There’s more to hurricane safety and recovery than simply alerting your stakeholders about the situation. To successfully respond to a hurricane and minimize the damage, cost, and downtime, organizations like schools and businesses need a reliable system that will allow them to prepare in advance, coordinate their response, and recover from the incident.

Everyone has some sort of New Year's resolution, even if we downplay it. Whether it's trying to eat more kale, watch personal finances more closely, or to actually get on that treadmill that's gathering dust in the basement, it has simply become part of our culture to think about what we want to improve to become better in the upcoming new year. New Year's resolutions often focus on what we know is challenging yet possible to achieve, so why shouldn’t schools focus on improving school safety for 2020?

"School safety" is a phrase that everyone can understand, but it often times means different things to different people, and many school districts don't always conceptualize or approach school safety in the same way. This is understandable since each district, and even every school, are influenced by the needs, challenges, and resources of their community. To better understand how schools from across the country think about school safety, we reached out to our clients to catch their thoughts.

Imagine your school is about to release students for the day, and just a few blocks away, police officers are responding to an armed gunman. It's a scary situation that could lead to an emergency, and with your students about to leave the safety of your building, your most precious priority has become vulnerable.

Take a second to think about all your safety resources and protocols you've implemented for school safety. What keeps your students and staff safe every day? Do you have a way to report and investigate threats to prevent emergencies before they happen?

It's back-to-school time, and hopefully you've checked all the boxes for getting your staff, classrooms, and students ready for the upcoming school year. But in all of the back-to-school rush, you may have forgotten about your to-do list for safety.

CrisisGo recently co-hosted a school safety roundtable with school district representatives from the Saint Louis area. During the meeting, Levaughn Smart, Director of Security for Kirkwood School District spoke about the importance of communication during an emergency.

What do you think of when you hear the words "safety drill?"

Do the words remind you of a standardized routine you have to do several times each semester? Or do those words give you a headache just thinking about the complicated process of scheduling and performing different types of safety drills for each school to meet the specific guidelines and requirements of your state? Perhaps those words remind you of an opportunity to practice your emergency responses while testing your safety system.