Just What is a School Safety Expert?

School Safety Expert

A dictionary will tell you that an expert is, "A person who has a comprehensive and authoritative knowledge of or skill in a particular area." That leads to the meaning of authoritative, "Able to be trusted as being accurate or true; reliable," and the meaning of comprehensive, "Complete; including all or nearly all elements or aspects of something."

Putting all that together, a school safety expert is one who has comprehensive knowledge of or skill in the area school safety, and is able to be trusted as accurate, true and reliable.

School Safety

So now that we know what an expert is, what is school safety?  Michael Dorn says, "School safety is a process of education being able to continue without disruption, without harm, without danger. It's basically the best way to get the most out of the learning process. It's actually the foundation for an effective learning environment." Here Michael gives us the goal of school safety.

In the Guide for Developing High-Quality School Emergency Operations Plans, we find that school safety is providing a safe and healthy learning environment for public and nonpublic schools from threats and hazards. Threats are man-made, and hazards are natural, so now we get a clearer picture of school safety.

Threats and Hazards

Man-made threats include: Assaults, bullying, victimization, theft, classroom disorder, fights, robbery, use of weapons, sexual attacks and violent crime.  Comprehensive knowledge of threats includes knowing their causes, as well as strategies to prevent, mitigate, respond and recover from them.  A school safety expert will have skills and knowledge of threat assessment, crime, suicide prevention, weapons and bullying. 

FEMA defines a hazard as, "Anything that can cause loss or damage to a school or its occupants." These can include natural disasters, fire hazards and accident hazards.  A school safety expert will have skills and knowledge of risk assessment, mitigation and prevention, as well as current laws, regulations and codes relating to the physical facility.

There will come a time where school safety will evolve as a true profession, with a standard set of knowledge and skills.  A profession that provides licensing or certification based on a knowledge set learned in a formal setting.

But before that happens, we have to define what it is. 

What do you think?