School Safety Today

Over the last 20 years, partnerships between schools and law enforcement have become more common with a primary purpose of protecting the school community from active shooters and other violence. Police officers in schools has cyclically fallen in and out of favor. Federal and state funding supporting law enforcement and school district collaboration as well as recent research demonstrates they ar...

Weather emergencies may not be top of mind when thinking about the school safety benefits of a visitor management system. However, when Hurricane Ian struck Florida in September 2022 that’s what Seminole County Public Schools (SCPS) turned to for safety, accountability, and peace of mind. SCPS school buildings were utilized as shelters for the public, providing refuge for many. While this experien...

Police, social work, and school resources are crucial to providing all-encompassing care to students in need. However, there are gaps in job requirements and, therefore, gaps in support for at-risk students. On this episode of School Safety Today, host Michelle Dawn Mooney talks to Police Chief Jeffrey Yarbrough. Yarbrough is the Police Chief of Hutto, TX, and former Round Rock ISD Police Chief. H...

No one likes to think about the worst happening at their local schools. Unfortunately, in the United States school shootings alone have become shockingly common. In fact, there have been 948 school shootings since the Sandy Hook tragedy in December 2012. That’s an average of just over 94 shootings a year. And further data shows that nearly 300K students have been present on campus during a shootin...

Fostering a safe environment for kids to learn is a priority for many. To discuss the 2022 State of School Safety findings, host Michelle Dawn Mooney spoke with Michele Gay, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Safe and Sound Schools. Safe and Sound Schools was founded shortly after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012, which claimed 26 lives, including Gay’s first grade daughter. She...

Fostering a safe environment for kids to learn is a priority for many. To discuss the 2022 State of School Safety findings, host Michelle Dawn Mooney spoke with Michele Gay, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Safe and Sound Schools. Safe and Sound Schools was founded shortly after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012, which claimed 26 lives, including Gay’s first grade daughter. She...

Safety in schools is of the utmost importance. As such, host Bobby Brill speaks with author and school counselor Molly Hudgens about her heroic story and the importance of student wellbeing as it pertains to school safety. Hudgens, a School Counselor and Author of Saving Sycamore: The School Shooting That Never Happened, served first as an educator for eight years before pivoting to counseling in...

Safety in schools is of the utmost importance. As such, host Bobby Brill speaks with author and school counselor Molly Hudgens about her heroic story and the importance of student wellbeing as it pertains to school safety. Hudgens, a School Counselor and Author of Saving Sycamore: The School Shooting That Never Happened, served first as an educator for eight years before pivoting to counseling in...

Joey Wahler interviews Michael Rodgers, founder and CEO of the Critical Response Group (CRG). CRG and Raptor Technologies are working together to provide efficient protection for first responders in schools through digital floor plan mapping technology. CRG also provides this technology to businesses, hospitals, and many other important infrastructures. Rodgers shares how his experience from the m...

Michael Reidenbach, Executive Director of Security and Emergency Management for the Charleston County School District 3999 in North Charleston, SC, spent a significant portion of his police career working with schools and universities as a campus police officer and school resource officer (SRO.) Reidenbach became a recent finalist for K-12 Campus Safety Director of the Year in his director role wi...

Michael Reidenbach, Executive Director of Security and Emergency Management for the Charleston County School District 3999 in North Charleston, SC, spent a significant portion of his police career working with schools and universities as a campus police officer and school resource officer (SRO.) Reidenbach became a recent finalist for K-12 Campus Safety Director of the Year in his director role wi...

Dr. Paula Love, Founder of RFP Match, joined Tyler Kern for a refresher on ESSER (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief) to talk about the latest funding available to help schools. There were plenty of updates and opportunities to share. Since the pandemic, several different COVID relief acts and packages have provided much-needed funds to the education sector. All this funding adds up...

All over the country, volunteers are serving their school districts and communities. Finding them isn’t the only task but managing and maintaining volunteer relationships can quickly become a challenge without the proper tools and resources.. Host Tyler Kern talked to a school official with a lifetime of volunteer experience. Chris Robison, the Volunteer Program Supervisor for the Lake Washington...

Talking about some of the heavier aspects of school safety is not always a pleasant topic to discuss, but it is critical in today’s environment. People need to know how school districts approach educating and training students on maneuvering and, in worst-case scenarios, surviving violent school incidents. Adam Coughran, co-founder of Safe Kids, Inc., and developer of the H.E.R.O. (Hide, Escape, R...

The Partner Alliance for Safer Schools (PASS) was created in 2013 on the heels of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. The Security Industry Association (SIA) and the National Systems Contractors Association (NSCA) collaborated on the formation of PASS, a volunteer organization focused on providing school administrators, school boards, and public safety officials with a road map and guidelin...

In this episode of School Safety Today, host Daniel Litwin spoke with Raptor Technology’s SVP of Product and Engineering, Chris Noell, on what it means to have best-in-class IT security requirements to reduce the likelihood of new and dangerous cybersecurity breaches impacting educational settings while compromising critical student and staff data. This important topic has come to the forefront of...

Lockdown drills: they may be an increasing trend in education systems across the country, but there is a debate on the merits of these drills versus the impact they have on students, teachers, and staff. Which causes more harm, the threat of a shooting occurring, or the stress imposed by participating in lockdown drills? School Safety Today’s Hilary Kennedy asked two experts to weigh in on this de...

School safety is an umbrella with many different aspects underneath it. The evolution of this principle continues, as it has to include everything from natural disasters to violence to a pandemic. Providing insights on this shift, School Safety Today host Daniel Litwin spoke with the former superintendent of Santa Fe TX ISD, Dr. Leigh Wall. Dr. Wall recently retired after 43 years in public educat...

Is there a gap between how parents and students perceive a particular school’s safety and how the school administrators do? A 2021 survey in partnership with Raptor Technologies revealed a wide gap in the viewpoints of school safety initiatives. Students and parents are less confident than administrators in several critical areas, including a 30-point gap when asked if their school takes a proacti...

With so many different federal actions providing funding for schools to reopen this Fall, educators, administrators, and facility managers are struggling to understand the best way to take advantage of all of this assistance and how to center their strategies in thoughtful ways. Here to give insights on this episode of School Safety Today, a Raptor Technologies podcast is Dr. Paula Love, President...

Schools will be back and mostly open for in-person learning in a few weeks. As students return, challenges around safety and emergencies still exist. So, how can schools be prepared? Offering his expert perspective, Frank Kitzerow, Retired Chief of Police and District Security for Palm Beach County School District, spoke with School Safety Today host Shelby Skrhak. Kitzerow had a 40-year career in...

As in-person schooling returns, what should the top priorities be for facility managers? School safety priorities, strategies and challenges have changed.

Returning to school full-time is going to be a challenge for students. Combine the anxiety of being back together with uncertainty and a readjustment to in-person classroom life, some of which will also likely be mixed in with remote learning, and life moving forward will be complicated for students. On this episode of the School Safety Today Podcast by Raptor Technologies, host Hilary Kennedy tal...