Creating a Safe School Building
Safe schools not only have proactive prevention and intervention plans,
well-organized crisis teams and clear lines of communication they
also provide physically safe havens for students and staff. To assure
a safe learning environment:
- Light all hallways adequately during the day.
- Close off unused stairwells or do not leave areas of the school
- Install all lockers in areas where they are easily visible, or remove
- Minimize blind spots; use convex mirrors by portable classrooms
or to allow hall monitors to see around corners.
- Prohibit posters in classroom windows.
- Install an alarm system and/or a closed-circuit television monitoring
- Keep buildings clean and maintained.
- Locate playground equipment where it is easily observed.
- Limit roof access by keeping dumpsters away from building walls.
- Cover drainpipes so they cannot be climbed.
- Avoid decorative hedges; plant trees at least ten feet from buildings
- Trim trees and shrubs to limit outside hiding places for people
- Keep school grounds free of gravel or loose rock surfaces.
- Ensure vehicle access around the building(s) for night surveillance
and emergency vehicles.
- Design parking lots to discourage through traffic; install speed
- Mix faculty and student parking.
- Create a separate parking lot for students and staff who arrive
early or stay late, and monitor these lots carefully.
- Use fencing and gates with discretion and choose attractive wrought
iron styles instead of chain link fences. Secure them with heavy-duty
- Establish a policy to have the school campus fully lighted or totally
dark at night.
- Keep a complete list of staff members who have keys to the building(s).
- Do not allow graffiti to linger on walls. Follow the three "Rs"
after discovery-- read, record (i.e. photograph or videotape) and
remove. Inflammatory bathroom graffiti needs to be removed daily.
- Offer school- or community-based activities for students fter school
and on the weekends. Institute after-school academic and recreational
programs for latchkey students.
- Conduct a thorough background check on anyone applying to work in
the school to assure that no one is hired who has been convicted of
sexual assault, child molestation, or pornography, or has a history
of violent criminal behavior. Do not make a hiring decision before
the check is completed.
Adapted from Reducing School Violence: Building a Framework for
School Safety, produced by Southeastern Regional Vision for Education
(associated with the University of North Carolina-Greensboro) and the
Florida Department of Education, with assistance from the Southeast
Regional Center for Drug-Free Schools and Communities.