For most school administrators a threat assessment process serves two purposes: meeting state and local mandates and providing peace of mind. Meeting mandates is essential, but to provide real peace of mind, threat assessment must go above and beyond basic requirements.

Michigan’s 5 phased Safe Start program offers a well-considered guide to reopening with exact next steps that are efficiently planned for and accommodated. The guide provides a checklist approach to reopening for in-person learning based on the condition of COVID-19 in the state.

As an incentive to reopen schools for in-person learning, California is proposing nearly $2 billion in additional funding for Covid-19 response planning, safety measures, and personal protective equipment. This additional funding is a boon for administrators who have been balancing the social, emotional, and educational benefits of in-person instruction with the realities of protecting their students and communities.

You might not realize it, but schools and organizations can obtain safety funding through the DOJ (Department of Justice) COPS (Community Oriented Policing Services) School Violence Prevention Program (SVPP) grants. These funding sources can specifically help meet school safety and community collaboration needs for areas that include emergency response, threat assessment, climate change, and even bullying issues at your schools.

Around this time, the various grant-related agencies begin to talk about what they plan to do next year for schools and law enforcement agencies in all sorts of areas. This next year looks to be a promising one, with funding available for schools in the area of School Violence and Safety Prevention Programs. Additionally, it appears that there will be substantial opportunities for funding for working with responding police departments in the areas of support and notification and training for their responses, along with areas of the Use of Force, and with assisting in the many Covid-19 concerns. 

On September 17, 2020, Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law two COVID-19 related bills – Senate Bill (SB) 1159 and Assembly Bill (AB) 685. SB 1159 is an urgency bill that is now effective immediately.

As schools continue to adjust instruction and safety protocols during the pandemic, it is important to acknowledge that COVID-19 will be around much longer than most people were originally thinking. Additionally, we will experience a convergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and our “normal” seasonal influenza experiences.

All of the agencies shown above can help your public Safety program, not only in the area of school violence, but also in the very relevant area of COVID-19 identification and prevention.

You may have heard the terms “Contact tracing” or “contact listing” in reference to tracking and responding to COVID-19 cases and outbreaks. While these terms are important for pandemic safety, they may be unclear for many. Close contact “tracing” is one of the primary tools we have at our disposal to get ahead of the infection curve. Contact tracing attempts to identify as many people who have potentially been exposed to the virus as possible, by “tracing” those who an infected person came into contact with.