Shayne L. Aldridge, a former teacher and special education administrator, is now an attorney in the Springfield office of Hodges, Loizzi, Eisenhammer, Rodick & Kohn.

Threats to the safety of schools and those inside them come in all shapes, sizes, forms and formats. From tornados to torts, from sex offenders to computer bullies, from hazardous materials to playground mishaps, ensuring that the district's school buildings, grounds and events are safe, secure and create positive learning environments should be a board of education's first priority.

Students, staff and visitors have numerous opportunities to encounter events, situations and objects within the school that can cause personal harm. School districts have to be aware of and take action to prevent certain foreseeable dangers, have a plan for those that are unforeseen and mitigate their effects as much as possible, and do their best to reduce the likelihood that accidents happen. But it is not just the school board's duty, it is the duty of all public education employees to do their level best to protect staff, students and fiscal resources. Protecting resources by keeping students, staff and schools safe is "Job 1" as the Ford Motor Company said many years ago.

The motto of the Boy Scouts of America is "Be Prepared." Scouts are trained to handle emergency situations and routine, day-to-day events that arise where they can live out the motto.

School boards must make sure that their districts are prepared, too, for the worst and for the routine by adopting policies related to safety and security, as well as asking questions of their administrators to make certain those policies are being implemented in the way they intended.

These policies should be tailored to fit the individual district's needs. But most of all, they must be communicated to everyone and practiced so that all staff can say that they, too, are prepared.

District personnel must conduct operations, including the education program, in a manner that promotes everyone's safety on school district property or at district events. The superintendent should develop and implement a comprehensive safety and crisis plan that incorporates both loss-avoidance and risk-management guidelines.

The board of education has a role to play in crisis and emergency planning, in that such plans should be driven by policy. The board also needs to ask questions of its administration to determine if those policies are being carried out and if the district is in compliance with the School Code.

The board also needs to be aware of any potential threats or hazards that exist in the community. The public wants to be assured that, when their child is in the school district's custody, he or she will come home, come home with all his or her fingers and toes, and come home with a positive attitude about the school's safety and security.

The Illinois State Board of Education publishes a self-assessment for schools entitled Safety Audit Manual, compiled by the ISBE Task Force on School Safety. This task force is charged with helping schools to complete school safety assessment audits and develop or revise written safety plans so that they include all essential elements. Districts can use this as a guide to develop their own school safety plans and safety training.

We all remember when we were kids and had fire drills in school where we had to line up quietly, turn out the lights, close the windows and meet at the designated location outside the school building. Students today have far more disasters for which they must drill. The School Safety Drill Act of 2005 requires schools to conduct building evacuations, bus evacuation and severe weather safety drills each year. This law strongly encourages a law enforcement (bomb threat, shooting, etc.) drill each year, and enumerates the local authorities who should be involved in these drills.

Like fire drills in the past, these safety drills should fulfill the following objectives: (1) notification and response; (2) movement to safe areas; (3) communication with first responders; and (4) accounting for all occupants. This law also requires school boards to annually review each of its schools' emergency and crisis response plans and file an annual report with ISBE.

Additionally, ISBE also offers an ISBE/Office of State Fire Marshall: All Hazard Preparedness Guide for Illinois Schools, which covers topics such as the minimum requirements for annual reviews of required plans and includes a template for emergency and crisis plans. This guide has been updated to help schools comply with the School Safety Drill Act. School districts should make sure to conduct annual administrative, faculty, and staff training regarding the issues of safety and security. The school district administration must lead by example: Train, Practice and Drill. No plan is perfect; all plans must be tested and adjusted when needed.

For more information on emergency preparedness and crisis planning, see John Dively's article, "Plan on it! Being prepared is essential."

The much media-maligned hall monitor may just be a school building's first line of reporting when an incident happens, but training has to occur. Moreover, security guards and other school personnel should be well-trained in the school's security program. The potential for liability from a student injury increases when a monitor is not at his or her post, or doors that are supposed to be locked are unlocked. An administrator should be assigned to supervise and regularly check security assignments.

In Illinois, the School Code requires that school districts maintain and limit visitor access to their school buildings. This may be accomplished using many different methods, but the simplest methods are usually the best and most effective.

One of the simplest methods is to prohibit unfettered use of the school building entrances. Schools continue to reduce the number of doors accessible from the outside and usually designate one entrance door. Second, once in the building, the school should establish a badge system for students, staff, substitutes and visitors. While this, too, is a simple method that many school districts have already adopted, there are varying enforcement levels between school districts.

One way to enforce the use of badges for visitors is to establish a corridor pass system that checks on the badges for visitors and passes for students. Another way to enforce the rule is to not permit suspicious individuals, who cannot be verified, into the building, which should include maintaining detailed visitor and vendor logs including names, company, truck information, reason for their presence in the building, and other identifying information.

School personnel must also be on alert for dangerous activities in and around the school. One of the simplest things in this area is to review with school personnel the procedures for nighttime and after-school building use. One high-tech method for securing school buildings is to use security technology and devices to monitor and control the interior of the facilities. Any method chosen, however, must be used correctly and consistently. If not used, then the school puts itself in the same unsecure position it was in before implementing the security methods. And, as always, the training of the school staff and employees is the most critical component to this and all safety and security measures.

For more information on security issues, see Mt. Zion CUSD 3 board of education member and owner of CPD and Associates, a private security firm, Phil Jacobs' article, "How you can lock the schoolhouse gate."

Cyberbullying takes different forms depending upon the user. Many use threatening or hateful language, language making fun of students, hate lists, lists stating school's "hottest," "ugliest," or "most boring" girls, lists or postings stating who is cool and who is not, circulation of nude or offensive photos, language targeted at students and/or others (i.e. administrators), and excluding people from buddy lists. Cyberbullying is most common in students ages 9 to 14.

According to a recent study by I-Safe America, where 1,500 students in 4th- through 8th-grades were surveyed, 42 percent of the students said they had been bullied online, 53 percent had said something mean or hurtful online, and 58 percent had not told their parents that something upsetting happened online. According to wiredsafety.org, half of 3,000 U.S. children surveyed during the past year said they or someone they know have been victims or guilty of cyberbullying. And, most importantly for school officials, many victims do not tell their parents out of fear that they will be barred from using the Internet.

Section 27-13.3 of the School Code addresses Internet safety education curriculum. It provides that each school may adopt an age-appropriate curriculum for Internet safety instruction of students in grades kindergarten through 12. It also sets forth recommendations regarding minimum hours of instruction and curriculum topics. The statute allows school districts to submit their curriculum for review to the office of the attorney general.

Additionally, school districts may choose to provide instruction regarding bullying prevention in all grades. If a district provides this instruction, it should cover topics such as intimidation, student victimization, sexual harassment, sexual violence and student-centered problem solving. The curriculum for such instructional topics may be developed in collaboration with community safety organizations.

For more information on Internet safety, see school attorney Laura Hemmer's article, "MySpace, SchoolSpace: Is your computer safe?"

Documentation is key to minimizing a school district's exposure to liability. Violent incidents often escalate from seemingly insignificant events such as playground arguments. School officials should take all threats of violence seriously, and document and investigate such incidents when they occur. The ISBE Safety Audit Manual provides guidance as to how schools should document all incidents of student violence, fighting, property damage, trafficking, confrontations and school rule violations.

Under this system of "incident profiling," schools are advised to adopt a centralized system in which school rule violations are filed as to what, when, where, by whom, by whom referred and resolution of the incident. In addition to internal policies, school districts must be aware of their responsibilities to report certain incidents to local and state authorities, and to parents and students. By using some type of system, schools can better anticipate and avoid unsafe school incidents.

School districts should implement several steps to make the system a successful tool in controlling losses. Many of the general and specific safety rules should be defined within the contents of a written loss-control program. Subsequent rules can then be developed as a result of unfavorable experience with certain types of re-occurring accidents. The key is to emphasize the development of appropriate rules prior to serious or frequent accidents.

Enforcement at all levels is an ongoing part of the safety effort. Such safety rules are the school board's way of demonstrating support for the loss-control effort. All levels of administration and personnel have a responsibility to help reduce the district's accidental incidents. Safety rules are an excellent accident prevention tool.

Training of employees is another important aspect of the loss-control program. Training should be both formal and informal. Formal training of all new employees in relation to the rules adopted by the school board allows the employee to know and understand the school district's expectations. This is essential to the enforcement of the program.

Formal training on an ongoing basis will provide employees with information concerning changes and revisions to the policy. An example would be the maintenance supervisor demonstrating the operation of a new piece of equipment and explaining the proper safety procedures required when operating the equipment. Informal training could include the physical education teacher explaining the danger of running in the shower room to a student violating that safety rule. A planned safety observation program is vital to making sure that teachers are, in fact, making a determined effort to observe activities from a safety-related standpoint. Safety awareness is a vital part of an effective loss-prevention program.

For more information on risk planning and accident avoidance, see professor Howard Bultinck's article, "Safety should never be risky business."

School districts must endeavor to engage their community's first responders to ensure that everyone is on the same page when it comes to responding to emergency situations at the school buildings. These first responders should participate, consult and advise when the school district is in the review process for its plans. These agencies would include the local fire department, law enforcement and emergency medical services agency, and any other local first responder or emergency management member that has requested to be a part of the school district's emergency planning or drill process, e.g., Emergency Services and Disaster Agency (ESDA).

The school district must give these agencies 30 days' notice prior to the review. In addition, to make sure all the bases are covered, any planning committee should include the principal of each school and possibly the educational association representatives.

First responders have knowledge, expertise and resources that schools will need to use when an emergency occurs. But they won't be able to do their job if they don't have the information they need.

Does the fire department in the community have access to the school blueprints or a virtual display of the school building? Does the local law enforcement official have the contact information for each building in case of a report of a weapon in the vicinity? Does ESAD have an aerial photograph of the school premises so that it can forecast potential areas that may be advantageous during a disaster?

These are questions school boards could ask of their administrators to determine if there should be a coordinated effort to foster the relationship between the district and the community's emergency responders.

Schools must communicate with law enforcement on numerous occasions. All school staff must immediately notify the principal's office upon seeing any individual with a firearm on school grounds. Schools must immediately report all firearm/explosives incidents to the local law enforcement authorities, and file a "School-Related Firearm Incident Report" with the Illinois State Police. School districts also are required to report many different types of crimes to law enforcement officials, such as a battery committed against school personnel in both public and private schools within three days of an incident.

Upon receiving a report regarding "a verified incident involving drugs in a school or on school owned or leased property," school officials must report the incident to local and state police immediately. School districts also must report drug-related incidents occurring on a public way within 1,000 feet of a school to local police and the county sheriff within 48 hours. All of this reporting and two-way communication is much easier if the agencies already have a relationship with the school district.

This edition of The Illinois School Board Journal is dedicated to school safety and security. The following articles were written by some of the experts in the field and seek to provide you with practical tips and a glimpse of the legal aspects behind the issues. We hope you find them helpful and above all keep safe in this new school year.

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