Is Your Classroom Safe and Ready for a Crisis?

Frank Storch recently completed a very important handbook for school safety. Called Keep Your School Safe, the handbook offers very easy to follow guidelines for preparing a school for added safety. There are checklist sections where a school can evaluate its current safety measures and implement new recommendations offered by Frank Storch.

In one section, for instance, the handbook asks schools to evaluate their classroom safety. Questions in the checklist include:

1. Is a lockdown procedure checklist posted in every classroom and office?

2. Do all classrooms and offices have clearly marked room numbers outside the door so that emergency responders can easily locate them if necessary? Do the teachers know their classroom number(s)?

3. Do all classrooms and offices have a diagram that shows where the room is located within the building, and clearly indicates the locations of emergency exits, escape routes, and safe rooms?

4. Are all classroom and office doors and windows lockable? Is all locking hardware in working order?

This is an example of 4 of the 19 questions that they offer for schools in the classroom section of the handbook.