Ritchie Priest

EAD 505-0500

Grand Canyon University

May 21, 2019

 After completing a safety audit for my current school with my principal there were several areas

of concern. The main one for me is that we do not have a full time school resource officer present at our

school. They are only there for part of the day and on some days they are not there at all. I believe that

all schools should be required to have someone from law enforcement there always. But while being in

a rural county with limited resources, there is simply not enough funding to have one all day at every

school. Solutions that were brought up during our meeting were to ask county and educational leaders

in the area for more funding. Another way to improve the safety when our deputies aren’t present is to

ask the town police department to work with the county and have one of their officers be there when

our SRO’s couldn’t be there. But being low on funding is no excuse to risk the safety of our students and

staff.

The other main concern we had during the meeting was that our school is not an enclosed

campus. It is spread out and there are no fences or boundaries to prevent anyone from entering our

campus. It is an old school, and we share the same parking lot with a historical building, so we never

know if someone in the parking lot is at our school or visiting the historical building. This could be

dangerous because you never know if someone is sitting out there watching and planning something on

a student of staff member. We discussed putting up a border fence that would enclose the entire

campus but once again funding came up and putting up that much fencing didn’t seem feasible. The

final solution that we came up with was to install security cameras throughout the campus. Especially in

areas that are most vulnerable. This too would cost a lot but would be a lot more practical for what our

needs are.

These concerns relate to the school vision and our school mission because we strive to meet all

students needs and to provide a safe and positive and effective learning environment. Student safety

should be the number one priority. With this being said PSEL standard 5 focuses on the well-being of

each student. Standard 5a states that effective leaders need to, “Build and maintain a safe, caring, and
healthy school environment that meets that the academic, social, emotional, and physical needs of each

student” (National Policy Board for Educational Administration, 13). This will impact my future as a

principal because in order to be effective and to be the leader that I'm supposed to be, the safety of our

students and staff is of most importance. This will be helpful in a checklist for me to make sure I'm

holding up to standards in being an effective leader. This experience will further engrave in my mind the

importance of safety and making sure that even the least little things can always impact the safety of

our students.

After talking about the safety needs and concerns with my principal, we came to the conclusion

to write these things down and see what can be done. My principal is always looking for things to

improve our school and safety is always at the top. My principal and I both came up with the solutions

and feel these solutions are the best way to handle the safety concerns of our school and to better

protect our faculty, staff and students.

 Sources

Professional Standards for Educational Leaders. (2015). Retrieved May 20, 2019, from

http://npbea.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Professional-Standards-for-Educational-

Leaders_2015.pdf