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Safety Law News for August 22, 2018

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  • In Illinois, officials in DuPage County are concerned about the proximity of the St. John Vianney Villa in Naperville, located next door to the junior high. The church facility serves as a retirement home for 13 Catholic priests, including two priests who have faced sex abuse allegations.  Additional police officers will be at the school during arrival and drop-off times.

 

 

  • In Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Department of Justice has released a new research study on sex crimes.  According to the Report, teenagers represent the highest number of sex crime victims.  The Report also found that 38 percent of sex crime offenders were ages 15 to 22.  Officials are sharing the information with school resource officers, encouraging SROs to “reach out to some of the kids.”

 

  • In Maryland, officials from Anne Arundel County continue to debate the best model for maintaining safe schools.  The elements of the debate involve which resources to emphasize; counselors, hardware upgrades, and school-based law enforcement.
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Safety Law News for August 17, 2019

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  • In Virginia, Fairfax County Public Schools has revised its School Resource Officer Program. The new program establishes a clear division between the SROs’ role and the school administration’s role. It adds mandatory training for SROs on implicit bias, disability awareness and cultural competency, and ensures parents are contacted prior to student searches and interrogations.

 

 

  • In Maryland, officials from the St. Mary’s County Schools shared their account of the March 2018 shooting at Great Mills High School.  Their experiences translated into recommendations for essential policies every school should have. St. Mary’s officials stressed the importance of planning far in advance for a potential school shooting, having a plan for where they will reunite the families of surviving students after a shooting, and planning for how to foster healing after students’ and teachers’ sense of security has been shattered.

 

  • In Texas, the Senate Select Committee on Violence in Schools and School Security released its full report with four recommendations to the Legislature for the upcoming session.   Included in the recommendations: improving the infrastructure and design of Texas schools, improving school security training programs, improving assessment of risk factors and protective factors that can lead to mass campus shootings, and improving strategies to identify and intercept high-risk students.
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Safety Law News for August 14, 2018

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  • In Florida, officials in Escambia County are implementing new safety and security policies that include the use of metal detectors, additional resource officers, and a new policy banning parents of elementary school students from continuing to walk their children to class.  Parents of elementary school students will only be allowed to walk their students to class the first three days of school.

 

 

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Safety Law News August 9, 2018

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  • In Ohio, officials in the Lima City Schools announced Wednesday the implementation of a K-9 program during the upcoming school year.  The dogs will be used to find narcotics and gunpowder in the schools and they’ll also act as therapy dogs, helping calm stressed students and children in special education programs. They will also act as a gateway for students who can interact with the dog while becoming comfortable interacting with the SROs.

 

 

 

  • In Florida, the Sheriff’s Office in Orange County has committed $168,000 for heavy-duty body armor and helmets. The goal is to provide protection for police officers in an active shooter situation.

 

  • In Louisiana, educators in the St. Tammany Parish Public Schools are planning to implement a new cellphone policy with progressive consequences for students who violate its provisions.  Under the policy, cell phones can be used only in case of emergency, which the board has defined “as an actual or imminent threat to public health or safety which may result in loss of life or injury.”
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Safety Law News for August 7, 2018

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  • In Ohio, House Bill 318 has become law.  The new law defines and codify the role and requirements of school resource officers in Ohio. The law requires at least forty hours of school resource officer training by either NASRO (National Association of School Resource Officers) or OSROA (Ohio School Resource Officer Association).  That training must review school campus design, building security needs and characteristics and teach officers how to identify drug use trends in schools and encourage a drug-free environment.

 

  • In Pennsylvania, the United States District Court ruled that a school-based law enforcement officer’s use of force in seizing a student was reasonable as a matter of law.  The officer tackled the student when the student attempted to flee the administrative office without being subjected to a pat-down search.  The student had a history of making threats, was acting violently, had allegedly planned a knife attack, and was reasonably believed to still be in possession of a knife.  (Salyer v. Hollidaysburg Area School District).

 

 

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Safety Law News For August 1, 2018

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  • In a new national report on school quality and safety, WalletHub ranks all 50 states.  School safety — 20 percent of the score — was based on incidents of armed students, bullying, and laws that mandate school resource officers.  In the “safety” category, Massachusetts ranks number 1.  Arkansas ranks number 50.

 

  • In Wyoming, officials in Casper announced a plan to increase the number of officers in schools.  Once the plan has been fully instituted, the number of cops working in schools will roughly match that of a typical Casper patrol unit and may necessitate a change to the department’s command structure.

 

  • In Alabama, the State School Superintendent sent a memo to all district superintendents outlining the requirements for arming school administrators.  If a local board of education wants to arm an administrator, they will need to purchase the gun, the specially-designed vest the administrator will have to wear when using the gun, and the biometric safe the gun has to be stored in on a school’s campus.

 

  • In Florida, Marion County Public Schools approved a new policy to nearly triple the number of school resource officers.  The district plans to place 56 school resource officers on campus beginning next month. That’s up from 18 last year.  The change will cost just under $4 million.