First the Obama Administration proposed eliminating K-12 school emergency planning grants from the 2012 federal budget.  Now, it appears the House Appropriations Committee is calling to eliminate the funds from this year’s 2011 budget!

In a Friday press release on $4 billion in spending cuts as a part of a proposed short term government funding Continuing Resolution (CR), the House Appropriations Committee proposed eliminating $32 million for Safe Schools and Citizenship Education.  While I am working on confirming the programs under this category, it appears this may include the Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools (REMS) school emergency planning grants for the current 2011 budget year.

The fact remains the Department of Education has not issued a call for proposals for the REMS program as of this writing.  Normally these grants are announced in January or February.  Buzz in the school safety community is that the REMS grant program will be eliminated this year, which seems to coincide with the House Appropriations Committee recommended cut.

It appears the Republican majority is offering up this cut and others for programs the Obama Administration has already proposed cutting in 2012, all in order to get a compromise Continuing Resolution while Congress debates bigger FY2011 budget cuts. 

Although many people (myself included) agree there is massive waste in federal spending, the REMS program is one of only a handful of success stories from the Department of Education’s historically lame management of federal school safety policy and funding.  The program, which started in 2003, continues to see hundreds and hundreds more applicants than the Department funds each year, suggesting a significant need exists for expansion, not elimination, of this program.  REMS is already under-funded at around $30 million a year (awards to about 100 school districts nationwide).

A 2007 investigation by the federal General Accounting Office found schools woefully prepared for school emergency planning.  Testimony at a 2007 House Homeland Security Committee Hearing reinforced the need for more resources and strengthening of school emergency preparedness efforts. 

Given REMS is the only dedicated federal funded grant program exclusively for K-12 school emergency planning in the Department of Education, or for that matter the federal government as a whole, its elimination by both the Obama Administration and the House Appropriations Committee is nothing short of inexcusable and negligent.

Cut federal spending?  Absolutely.  But cut the right things.  And eliminating K-12 school emergency planning is not one of the right things!

Ken Trump

Visit School Security Blog at:  http://www.schoolsecurityblog.com

Federal funding for local school emergency planning grants has been eliminated in President Obama’s FY2012 proposed budget.

Kevin Jennings, Obama’s Assistant Deputy Secretary for Safe and Drug Free Schools, confirmed the elimination of the Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools (REMS) grant program via email on Thursday.  Jennings has yet to respond to my follow-up email asking for the rationale for the cut.

Local School Emergency Planning Grants Eliminated Following Safe and Drug Free Schools State Grants Elimination

The Administration eliminated an already under-funded $30 million Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools (REMS) grant program. A 2007 investigation by the federal General Accounting Office found schools woefully prepared for school emergency planning.  Testimony at a 2007 House Homeland Security Committee Hearing reinforced the need for more resources and strengthening of school emergency preparedness efforts.

The REMS grants, normally with calls for proposals posted in January or February, have not been made available so far in 2011.  It is unclear whether the Education Department’s failure to announce this year’s REMS grants is due to the continuing budget resolution delays by Congress or if the Department is intentionally withholding the current year’s REMS funding to avoid offering the competition this year.

A token $8.3 million is proposed in the FY2012 budget to provide state education agencies  (SEAs) approximately 12 grants at $500,000 to assist local schools with emergency planning.  This plays out to about $6 million in actual dollars going to SEAs while the rest goes to peer review and “other school safety initiatives,” meaning the near-nothing full $8.3 million will not even make it to help local schools.

This program elimination and the Department of Education’s full proposed budget for the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools is online at “Supporting Student Success Fiscal Year 2012 Budget Request.”

Obama, Secretary Duncan, and Kevin Jennings already eliminated the state grant component of the Safe and Drug Free Schools Program, with the approval of Congress, in one of their initial budget proposals for the Department.  This move eliminated formula grants to local school districts which could be used to meet locally identified school safety, security, prevention, and preparedness needs.

Funding Bolstered for Politically-Driven Bullying and LGBT Agenda; Feds Recklessly Neglect School Security and Emergency Planning

The proposed FY2012 budget calls for fully funding Kevin Jennings’ pet project, the Successful, Safe, and Healthy Students (SSHS) program at a proposed budget of slightly less than $365 million.   The focus of this program is skewed heavily toward bullying, harassment, and ”school climate surveys.”

Jennings has been on a nationwide speaking tour where his presentations are almost exclusively focused on bullying, harassment, and Lesbian-Gay-Bi-Sexual and Transgender themes.  The Department promotes the presentations as highlighting, “…the Department’s efforts over the past year to prevent bullying and create safe learning environments through its Safe and Supportive School grants program.”

The Safe and Supportive School grants program, funded in a pilot program in Fiscal Year 2010 at $38.8 million for 11 states, is focused on creating “school climate surveys” and ”grading” schools on school safety.

Jennings has publicly stated that school safety has for too long been defined based on “violence” and, in turn, has redefined federal school safety policy and funding to define school safety based on “climate” and bullying, harassment, and related themes.

Sorely missing from Jennings’ speeches, and increasingly from Department funding, is anything related to school security, school policing, and now school emergency planning.

Federal Cuts Set the Stage for a Pre-Columbine Mentality and Higher-Risk School Safety Climate

The proposed move by Jennings, Duncan, and Obama to eliminate the already embarrassingly pithy amount of $30 million in Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools (REMS) grant awards to local school district is reckless, negligent, and inexcusable.  

A number of school safety specialists believe it is just a matter of time before the next Columbine — or worse.  We already have a pre-Columbine mentality in the education community in general, in federal school safety policy and funding specifically, and in the blind eyes of those in Congress who as a whole have shown no interest or attention to the Department of Education’s skewed school safety policy and funding proposals.

The past few months have brought a number of high-profile school shootings around the nation.  An assistant principal killed and principal shot in Omaha; school shooting incidents in Los Angeles; a shooting at a Florida school board meeting; and more.  

When the bullets start flying, these and other schools are not looking for a school climate survey.  They are looking for security and emergency preparedness measures.  They sure won’t find any support in these areas from Jennings, Duncan, the Obama Administration, or Congress.

But when the next high-profile incident occurs, the politicians, educators, and others will once again scratch their heads and ask, “How did this happen?”   I will be standing by with mirrors to hand to them so they can look in the mirror to quickly find the answer to their question.

Meanwhile, educators, safety officials, and parents who, like me, are appalled by the elimination of federal school emergency planning funding should be on the phones calling their Congressman and Senators at their Washington offices now.  The education associations should also wake up their lobbyists and have them focus (for a change) on school safety, and not just “education reform” and academic funding interests in Congress.

Ken Trump

Visit School Security Blog at:  http://www.schoolsecurityblog.com

Locking down eight schools in the vicinity of a Los Angeles high school where a school police officer reported being shot was not overdoing school security.  How the lockdowns were implemented probably was over-the-top, however.

Jay Mathews, a respected education columnist for The Washington Post, partially hit his target in challenging the way lockdowns were put in place in eight Los Angeles schools while police conducted a major manhunt for an alleged shooter of a school police officer on January 19th.  Mathews argues that the lockdowns, during which time teaching stopped and students were not allowed to use restrooms for hours and hours, was “overdoing school security.”

Locking Down Was Not Overdoing Security, But How It Was Done Seems Over-the-Top

Police administrators now claim the school officer falsified his report of being shot by a fleeing individual suspected of breaking into a car near El Camino Real High School.  But this was not known at the time the lockdowns were engaged at other area schools. 

So contrary to Jay’s questioning whether lockdowns were appropriate, they were the right thing to do.  It is not uncommon or unreasonable to lockdown schools in a region where a believed shooter is still loose and could pose a potential threat.

What is questionable, and very likely over-the-top, is that teaching stopped and students were not allowed to use restrooms at the nearby schools for six hours.  The schools should have locked down, but probably not to the level of a full-scale internal lockdown when there was no known threat inside each of the eight schools. A modified lockdown at these schools may have been much more logical.

Multiple Levels of Lockdown: A Common and Practical Approach

Many schools have at least two levels of lockdowns:  One where students are indeed locked in secure rooms and teaching is stopped due to an active threat on site.  The second is a modified lockdown where a potential threat outside of the school results in doors being locked, access controlled, students kept inside, and heightened security and supervision kept in place until an “all clear” is received from authorities.

A full scale lockdown was logical for El Camino Real High School.  The alleged incident was believed to have occurred there and it was logical to believe the suspect could have been in that school.

But a modified lockdown would seem to have been more appropriate for the other eight schools.  While it was believed there was an armed suspect fleeing from El Camino Real High School, I have seen no reports indicating anyone believed the suspect was inside any of the eight other schools.  Locking them down was simply a precaution — one which was reasonable, but not implemented in the most logical manner.

So Jay missed the target by suggesting other schools should not have been locked down. But he nailed it in questioning the method of how they were locked down and the implications of how it was done.

Most Schools Do Not Automatically Evacuate on Bomb Threats

Jay was also on target with his observation about the questionable practice of automatically evacuating schools for a couple hours on bomb threats.  He was off a bit, though, in referring to this as a “standard practice.”

In fact, the “best practice” and most common one we find for handling school bomb threats around the country is NOT to evacuate.  Instead, school and law enforcement officials evaluate each threat incident on a case-by-case basis and respond accordingly.  A suspicious box in the hallway may indeed lead to a justifiable evacuation; however, a vague phone call or scribbling of a non-specific threat on a school restroom stall door may not.

Crisis Plans Must Be Created, Trained, and Drilled in Advance

The way lockdowns were handled in Los Angeles reinforces the importance of schools having solid emergency guidelines, training their staff in advance on these guidelines, and practicing the guidelines through drills and exercises prior to a crisis.  The L.A. school district was criticized just days prior to the January 19th incident for disconnects between mandatory district policy and day-to-day practice when they failed to run random metal detector checks at Gardena High School the day of a separate unrelated shooting incident at that school.

So our friend, Jay Mathews, was in the ballpark on his assessment of the L.A. response.  He just needed a little professional coaching to get him to home plate. 

I hope this helped.  And I apologize for not having something written on it ahead of time to make his pre-writing research easier, and to keep my loyal followers on their toes on this issue.

Ken Trump

Visit School Security Blog at:  http://www.schoolsecurityblog.com

Failure to follow security procedures and to communicate with parents can easily lead to a post-crisis crisis for school leaders.

Two students were wounded at Gardena High School on Tuesday after a gun in a 10th grader’s backpack discharged in a classroom, striking a 15-year-old girl in the head and a 15-year-old male in the neck.  Security was beefed up after the incident.

The focus almost instantly shifted to security lapses at the school, where required random metal detector scans were not conducted that day.  Communications gaps were also reported by parents who experienced problems in getting messages from the district’s mass parent notification system and other means.

The headlines which followed are not favorable for the school district:

 Officials’ reassurances fail to calm Gardena High School parents

“You guys failed us, and you failed our kids,’ one parent says at a campus meeting.  L.A. Unified’s new chief says the school did fail to follow district policy calling for daily random weapons searches.  

Superintendents and board members hire us as outside consultants to come into districts with fresh eyes to identify disconnects between policy and day-to-day practice. It is very common to find some level of disconnect in most every district. In a crisis, such disconnects heighten parental anxiety, potentially increase safety risks, and position school officials for greater liability.

Is your school district proactive or reactive in examining its prevention, security, and preparedness practices?  What disconnects exist between school safety policy and practice in your schools?

Ken Trump

Visit School Security Blog at:  http://www.schoolsecurityblog.com

Economic problems. Mental health issues. Frustrations at a boiling point.

Does this describe anyone in your school community?  Could they be the next person to walk through your school’s Administration Building doors or  into your next school board meeting?

In a December 15, 2010, article entitled, “School board shooter in Florida had frustrated, turbulent life along with interest in anarchy,” the Associated Press described the shooter at a Bay District Schools meeting on Tuesday as follows:

“Clay Duke was a troubled, broke ex-con with bipolar disorder, an interest in anarchy, a wife whose unemployment benefits had run out and frustrations that reached their boiling point on a day circled on his calendar at home.”

My first thought when I read this was: “This describes half the people I run into in public any more.”  Well, maybe not half, but there sure seems to be more and more fitting the description today than there was two to five years ago.

Economic pressures continue to mount onto already stressed families.  Increased incidences of divorce, drug and alcohol abuse, child abuse, crime and violence, and other societal ills are readily foreseeable.

Yet ironically, at the same time, school districts around the nation are cutting prevention, security, and preparedness funding. In reality, this is a time when we are likely to see increased threats to school safety and thus need more, not fewer, layers of prevention and protection.

Today’s news buzz and chatter behind-the-scenes around the country suddenly focused on security measures at school board meetings and at administration sites.  One has to wonder: Why was the same buzz not going on this time last week? 

The “perfect storm” exists for more crisis incidents to occur.  How many more must occur before we end the “penny-wise and pound-foolish” approach to school safety during tight budget times?

What say you?

Ken Trump

Visit School Security Blog at:  http://www.schoolsecurityblog.com

A shooting at a Bay District Schools’ board meeting in Florida on Tuesday illustrates the need for school boards and superintendents to include security and crisis planning measures at school administration buildings and support sites.

Security is often neglected for school district central office buildings, board meetings, and other administrative sites.  Well-intended board members, superintendents, and central office administrators often focus on school buildings but fail to take steps to reduce risks and prepare for emergencies at their own administration buildings and support sites.

Superintendents and boards need to assess and implement security measures, crisis plans, and crisis teams at administration and other school support sites. Our assessments with schools nationwide typically find administration centers lack building-specific crisis teams, building-specific crisis plans. They also fail to practice fire drills, lockdown drills, and other drills they require of their schools.

Workplace violence considerations and the ever-increasing political nature of school board meetings often draws a presence and attention to school administration offices and the individuals housed in these offices. It is not uncommon for highly-charged meetings and emotional issues to result in escalated undesirable and threatening behavior.

School leaders should assess board meeting security measures including the meeting site(s), physical security measures such as panic buttons and member emergency egress, security and/or police staffing, training of board members in emergency plans, and related measures.

More tips for improving school administration and board meeting security and crisis planning are available at our site on School Administration Building Central Office Security and Emergency Planning. 

Ken Trump

Visit School Security Blog at:  http://www.schoolsecurityblog.com

There is no constitutional right for students to have cell phones in schools.

This is one of several points I made in an interview for a Fox News Channel national story earlier this week entitled, “Zero Tolerance for Classroom Texters.”

The peg for the story is a Benicia High School (California) policy where school administrators confiscate cell phones after repeated misuse by students who are made well aware of the policy.  Some parents and students are upset with the policy.  Some argue cell phones make students safer in schools.

As I indicated in my comments in the story video, the key word is “repeat offender.” It is hard to have much sympathy for whining students and parents when students, who already know the policy, repeatedly violate it.

But the bigger point goes to the issue of the impact of student cell phone use on school safety and emergency response in a crisis.  Cell phones and text messaging in a crisis can accelerate rumors, expedite parental flocking to the school, and impede effective emergency response by first responders.

These concerns are expanded upon in my web page on Cell Phones and Text Messaging in Schools. 

What makes people feel safer may not actually help them be safer.  School officials therefore need to have deeper and more comprehensive discussions on the impact of cell phones in school safety.  It is important for school leaders to make cognitive, not emotional, policy decisions. 

What say you?

Ken Trump

Visit School Security Blog at:  http://www.schoolsecurityblog.com

How does a student hold two dozen people hostage in a high school classroom with knives, two guns, and more than 200 rounds of ammo for about two hours without someone noticing?

Students and others asked similar questions after a student took 23 students and his teacher hostage in Marinette, Wisconsin, last week. Hostages were released, but the student shot himself and later died.

Student comments included:

“They should be aware when things go wrong or something,” said sophomore Ricardo Jaimes. “Like, at least have a clue about it.”

and

 

“I was just wondering where the cops were and when we were going to get out of this,” said Austin Biehl, a sophomore who was held hostage in the classroom.

Questions also were raised about metal detectors in school.  This appears to be an increasingly common point to which people jump and questions rise after a high-profile school violence incident.

It is worth noting from the story that police had held a school shooter exercise at the school in August, which likely describes why law enforcement was said to have had an excellent response.

Sometimes things work smoothly in a school crisis incident.  Sometimes things do not work smoothly.  Typically, a little bit of both occurs in the same incident.

How would school and safety officials respond to these comments, questions, and issues if they happened at your school?

Ken Trump

Visit School Security Blog at:  http://www.schoolsecurityblog.com

A Marinette, Wisconsin, student took 23 students and a teacher hostage in a high school classroom, later releasing them and shooting himself on Monday evening.

Teaching Kids to Fight Armed Intruders?

Interestingly, the week prior to Thanksgiving I received a call from school crisis team members from one of the nation’s largest school districts.  They were seeking advice about whether to teach students to fight armed intruders.

I addressed this issue well over two years ago when I spoke out against teaching students to fight armed gunmen.  The concept may sound logical on its surface and it might be worthy of discussion in a college or similar adult-dominated setting.  But I have consistently had serious reservations about its applicability and the practicality of implementing it in pre-K to 12 school settings, as I outlined in my web site article. 

Focusing on School Preparedness Fundamentals

School officials and first responders need to plan, prepare, and practice for potential emergencies.  They must think through what sounds good and feels good, drilling down to what is actually realistically, pragmatic, and often times common sense. 

This lastest Wisconsin hostage incident provides a reminder to school officials about the importance of having emergency plans, practicing drills, and working cooperatively in school crisis planning with first responders.  Issues such as lockdowns, evacuations, parent staging areas, media and parent crisis communications, and a host of other issues can come into play. 

What is popular or what sounds good may, after a bit of discussion and analysis, not be the most realistic or useful steps for meaningful preparedness.  Too often, over a decade past Columbine, we still see some far reaching and questionable proposed approaches to school emergency preparedness.  Ironically, these discussions get attention at the same time when many schools have still yet to focus on and master the more fundamental best practices.

Ken Trump

Visit School Security Blog at:  http://www.schoolsecurityblog.com

An envelope containing white powder and marked with “anthrax” and “Al Qaeda” arrives in your school’s main office mail.  Would your office staff know what to do?

The recent cargo planes with bombs mailed by terrorists, as a part of an international terror plot, quickly brought school mailing handling procedures to mind.  Add to that the anthrax scares experienced in schools all the way back to the post-9/11 era, and it is a good time for schools to review mail handling security procedures with staff.

A few considerations I suggest schools discuss in their crisis teams include:

1. Do not allow students to open mail;
2. Limit mail opening to one designated staff member;
3. Open mail in room separate from open, main office areas;
4. Limit student access to teachers’ mailboxes;
5. Educate staff regarding suspicious packages;
6. Anticipate hoax incidents and treat seriously; and
7. Work with custodial and maintenance staff to create procedures for quickly shutting down HVAC, if necessary.

Schools should also work with their public health agencies as part of their emergency planning.  Surges in student illnesses and absences may be one of the first indicators of a broader community-wide contamination.

School and safety officials should train office support staff and others who may come into contact with mail and packages.  The U.S. Postal Service has a guide to suspicious letters and parcels with a downloaded poster which can be used to heighten awareness. 

Have office support staff and others been trained on mail handling security best practices at your school?

Ken Trump

Visit School Security Blog at:  http://www.schoolsecurityblog.com