Resources

• School Safety Coordinators Training
• Preparing for Natural Disasters and School Crisis Events Through a Behavioral Health Lens
• 2024-2025 Recommendations for School Suicide Prevention Training Toolkit
• Considerations for therapy dogs in schools (printable PDF)
• P3 Conference Presentation
• Purple Star Program Supporting Kentucky’s Military Youth
• Best Practice in Alternative Education
• Emergency Management
• KCSS Annual Data Reports Annual reports on Kentucky data
• KCSS Annual Report Annual report on KCSS activities
• Office of the State School Security Marshal Annual Report 2023-2024
• KCSS School Resource Officer (SRO) Report
• House Bill 330 Summary of school safety legislation
• Indicators of School Crime and Safety
• Handouts available for educators, law enforcement officers, parents and community members
• Straight-A Safety Toolkits – You can browse the Straight-A Safety Toolkits as an entire document or as individual tools.
• The Council for Better Education CBE wants to share its analyses of Kentucky student achievement, school funding, and litigation issues, and will also let us link to valuable work by others on these topics.
• Sample Letters for Parents, Students and Staff during times of loss – The National Center for School Crisis and Bereavement has created templates of letters so notification statements can be quickly prepared during times of loss.
• REMS EOP Assess Tool This tool is designed to help you assess your capacity to create and maintain a high-quality school or institution of higher education emergency operations plan that considers a range of threats and hazards.
• Green Dot High School – Green Dot is an evidence-based primary prevention program designed to teach participants safe ways to intervene in situations of bullying, dating violence, and sexual harassment and assault. The program includes two components: the Overview Speech and the Bystander Training. The Overview Speech is a 45-minute high-level training delivered to all students in a school. The Bystander Training is a 5-hour intensive training with identified Popular Opinion Leaders (POLs), i.e. students who are admired and respected by their peers. To reach optimal effectiveness, 15% of the student body must complete the Bystander Training.
• Kentucky KIDS COUNT Project – KIDS COUNT provides a detailed picture of child well-being in order to strengthen public action on behalf of children and families. In addition to the national KIDS COUNT project, the Annie E. Casey Foundation supports Kentucky Youth Advocates in tracking county-level data and producing the Kentucky KIDS COUNT County Data Book, which includes county-level data for all 120 counties.
• The Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools (REMS) Technical Assistance (TA) Center has released SITE ASSESS, their latest EOP Interactive Tool designed to support education agencies—both public and nonpublic—with emergency management and emergency operations plan (EOP) development.
• Handle With Care Notification System – Handle With Care (HWC) is the notification system described in the School Safety & Resiliency Act where schools and districts are required to collaborate with law enforcement to create procedures for notification of a student who has been trauma-exposed as part of the plan for implementing a trauma-informed approach in schools. The Kentucky State Police (KSP) have implemented a notification system that is now active statewide. The information has been provided to us by KSP regarding implementation of the HWC program. Introduction video with Jon Akers and Ben Wilcox
• State School Safety Centers
• Resource Library – SchoolSafety.gov provides actionable resources, guidance, training, and fact sheets that can be filtered by audience, intended application, and topics to help schools create and maintain a safe learning environment.
• Free and Low-Cost Safety Strategies – Safe and Sound Schools – Safe and Sound School’s infographic toolkit tool identifies effective school safety strategies with little or no money in the budget.
• A Guide to Teaching Children Traffic & Road Safety
• Internet Safety Guide

Resources dealing with school violence and tragedy. The safety of our precious children and staff is our first priority. Here are some available resources:

• NASSP Principal Recovery Network Guide to Recovery
• Preparing for Natural Disasters and School Crisis Events Through a Behavioral Health Lens (Team Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services)
• School Violence Prevention: Tips for Parents & Educators (NASP)
• Information for Parents During a Crisis
• Coping with Traumatic Events: Resources for Children, Parents, Educators, and Other Professionals (resources also available in Spanish, Chinese & Japanese) (SAMHSA)
• Talking to children about terrorist attacks and school and community shootings in the news (NCSCB)
• EMRG – Recovery Section 
• EMRG – Tragedy Resources 

The Kentucky Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design Checklist for school construction is to be used in compliance with KRS 158.447. This is now a part of the BG-1 process. It is designed to create open discussion among school district officials, board members and licensed design professionals (aka architects) when they begin planning for new construction or renovation projects in a school district.

Download School Safety Regulations Training Resources:

• Emergency Response Drill schedule: As of 2013, all four emergency response drills (fire, lockdown, severe weather and earthquake) must be conducted by the first 30 days of the new school year and must be conducted again in January. Use this worksheet to plan drills for your school. Submit a copy of the schedule with your school’s plan, and use the original to document drills when they actually occur.
• Active Shooter Training Video Click here to view 

Considerations for Practices in School Safety

To Kentucky Public School Principals and Assistant Principals:

This document is being presented to principals and assistant principals as a list of reminders for school administrators to consider when addressing current trends and state laws that pertain to school safety practices.

It is not to be construed as a best practices document but rather a quick reference guide of reminders and suggestions.

As always, if you have questions regarding current trends or practices in school safety, feel free to contact staff members from the Kentucky Center for School Safety at 1-877-805-4277.

Thank you for serving as school-based administrators. You remain the key implementers of all safety practices in your school.

Best regards, Jon R. Akers, Executive Director