemented several inexpensive -- and even some free -- access control programs or systems that revolve around student and staff training.Hough shares...

Nineteen years ago, Aaron Skrbin, now director of safety and security at the Allegheny Intermediate Unit, was unwittingly thrust into the role of school safety. During his second meeting as assistant principal at a Pennsylvania school district, the superintendent noted he had a first responder background before handing him a dusty binder containing the district's emergency operations plans written following September 11. "You're in charge of this now," the superintendent said. ...

Much of today’s focus regarding K-12 school safety and security is on emergency response. Various stakeholders, including district leaders, parents, and school boards, want to know if a school is prepared to respond to an incident, particularly those involving violence.However, prevention should be at the forefront of the rhetoric and school safety plans, and behavioral threat assessments play a pivotal role.During the pandemic, the United States saw a significant uptick in homicides, shootin...

On March 5, 2024, the U.S. Department of Education issued Liberty University a $14 million fine over its violation of the Clery Act for its handling of sexual assault allegations. Liberty also violated the Clery Act in 2010, and the latest review found the school failed to initiate and sustain remedial action from those findings.The penalty is the largest Clery fine in history, dwarfing the Department's second-largest $4.5 million fine levied against Michigan State University in 2019 over its...

Being proactive with a unified approach to school security and safety is critical to preventing and responding to incidents. However, historically most school districts have taken the exact opposite approach. Traditionally, they’ve waited to address their pressing safety and security vulnerabilities until after a major incident has occurred, according to Michael Garcia, HID Global’s safe schools national end user director. “Force protection, defense in depth, qualitative third party, ind...

Inclusivity is the practice of providing equal access to opportunities and resources for those who might otherwise be marginalized. An inclusive school safety plan accounts for everyone’s individual needs and abilities — including students and staff — when and if a school is faced with an emergency.We spoke with Dr. Roderick Sams, a former educator and administrator of 20+ years, about ways schools and districts can create a more inclusive safety plan by:1. Removing language barriers (0:01)2....