Campus Safety after CT shootings

[Spidey's mom]

Hello - any school nurses out there involved in coming up with ideas for increased campus safety? I'm heading to a meeting with principals, the sup and local law enforcement this morning.

I have to say I'm not sure there is much we can do without making kids feel like they are in prison.

This is such a rare occurance . . and yet we want parents to feel they are leaving their kids in a safe place.

Any thoughts you'd like to share?

Thanks.

[Spidey's mom, ADN, BSN, RN]

i did come up with what i deemed a perfect plan... you see, when this district hired me, they cut the clerical position that used to be in this office. So i figure if we can get an armed officer in the school, i still have an extra desk. The officer can make rounds for security... when not making rounds can be my clerk. the bonus is that the armed guard will cut down on unnecessary visits to my office. it's win win!!

That's funny. Yesterday in the meeting many of the staff were bemoaning the fact that we can't have a sheriff's officer on each campus. I mentioned that we can't afford a nurse on every campus. Or even a nurse for every few campuses.

[akulahawkRN, ADN, RN, EMT-P]

As it pertains to school campus safety, nurses can be just as involved as the rest of the staff. Why? You see someone that shouldn't be there? Watch the hands, and ask the person if they need help. If you have a radio, let the office know you've spotted someone suspicious. If you don't report back, they'll know to call for law enforcement. Hopefully you're not in an area where it may take a long time for help to arrive.

Nurses aren't cops, aren't trained as cops, and typically don't possess tactical training for finding and stopping campus attacks. Neither do most teachers and school administrators. Discussion with security and law enforcement professionals should be done to help decrease the chance (it's already extremely low) that your campus will be attacked, so leave that stuff to the pros. What you can do, as a nurse, is be ready to assist with triage and immediate care of the injured afterward. While you'll likely never have to use the training for the reason you sought it out, you'll be ready to help provide care in other events as well, such as natural disasters.

[Not_A_Hat_Person, RN]

I used to work private duty at a school; my client aged out. The CT school shooting happened on my last day, so I can't say if anything has changed. The school installed cameras last winter, and locked all entrances after 8 am. If you didn't have an ID badge, you got in by ringing a bell at the main entrance. All visitors, and any staff member who forgets their badge, has to sign in at the copy center and get a "visitor" badge. Faculty, staff, and visitors must have their badges visible at all times.

The school had regular lockdown drills. The basic idea is to lock the doors and disappear. One drill went wrong; no one got hurt, but it exposed holes in training, among other things.

The school also had an armed School Resource Officer. He liked to walk around in a flack jacket (previous SROs never wore flack jackets). He didn't even write tickets in the parking lot.

[Amcanarn]

I'm not a school nurse, but at my university we have classroom doors that lock when closed. It's a great idea.

[Saysfaa]

One of the newscasters interviewed a man from a company that goes into schools to teach school employees what to do if shooter comes in. His company was doing this before the incident in Conneticut.

I caught only part of it but it sounded very helpful to me. It was along the lines of every other disaster/first responder training ... think through, plan, and prepare before the crisis hits because you will be thinking much more clearly then. Don't depend on a cell phone to call for help because you lose your fine motor skills under that much stress - if your school can't afford panic buttons of some sort then have (I can't remember what he suggested) and place whatever it is out of sight of any windows in the classroom doors.

He gave a three or four step plan. One of the steps was to barricade the door (including things besides just locking it), a later step was to escape the room, the last was to what can be used to stop someone directly. In (for?) each step, there were specific kinds of things to look for to make it possible or more effective or easier to do the step.

I looked up that show to find the company's name....Vaughn Baker, president of Strategos International, L.L.C They may not be the only people doing this, though.

[Saysfaa]

One more blip.... the professors at my college recently had training in what to do. Some of them shared a few things. One thing is that it is safer to run than to hide in the classrooms - unless, of course, the situation is right outside the door (and there are no windows? maybe, that classroom didn't have any). Moving targets are harder to hit and further away targets are harder to hit and once the students are far enough away, they aren't targets at all anymore.

That may not be good advice for classrooms of young children, though.