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.

Safety Law News for 10/7/13

  •  The Etowah County, Alabama School Resource Officer and the Director of Student Services are teaching school administrators to flee, barricade or defend themselves — in that order — when faced with a school intruder who is intent on causing great harm. The program is called “Run, Hide, Fight.”
  •  The New London, Connecticut schools superintendent is challenging a study that shows student arrests in New London were four times the statewide rate in 2011.   Superintendent Nicholas Fischer said the numbers are simply not credible. He said a school database that tracks student arrests shows just 15 arrests during the year covered by the study.

Safety Law News for 10/2/13

  • Police in Gainesville, Georgia, are asking the school board to accept a proposal that would allow school resource officers to store assault rifles in the schools while on duty.
  •  In Georgia, the Murray County Schools have partnered with the Murray County Sheriff’s Office to provide its students and staff with school resource officers, all of whom are certified deputies or police, in all of its elementary, middle and high schools. 

Safety Law News for 9/30/13

  • The North Carolina Department of Public Safety has released its 2013 report on safe schools written by the DPS Center for Safer Schools.

Safety Law News for 9/25/13

  •  Montgomery County, Maryland schools appropriated $1.67 million in county bonds for security cameras in the schools.  In total, hallway cameras have been installed in 132 elementary schools, interior cameras at 37 middle schools and 18 high schools, and exterior cameras at 38 middle schools and 25 high schools.
  •  Deputies with the Burleigh County, North Dakota Sheriff’s Department now ride on school buses as part of the “Deputy on a Bus” program.