What is a Blue-U Safe School mindset?
Well, there are several things that contribute to a successful Blue-U Safe School mindset:
- You have a defined goal of what your school/districts safety and security is and how to achieve it
- You have a single person that is responsible for driving the elements required to achieve your goal
- Your safety and security initiatives are “because you want to” rather than “because you have to”
- You don’t accept “generally” accepted”, “industry standard”, or “best practices” because you know that these rarely work as intended
- You question and test everything to make certain that your adopted solutions are more than “they look and sound good on paper but will never work when reality strikes” as over 80% of accepted solutions are
- You understand that the more you do, that you’re not required to do, the safer your staff and students become
- You realize that there is always money in your budget to improve safety and security, it’s more a matter of how and where you choose to spend it.
- You understand that its critical to teach your students the same things that you teach your staff – like how to use AED’s, perform CPR, Stop the Bleed, and how to recognize potential threats, etc. because students far outnumber staff and are therefore more likely the ones that will produce results
- You are more concerned with teaching you kids “how to be safe” rather than trying to keep them safe.
- You understand that safety and security are more about developing “life skills” that students will build upon and take with them for the rest of their lives.
- You understand that an SRO is only a very small part in achieving real safety and security and that SRO’s offer the lowest return on investment of any safety and security options
- You realize that the way safety and security is assumed to be achieved is by bringing highly fragmented, individual elements (security systems, policies and procedures, training, emergency preparedness and management) together rather than solutions in which all elements are designed to work as a complete system and work together, towards a common, defined, goal.
And there are many more, however, I’m sure this will give you an idea of what a Blue-U Safe School mindset is. If you are not embracing the majority of these elements, you are falling short in your efforts.
We have to first recognize the many problems and challenges with school safety and security, and then, create solutions that correct the problems. Most don’t even recognize the problems!
Again, do you have a Blue-U Safe School mindset? Do you want to become a Blue-U Safe School? Contact us to learn how!