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Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2007 > January > 16 > Entry
Safety expert: Small details save lives
Kenneth Trump on 20/20
We’ve been on a bit of a safety kick here at Get on the Bus lately, and it continues tonight as I attended a seminar for school leaders at the University of Dayton featuring Kenneth Trump, perhaps the nation’s most quoted school safety expert.
The event was co-sponsored by UD’s school of education and the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation. Other speakers included Dayton Superintendent Percy Mack, Dayton police Lt. Robert Chabali and Centerville High School Principal Eileen Booher.
Trump had two main messages for schools:
—Train everybody
—Pay attention to details
Some of of his suggestions were such common sense, and yet you can see how schools overlook them.
Trump is a former Cleveland school safety officer, author of a book on school safety and president of National School Safety and Security Services. His overarching message was that schools that talk about safety procedures with everyone — students, teachers, staff, parents, law enforcement, the community — are often the ones that spot trouble before it happens.
But is other theme was that small details can make a difference. Here are some of his safety tips for schools:
—Plain talk. Don’t use euphemisms. Talk directly about violence with students and staff.
—Safety plans. Review safety plans regularly. Trump said he often consults at schools where the safety plans are years old and include contact names of folks who retired years ago.
—Lockdowns. Schools often are too quick to lockdown and have unrealistic expectations for law enforcement response.
—Procedures. Procedures are sometimes too confusing or cumbersome. For instance, schools sometimes have an emergency code word or sentence. That code should be understandable, Trump said, citing one school that used the code “A red Corvette is parked out front.” Trump said this code would be confusing to many students and anyone not trained, which often includes non-teaching staff.
—Leadership. Procedures often require too many decision to be made by one person, often the principal. Trump noted that the principal could be injured, inaccessible or even off campus.
—Furniture. Design office spaces to impede attackers and facilitate escape.
—Grounds. Trim trees and bushes around the school to increase visibility.
—The Internet. Review websites to be sure they don’t offer too much information. Trump cited one district that showed its entire bus route on the Web, including pickup and drop off times and lists of students who ride each bus.
—Blueprints. Make sure floor plans of the school and information about building controls (electrical, plumbing, etc.) are accessible.
—Drills. Hold lockdown drills and “table top” safety brainstorming sessions for staff.
Permalink | Comments (10) | Categories: My Favorite Posts, Student Health and Safety
Comments
By Mary
January 21, 2007 12:13 PM | Link to this
Ken, you are right. I did not attend Tuesday’s meeting (I did not know about it and am not sure I would have been allowed or able to attend). Please do not take my comments as personal. I am sure you are a very nice person and might actually be a good consultant worth every penny. I worked conscientously to be a good consultant, as well, in an entirely different field from yours. I will say I still believe that as a parent who has been concerned about school viokence that there are some basic issues students and parents have brought up regarding school violence that have been ignored. As a society, we tend to focus on symptoms, not problems and basic causes, of terrorism and school violence. I think security is just part of the problem and needed expertise in school violence issues.By Ken Trump
January 19, 2007 11:53 PM | Link to this
Scott, you did an accurate write-up of a number of the points I made at Tuesday evening’s workshop. Thanks for your accuracy. While I respect Mary’s opinions about consulting, which are perhaps based upon her own personal experiences, I am disappointed to see her jump to the conclusions she apparently has come to as it is appears she must not have attended Tuesday’s program. Had she been there, I am sure she would realize that having students throw books at an armed gunman is not a best practice. In fact, it also lacks common sense. Perhaps common sense is not so common - thus why independent, outside consultants who specialize in a given field are called into schools to give not only common sense, practical recommendations, but those that are also obviously not common even to the common peoople who believe they know all the answers. I don’t believe in paralysis-by-analysis, but I do know that especially in school settings, an independent voice and objective eye from a specialized perspective on a serious topic is often needed to get things moving in schools where they have otherwise stalled (or never started).By Scott Elliott
January 18, 2007 1:20 PM | Link to this
Queen Mary, (er, perhaps I should address you “your highness?”), cleverly stated. Your last comment got a LOL out of me.By queen of the world
January 18, 2007 12:10 PM | Link to this
Regarding “money and litigation”, spell consultants: m-o-n-e-y. Even I have been paid as a consultant -a queen’s ransom.By dps teacher
January 18, 2007 11:06 AM | Link to this
Downtime every day? Throwing books at perpetrators? Okay, now I know you are out of touch. I believe what Mr. Trump is talking about is every day solutions to potential problems and as Scott said, planning for a worst-case scenario. There are consultants for just about every issue that you can think of (just watch Oprah and Dr. Phil) I don’t believe bullying and other dangerous activities will be solved until our society stops trying to solve everything with money and litigation, so don’t count on it.By Mary
January 18, 2007 7:59 AM | Link to this
dps teacher, sometimes I feel as if I am on the bow of the Titanic pointing out ice bergs, so you might as well call me the queen of the world. Move over Leonardo Di Caprico or however you spell his name. Consulting work is big business and the education field is just one example. I just read a new book called “A Perfect Mess - the hidden benefits of disorder”. It discussed the consulting industry that so many businesses use. It pointed out that assessments within an organizaton are blurred and handicapped because of the push to always be positive and rosy. I thought one of the latest theories about combating and defusing a school violence scenario was to be spontaneous, creative and unpredictable - like training students on cue to throw their textbooks in unison at the perpetrator. Meanwhile, some of the basic causes like bullying also need to be addressed. Do we need consultants for that? Why isn’t there downtime in every school day for people to talk about their ideas?By Oldprof
January 17, 2007 7:12 PM | Link to this
In my career (ahem: decades) I’ve had one session of safety training and one on risk management. I feel I need many, many more. At present, I have no clear idea of what I should do in my classroom if gunfire breaks out in the hallway (and while it hasn’t happened yet, it has happened in nearby businesses and churches). Until the USA finds its way to a level of civic order, this sort of session with that sort of consultant is essential.By Scott Elliott
January 17, 2007 3:20 PM | Link to this
I think Mary may have been talking about the cost school districts pay to consultants like Trump to come in and tell them all the common sense things they need to do to keep a school safe. Which is a fair point. Trump would possibly even agree, although I think he’d argue that school distircts don’t think of some of the common sense stuff because school folk are not security experts and they are not up to date on the security best practices, which he noted have not really changed since Columbine. As with 9-11, a school violence tragedy is sometimes a failure of imagination. The experts are paid to imagine the worst case scenarios.By dps teacher
January 17, 2007 11:52 AM | Link to this
Well, Mary, obviously you haven’t read the article or you’d know that it was SPONSORED by UD and Fordham, which means they paid for it or the costs are very minimal. It’s too bad that everyone doesn’t have your common sense and your time to solve all the problems of the world. I nominate you queen of the world. It would be a world of common sense, no money spent on anything that you don’t approve of, basically a really boring place. These seminars are important because it gives the decision makers in a district a fresh perspective on issues that they may not have considered lately. Believe it or not, we have a lot of other issues that concern us and it�s good to be reminded and to learn about new issues. It’s called education and believe or not, just because we’re educators doesn’t mean that we have stopped learning.By Mary
January 17, 2007 7:09 AM | Link to this
I wonder how much the schools paid for this list of common sense.