School Security

Our schools are generally safe places but when disaster strikes it makes media headlines around the country. In the last ten years 105 students and staff have been shot to death in the nation’s schools and universities. Tens of thousands more have been injured a result of man-made or natural disasters.

Whatever the reason, incidents such as these at a school resonate because it’s our children who are at risk. That is why it is so important to have a comprehensive emergency response plan in place and to regularly practice it and revise it.

The School Security Handbook provides an easy to follow, easy to implement five step process for developing an emergency response plan that covers almost any eventuality. It covers the four phases of an emergency: mitigation and prevention, preparedness, response and recovery.

The School Security Handbook will enable educational facilities to be prepared for all eventualities, have the appropriate contingencies in place for when they happen and return to normal as soon as possible afterwards.

While the threat of a terrorist attack on a school is remote, it cannot be ruled out and this subject is covered extensively in the handbook. The Handbook also discusses the appropriate measures to be taken to protect against and mitigate the effects of natural disasters such as hurricanes, earthquakes and wildfires.

There are also sections on planning for a wide range of potential emergencies ranging from a major school bus accident to a shooter on campus, and from suicide to sexual harassment. How you create and implement your emergency plan is critical in effective emergency response and successful plans, well executed and regularly practiced, do save lives.

The School Security Handbook is a great tool and desk reference to support the development of new plans or to bring existing up to best practices standards.

About the Author – Don Philpott

Don Philpott is editor of International Homeland Security Journal and has been writing, reporting, and broadcasting on international events, trouble spots, and major news stories for over forty years. For twenty years he was a senior correspondent with Press Association—Reuters, the wire service, and traveled the world on assignments, including Northern Ireland, Lebanon, Israel, South Africa, and Asia.

Formerly editor of Homeland Defense Journal, he writes for magazines and newspapers in the United States and Europe and is a regular contributor to radio and television programs on security and other issues. He is the author of more than ninety books on a wide range of subjects and has had more than five thousand articles printed in publications around the world. His most recent books are Integrated Physical Security Handbook, , Securing Our Schools, and Is America Safe? He is also a coauthor of The Wounded Warrior Handbook and Workplace Violence Mitigation. He has written special reports on "Protecting the Athens Olympics," "The Threat from Dirty Bombs," "Anti-Terrorism Measures in the UK," "Nanotechnology and the U.S. Military," and "The Global Impact of the London Bombings."

Born in the United Kingdom, he is now an American citizen working out of Orlando, Florida.