School Safety

Tips and resources for students, parents, and teachers to help keep America's schools safe

Tips

• Enforce zero-tolerance policies toward the presence of weapons, alcohol, and illegal drugs.
• Establish and enforce drug- and gun-free zones.
• Establish policies that declare that anything that is illegal off campus is illegal on campus.
• Engage students in maintaining a good learning environment by establishing a teen court.
• Develop protocols between law enforcement and the school about ways to share information on at-risk youth.
• Develop resource lists that provide referral services for students who are depressed or otherwise under stress.
• Involve teens in designing and running programs such as mediation, mentoring, peer assistance, School Crime Watch, and graffiti removal programs.
• Insist that all students put outerwear in their lockers during school hours.
• Require all students to tuck in their shirts to keep them from hiding weapons.
• Develop and enforce dress codes that ban gang-related and gang-style clothing.
• Establish a policy of positive identification such as ID badges for administrators, staff, students, and visitors.
• Deny students permission to leave school for lunch and other non-school-related activities during school hours.

Excerpted from National Crime Prevention Council @ http://www.ncpc.org/topics/school-safety