Links - Safe Schools

School safety and safe-learning are vital to student achievement.  As a service to the SchoolGrants community, this page lists a variety of links, resources, and grant opportunities related to school safety and safe learning issues.

If you have favorite sites that are not listed here, please let me know and it can be added here for everyone's mutual benefit.

Remember, all external links on the SchoolGrants site open in their own windows.

Safe Schools - News

Threat Assessment Guide Available
If you haven’t already, you might want to take a look at the Threat Assessment Guide for Schools that was developed through a collaborative effort with the Secret Service and the U.S. Department of Education. Find the report, along with a number of other publications related to safe and drug-free schools by clicking on the link above.

Character Counts!
South Dakota students all participate in the Character Counts! program.  The 5-year program is at its mid-point and evaluation reports are encouraging.  As many as 8,400 middle and high school students completed  the extensive program evaluation forms in 1999-2000 that cover demographics, attitudes, and behavior.  Additionally, over 345 teachers completed questionnaires about their students for the 1999-2000 school year.

Researchers have found that, for 1999-2000, the number of students who had, in the past, reported breaking into another's property dropped 50% while students who said they'd taken something without paying fell 46%.  Those who admitted to teasing someone because of race or ethnicity dropped 45%.  Teachers have found that older students are now much more likely to assist the younger elementary school students - up to 51% from 34% in 1997-98.

Not all findings in the study conducted by South Dakota State University Cooperative Extension Service/4-H are positive.  For example, though students reported an overall decline in misbehavior, they do not report increased positive behaviors - such as participating in community service work.  Teachers who responded to the evaluation survey have not noticed much increase in adherence to school rules for students in grades 7-12 as a result of the Character Counts! program.  Grade correlation has also been difficult for the researchers to decipher.

Schools and districts who are considering the Character Counts! program at their schools should take time to review the evaluation results for this massive state-wide program.  Overall, South Dakota officials are reported to be very pleased with the results.

Resources for Helping Kids Deal with Tragedy

There are a number of Internet resources available that deal with helping children deal with tragedy.  A listing of some of them seems particularly pertinent at this time.  

Crisis Management Institute
This organization offers a variety guides that help parents, teachers and children deal with current and past terrorist issues. You can download each guide in PDF format from their Web site.  Examples of available guides:

• As We Face the Sniper Attacks

• A Summer of Renewal:  A Guide for Reflection (related to 9/11 attacks)

• September 11th Anniversary Guides

Connect For Kids

National PTA

American Library Association

NIMH's Helping Children & Adolescents Cope with Violence and Disasters

Strategies for Parents and Teachers

AboutOurKids.org

TimeforKids.com - Parents

TimeforKids.com - Teachers

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Adults are also suffering from the effects of September 11's tragic events.  The U.S. Office of Personnel Management has published "A Manager's Guide:  Traumatic Incidents at the Workplace" that describes steps managers can take to provide effective leadership after a traumatic event.

Lessons from the Field:  Increasing Safety in America's Public Schools - Public Education Network shares this publication that discusses developing a comprehensive plan that addresses the systemic issues affecting children - and their safety - in public schools.

Guide for Preventing and Responding to School Violence
The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) offers this document whose purpose is to present different strategies and approaches for members of school communities to consider when creating safer learning environments. The guidance appearing in this document reflects the collective experience and wisdom of over 500 people. A first draft of recommendations was compiled by collecting and categorizing relevant recommendations found in the literature on school violence, juvenile delinquency, and workplace violence. The draft was then sent to experts on these topics for their review and suggested revisions. The recommendations were also reviewed and revised by focus groups attended by a diverse range of school community members, including board members, teachers, administrators, students, parents, counselors, probation officers, city and state officials, attorneys, and police and other emergency response personnel.  The Guide is available in MS Word, PDF, and HTML formats.

George Lucas Educational Foundation
Emotional Intelligence:  At a Glance helps understand ways schools can help students develop the skills they need to manage their emotions, resolve conflict in acceptable ways, and respect the differences of others.  These skills are vital to safe, secure school environments and are critical for academic success.  According to Jonathan Cohen, president of the Center for Social and Emotional Learning in New York, kids without these skills "don't follow directions, continually go off-task, can't pay attention, and have difficulty working cooperatively."

The Character Education Partnership provides Character Education Quality Standards that outline key components of character education.

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Making Schools Safe
This Issue Brief identifies issues, strategies, and resources related to combating school violence. It is based on an executive policy forum series cosponsored by NGA and the National Institute of Justice.  It is available for download in PDF format on the National Governors' Association's Web site.

Safe schools is one of the Bush administration's main educational priorities.  Read the President's plan for helping schools become safe havens for their students and personnel in "No Child Left Behind".  This part of his proposal enjoys bipartisan support so it is likely that many of its components will be incorporated into future education legislation.

The U.S. Department of Education (ED) has a Safe Schools site that deals specifically with issues surrounding school safety. You will find information about grant opportunities, statistics and other reports that will assist you in your grant-writing efforts, links to other useful sites and more by visiting this site.

The Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA) is one of the major sources of funding for safe schools.  ED also provides an informative site dealing specifically with this program. 

One way to keep our communities safer is providing before- and after-school programs.  The 21st Century Community Learning Center program provides funds to assist schools in meeting their needs for these programs.  This site provides a variety of information that will help you develop proposals and programs to help keep your schools and communities safe and healthy.

The YMCA's Teen Action Agenda
The YMCA of the USA commissioned a survey, After School for America's Teens, in January 2001.  The results of the survey show that unsupervised teens are more likely to engage in risky behaviors during the hours of 3 to 6 p.m. than youth who are supervised. The Teen Action Agenda is a nationwide campaign launched by the YMCA as a result of the study.  A Fact Sheet is available at no cost that cites survey findings.  The Fact Sheet also notes local YMCA programs designed to reach teens during those critical after-school hours.  Surveys such as this one present invaluable research evidence in support of after-school programs for grant writers.

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Miscellaneous Links - School Safety Issues

This site offers a growing searchable collection of promising practices on a range of topics; special focus on professional development that includes research-based practices and examples of those practices in real schools.  There are also opportunities to participate in panel discussions, to ask experts questions, and to post your own ideas or stories.    

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