Safety Law News for 11/6/13

  • Fremont County, Wyoming Board of Cooperative Education Services is providing leadership for a partnership between local agencies to improve cooperation, training, and crisis planning to improve the safety of students and security in area schools.
  • Sequim, Washington’s four schools will have a full-time police presence in the 2014-15 school year after the City Council unanimously agreed to a partnership with the School District to fund an officer dedicated solely to the district.
  • School officials in Davidson County, North Carolina are concerned that parents who misunderstand new law House Bill 937 on carrying concealed weapons may bring guns onto campus thinking it is now lawful.  It is still a felony to have a gun on any campus.
  • School officials in Addison County, Vermont are working with their interagency partners to Addison County to respond to cyber bullying after the suicide of a 16 year-old student.
  • The Mississippi State Board of Education approved the distribution of $1.57 million to 50 school districts across Mississippi. The funding will put 157 additional trained SROs on duty in school districts across Mississippi.

Safety Law News for 10/31/13

Safety Law News for 10/28/13

  • Officials in Delaware County, Indiana have formed the new Delaware County Safe School Commission.  It is made up of schools, law enforcement, fire department, EMA, EMS, IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital and other emergency agencies.  The goal is to make sure they are all on the same page on school safety issues.
  • Loudoun, Virginia public school administrators are implementing extraordinary security measures for visitors.  All visitors will have to stand in a designated area and display a government-issued ID before entering the building, regardless of who they are or how often they visit the school.
  • Overcoming initial reservations, the Board of Education for Madison, Connecticut unanimously approved a memorandum of understanding for a school resource officer program.

Safety Law News for 10/22/13

  • Officials in Buncombe County, North Carolina high schools have filed 242 incident reports dating back to last school year. Reports of violent crimes — such as simple assaults, fighting and certain disorderly conduct charges — account for 25 percent of the incidents. Reports of thefts make up another 20 percent.
  •  The Rowan-Salisbury, North Carolina Board of Education voted 6-0 to bring resource officers back to all Rowan County middle schools.  Discipline problems are on the rise, with a quarter of the incidents the system reports to the state coming from middle schools last year.

Safety Law News for 10/18/13

  •  In a 9-7-1 vote, the Tantasqua, Massachusetts Regional School Committee rejected a school resource officer in both the high school and junior high school based on the belief that an outside police source would cause more harm than good in the schools.
  •  The $15 million that Connecticut lawmakers authorized to enhance security at schools across the state after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings was not enough:  More than 600 public schools applied for grants totaling $21 million.
  • Modesto City Schools were awarded a $1 million grant by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.  The grant will fund eight new school resource officers, one for every large Modesto high school and one for the alternative school campus.

Safety Law News for 10/15/13

  • The school safety teams in Wayne, New Jersey have committed to participating in Rutgers University’s Bullying Prevention Institute, a yearlong program that helps districts develop a custom bullying prevention plan.
  • Akron, Ohio schools and police debate their concerns over ALICE, (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter and Evacuate). The curriculum, for which police officers are trained and certified, has a reputation for advocating violence on a would-be attacker.