Every Day Safety Planner for School Leaders
We all care about school safety but…
School leaders know that ensuring school safety is their top priority, but daily demands often push it aside. Instead of proactive planning, they find themselves reacting to crises—despite good intentions.
A systematic, step-by-step approach is needed to address safety effectively. That’s why the Educator’s School Safety Network developed The Every Day Safety Planner, a grant-funded program providing the training, structure, and support for continuous improvement in crisis prevention, response, and school culture.
With the Every Day Safety Planner you can operationalize the work of school safety.
Using the Every Day Safety Planner provides the organizational structure and support that minimizes the challenges associated with prioritizing safety in daily operations:
Integrating safety work into daily practices: Focusing on safety each day helps to integrate it into the very foundation of the school day, making it everyone's responsibility
Moving Beyond Reactionary Measures: Schools often address safety only after a crisis event occurs. A daily approach encourages planning and preparing proactively for a range of potential hazards, which is more effective in the long run.
Adopting an All-Hazards Approach: Focusing on safety every day helps schools prepare for all types of threats, not just less frequent events like active shooter incidents. This includes medical emergencies, accidents, aggressive behavior, severe weather, and other events school leaders are much more likely to face.
Embedding Safety in School Culture: When safety is a daily consideration, it becomes woven into the decisions, routines, and foundation of the school. This fosters a culture where all stakeholders understand they have a role to play in maintaining safety and expands the view of school safety beyond simply active shooter response.
Enhancing Preparedness and Response Skills: Regular attention to safety allows for ongoing training and practice of all hazards emergency protocols for all stakeholders. This continuous reinforcement improves the likelihood of an effective response during a wide array of emergency situations.
Addressing Everyday Safety Measures: Daily safety practices encompass proactive activities such as strategic supervision, access control, and visitor engagement, which can prevent various incidents from occurring in the first place.
Promoting Continuous Improvement: An ongoing commitment to safety allows schools to continuously assess their vulnerabilities, review their plans, and make necessary improvements. This cycle of planning, training, exercising, evaluating, and revising ensures continuous improvement .
Fulfilling Moral and Ethical Responsibilities: Educators have a fundamental moral and ethical responsibility to ensure the safety of the children in their care. This responsibility necessitates a constant and unwavering commitment to safety, not just occasional attention.
Combating Complacency: Without a daily focus, school leaders become complacent, and safety protocols are not consistently understood, followed, or updated. Regular attention keeps safety a priority for everyone.
Improving School Climate: When students and staff perceive safety as a daily priority, it can contribute to a more positive and secure school climate, which can also positively impact academic achievement.