A number of acquaintances have been performing a quite a number of school safety audits for school districts and independent schools this spring and summer. During our discussions, five or six of them have mentioned how interesting it has been to them that some of the schools they have assessed are viewed unfairly by a lot of people in their communities to be unsafe in some way or another.
These are very sharp school safety experts from around the country who are among the most skilled and experienced in this type of work, and they feel that a lot of these perceptions are often very much out of balance with the reality they are seeing when they visit them.
In our fast paced information rich world today, I think it is all too common for misperceptions like this to harm campus organizations. This also demonstrates how important it is for campus organizations to provide evidence of their safety efforts using demonstrable, credible and accurate information such as student, staff and parent survey data to provide the public with a clearer picture of the level of safety they provide.
