Get ready to roll up your sleeves and dive into real-world scenarios alongside other safety and security professionals during this summer’s Campus Safety Conference workshops!
The 2025 Campus Safety Conference is happening July 21-23 in Austin, Texas. Attendees with a full conference pass will have free access to two exclusive workshop sessions—one on Monday, July 21 at 3:00pm and another on Wednesday, July 23 at 11:00am—giving you the opportunity to explore multiple topics in a small-group, solutions-driven format.
Below are summarized descriptions of the workshops being offered this year. Full workshop descriptions can be found here.
RELATED: 2025 Campus Safety Conference Resource Center
July 21 | 3-5pm | Can You Hear Me Now: Why Your P.A. System is the Most Critical Component of Your Lockdown Plan
How can a school expect its staff, students, and visitors to know what to do during a lockdown if they cannot clearly hear the messages? In this session, Jesus Villahermosa, Jr., a retired sergeant and owner of Crisis Reality Training, Inc., will share reality-based information that reference numerous school shootings where the P.A. system failed, and how to avoid failure for your schools. He will also discuss how to test your P.A. system and enhance its capabilities by leveraging visual aids.
July 21 | 3-5pm | Castles, Not Prisons — Crucial Context for K-12 School Climate and Culture in School Security Strategy
This session, presented by Guy Bliesner, a school safety and security analyst for the Idaho State Board of Education, is part of the National Council of School Security Directors’ “Foundations of School Security Leadership” course. The course explores the unique factors that comprise an educational environment, and the practical ramifications for how this impacts, for better or worse, the development and maintenance of a welcoming, safe and secure school. With human failures in school security as the largest factor contributing to unprevented incidents, this class will provide a “castles not prisons” approach based on a holistic, multi-layered perspective that emphasizes the strengths, risks and opportunities to empower and align human elements across a school community eco-system.
July 21 | 3-5pm | Effective Emergency Tabletop Exercises
During any emergency, it is important to be able to draw from all available resources. The special skills, training and capabilities of staff will play a vital role in coping with the effects of any disaster, and they will be of paramount importance during and after a major event. Participants in this train-the-trainer session, led by Paul Timm, director of education safety at Allegion, will be placed in tabletop teams and assigned specific roles (e.g., spokesperson, scribe, stakeholder). Once the rules are explained and the emergency scenario is introduced, participants will have facilitated and timed discussions with Q&A time among their teams. Each team will then share specific responses as the scenarios unfold.
July 21 | 3-5pm | That Which We Do Not Know: Autism and Threat Assessment
What are we scared of? We are scared of the unknown, of things that are different, of things we do not understand. So it is, that autistic people are often the focus of threat assessment investigations. To the neurotypical eye, autistic behavior can be unsettling, and unsettling behavior can seem dangerous. Diving into the topic, Dr. Stephanie Leite, Clinical and Forensic Psychologist, Forensic Intelligence, LLC, will cover general information on autism and crime, carefully explain the difference between autism and psychopathic behavior, and use research to identify factors that create greater and less risk in the population. We will then look at several real-life case examples, applying our new knowledge to that report. Participants will walk away understanding the way our understanding of autism and threat impacts our assessment and management of students, staff, co-workers, and faculty.
July 23 | 11am-12:30pm | Reunification – Where Do We Begin? One District’s Story
In this presentation, school officials, law enforcement, and emergency management representatives will walk through the process followed by the DeForest Area School District in DeForest Wisconsin, as they transitioned from having no reunification plan to developing a comprehensive and effective strategy. While DeForest used the Standard Reunification Method (SRM) developed by the I Love U Guys Foundation, the strategies discussed can be applied to any reunification plan. Presenters share firsthand experiences and lessons learned.
Participants will leave with a framework for developing their own reunification plan, creating a professional development plan, along with tips on recruiting volunteers. Additionally, the presentation will discuss how to collaborate across districts and counties to share resources and plan together. We will cover reunification plan selection, development, and the steps it will take to go from nothing to establishing a solid reunification plan.
RELATED: Free Grant Consultations to Be Offered at 2025 Campus Safety Conference
July 23 | 11am-12:30pm | Social Media and Youth: AI, Threats, and Solutions
Social Media & Youth: AI, Threats and Solutions, presented by Clayton Cranford, founder of Cyber Safety Cop, is a comprehensive program designed to empower professionals working with children by providing deep insights into adolescents’ engagement with social media and networking platforms. Tailored for psychologists, doctors, counselors, law enforcement personnel, social workers, group home operators, and educators, the course equips participants to navigate the complexities of the digital youth culture.
July 23 | 11am-12:30pm | Development and Effective Use of a District/School Safety Committee/Team
This session, presented by Guy Bliesner, a school safety and security analyst for the Idaho State Board of Education, is part of the National Council of School Security Directors’ “Foundations of School Security Leadership” course. The lesson explores the critical role of the multidisciplinary school safety committee. School security leaders must actively and effectively engage with all the stakeholders’ groups in the school community, understanding that any one group has the potential to derail school security improvement. This committee acts to both prioritize needed change and as the mechanism to disseminate and drive behavioral modification to affect cultural change at the school community level.
