About the Leader’s Guide

School safety starts with a positive, welcoming climate in which all school citizens are accepted for who they are, challenged to do their best and acknowledged for achievements.  Such a climate is the foundation of a Comprehensive School Safety Plan.

The Leader’s Guide to a Comprehensive School Safety Plan provides tools, resources, and training materials for leaders to use educate staff, organize a school safety infrastructure, plan for a safe environment, and how to react to threatening situation.

The Leader’s Guide provides strategies to mobilize leadership at your site (including students) to move forward with a Comprehensive School Safety Plan and a positive school environment.  The tools and resources are flexible so that each leader can configure them in the best way to meet the needs of the specific environment.

This guide provides resources to assist a leader in sharing the responsibilities for a safe climate with others in the school by sharing foundational information (Big Ideas), developing a leadership team, supporting action-planning for positive change (Big Actions), and engaging youth in making decisions about their school.

Leader’s Role in School Safety

Principals and other school leaders are responsible for the climate in their schools. A strong, healthy, and positive protective climate can be developed and maintained with a strong infrastructure of teacher, staff, and student leaders.  Leaders wear many hats.  They need to be able to educate their staff, students, and parents about the spectrum of school safety.

Initiator

  • Initiates the use of the working team
  • Creates needed change in priorities, beliefs, habits, structures, procedures, and ways of doing things
  • Nurtures people to be open, creative, and innovative and find what it takes to achieve their shared objectives

Guide

  • Guides the task and work; no one can do the work alone
  • Focus the collective working team and set and maintain the standard
  • Set the pace and vision
  • Support others in facilitating the Big Ideas and Big Actions

Non-Sales Salesperson

  • Persuades, convinces, influences, and moves others to do the work
  • Encourages and motivates others to embrace the idea that school climate can make a difference in discouraging negative behaviors
  • Create a personal and purposeful experience for others to support growth and development

What’s Next: Check out the School Safety Plan Checklist and its rationale. Moving on, view the materials to educate your faculty, students, and parents on Foundational Safety and Climate Information in Big Ideas.

Who created the Leader’s Guide? The Comprehensive School Safety Plan Checklist and the Leader’s Guide was created by school leaders, state policymakers, law enforcement officials, and researchers after working with hundreds of schools in districts as they create positive, protective, healthy, and safe cultures. Development directed by Dr. Kris Bosworth with Sandra O’C Thiffault and Austin Randall.