A panel of state leaders has called upon Delaware to invest more in resource officers and other programs to halt violence in schools at a time when education advocates argue schools have never been safer. Read the article: After Howard death, panel calls for more school officers
Pledges to raise money to provide school safety outreach and resources to schools in need
BOSTON, MA, Oct. 28, 2016 – Safe and Sound Schools has joined #GivingTuesday, a global day of giving that harnesses the collective power of individuals, communities and organizations to encourage philanthropy and to celebrate generosity worldwide. With its new initiative called Change for School Safety, Safe and Sound Schools encourages everyone to collect change to donate towards school safety. Occurring this year on November 29, #GivingTuesday is held annually on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving (in the U.S.) and the widely recognized shopping events Black Friday and Cyber Monday. #GivingTuesday kicks-off the holiday giving season and inspires people to collaborate in improving their local communities by encouraging them to give back in impactful ways to the charities and causes they support.
Safe and Sounds Schools together with the #GivingTuesday movement and its own Change for School Safety initiative empowers people to raise money to help them improve school safety nationwide. Change for School Safety encourages families to create their own school safety donation jar. From now until #GivingTuesday, people will collect change and donate it to Safe and Sound Schools on #GivingTuesday. On November 29 individuals, communities and organizations can celebrate worldwide generosity by donating to Safe and Sound Schools through Rally.org, Spotfund, or by check at P.O. Box 173 · Newtown, CT 06470.
“We cannot do this work alone,” said Michele Gay, co-founder and executive director of Safe and Sound Schools. “We need all hands on deck to help us create change for school safety. Donations collected from Change for School Safety will help us create resources and reach more schools, so we urge everyone to join us in making change.
“We have been incredibly inspired by the generosity in time, efforts and ideas that have brought our concept for a worldwide movement into reality,” said Henry Timms, founder of #GivingTuesday. “As we embark on our fifth year of #GivingTuesday, we are encouraged by the early response from partners eager to continue making an impact in this global conversation.”
Those who are interested in joining Safe and Sound Schools’ #GivingTuesday and Change for School Safety initiative, can visit the Change for School Safety website. For more details about the #GivingTuesday movement, visit the #GivingTuesday website.
About Safe and Sound Schools
Safe and Sound Schools is a non-profit organization founded by Sandy Hook parents who lost their children during the Sandy Hook Elementary tragedy. Winner of the 2015 SBANE New England Innovation Award for nonprofits, Safe and Sound Schools is dedicated to empowering communities to improve school safety through discussion, collaboration, planning, and sharing of information, tools, and resources. To get involved, visit safeandsoundschools.org.
About #GivingTuesday
#GivingTuesday is a movement to celebrate and provide incentives to give—the 2016 iteration will be held on November 29, 2016. This effort harnesses the collective power of a unique blend of partners—nonprofits, businesses and corporations as well as families and individuals—to transform how people think about, talk about and participate in the giving season. #GivingTuesday inspires people to take collaborative action to improve their local communities, give back in better, smarter ways to the charities and causes they celebrate and help create a better world. #GivingTuesday harnesses the power of social media to create a global moment dedicated to giving around the world. To learn more about #GivingTuesday participants and activities or to join the celebration of giving, please visit:http://www.givingtuesday.org.
The Safe and Sound Team has been busy this quarter. Guided by our mission of empowering communities to improve school safety, we’ve continued our travels, flying near and far to speak and work with communities and professional groups across the country .
July travels kicked off with a trip to Robertson County, Tennessee, where Michele presented to district staff preparing for the start of a safe school year. Then it was off to Littleton, Colorado, where Safe and Sound speaker, Frank DeAngelis, and co-founder Michele Gay attended The Briefings: A National School Safety Symposium, hosted by the I Love U Guys Foundation at Columbine High School.
On July 21, Safe and Sound board members convened in Boston, Massachusetts to reflect upon the progress and future plans for the organization. A couple days later, Michele attended the Campus Safety East Conference in Washington D.C., where Safe and Sound was represented along with several other school safety non-profits, thought leaders, and industry representatives. Soon after, Michele headed back to Tennessee to present to the Bledsoe County district staff, as they finalized preparations for the 2016-17 school year. July travels concluded with Michele keynoting for the Kentucky Firefighters Association, where she was able to spend time with many dedicated professionals and educators.
In August, Michele traveled to the Cypress-Fairbanks Schools in Texas and presented to a room full of district leaders and educators. Michele also traveled to the Maryland School Safety Center and Indiana Academy of Safety Specialists to present and teach. In Long Beach, California, board member, Bob Martin represented Safe and Sound Schools and spoke to an audience of emergency managers, educators, and safety & security professionals at the Campus Safety West Conference.
September brought the “official” start of school for many, beginning with visits to Virginia where Michele and Dr. Melissa Reeves, led two full day reunification workshops for area educators, safety directors, law enforcement and mental health professionals. Later in the month, Michele traveled to Columbus Ohio to present a webinar and hold a community forum sponsored by Status Solutions.
September ended with the addition of Natalie Hammond to the Safe and Sound Schools speaking team. Natalie presented for the Tennessee Department of Education’s “Creating Compassionate Schools” conference, sharing her perspective and personal journey as a survivor of the Sandy Hook School tragedy. She was very warmly received and praised by all in attendance. We are deeply honored to have Natalie with us, sharing her experience and dedication to safe schools.
The Safe and Sound team continued engaging the national community with #100DaysOfSafety, a summer social media campaign, aimed at providing online users with 100 safety tips over the course of 100 days. With the end of #100DaysOfSafety, Safe and Sound Schools launched #ChangeForSchoolSafety –a campaign aimed encouraging community members to collect loose change and donate their collections to Safe and Sound Schools this year on #GivingTuesday, November 29.
Perhaps the one of the biggest highlights of our third quarter was the addition of Status Solutions to the Safe and Sound community. Thank you to the Status folks for supporting and sharing our mission of safer schools nationwide. We look forward to working together to spread the word and empower even more school communities.
For day-to-day updates on all things Safe and Sound, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. For information on our current campaigns, visit our website to learn about #ChangeForSchoolSafety and #GivingTuesday. Be a part of the change for school safety!
October 2016 is a special month and year, as it marks the 10th anniversary of National Bullying Prevention Month. We have seen a lot of progress in bullying prevention over these past 10 years, including the launch of stopbullying.gov (a federal government website dedicated to this topic) and the passing of anti-bullying legislation in all 50 states. On a personal level, 5 years ago I was honored to become the director of the Alberti Center for Bullying Abuse Prevention at the University at Buffalo, a center with the mission of conducting research to better understand and prevent bullying and getting that information into the hands of people who can make a difference.
If each person does their part, it makes it easier for schools, parents, and communities join together in these common goals to create a culture and climate of support where bullying is not tolerated. I hope in another 10 years we won’t need a Bullying Prevention Month because every day will be a day where we are committed to treating others with dignity and respect.
To learn more, please check out some of these resources:
Dr. Amanda Nickerson is a professor of school psychology and director of the Alberti Center for Bullying Abuse Prevention at the University at Buffalo, the State University of New York. She is a licensed psychologist, a nationally certified school psychologist, and a speaker for Safe and Sound Schools.
Recently, I received an email from a parent asking me, “What can I do to help Safe and Sound Schools? What can change to improve school safety?” It’s the same question that I receive from everyone I meet online and on the road – from parents to students to teachers to first responders.
As I think about this question, it brings me back to when Alissa and I first started Safe and Sound Schools. We never imagined that 20 beautiful and innocent young students and six dedicated school staff and teachers would lose their lives to a horrible tragedy on December 14, 2012 in Newtown, Connecticut. We never imagined that our own children, Josephine and Emilie, would be among the names of the children killed that day. We never imagined how much our lives would change, including those of our families and the world around us.
We just knew that after what happened, we had to do something. We had to make sure that what happened at Sandy Hook didn’t happen anywhere else.
In creating Safe and Sound Schools, Alissa and I believed that we needed to educate communities and empower them to make school safety a priority. But through our travels, we found out that school safety issues varied from state to state, city to city. Communities want resources. Students want to get involved in the school safety conversation. Parents want to know what steps and policies are in place to protect their children at school. First responders want to be prepared for any type of crisis that happens at a school. And we want everyone to be safe and sound. But how do we get there?
To provide more resources, get students involved, and continue the school safety conversation online and on the ground, we need your help. We cannot do this work alone. We need everyone to be a part of the Change for School Safety. By collecting loose change and saving it as donation to give on #GivingTuesday (November 29), you can make a difference in school safety.
There is so much work to be done. But in the words of Richard Bach, we know that “a tiny change today can bring a dramatically different tomorrow.”
Will you be part of the change for school safety?
To find out more about being a part of Change for School Safety, click here.
Michele Gay, Co-founder & Executive Director of Safe and Sound Schools
October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM), an annual effort cofounded and co-led by the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to provide everyone with the resources they need to be safer, more secure and better able to protect their personal information online. As our world becomes more connected, our children spend more time online and connect to the internet more often at home, at school and on the go. It’s crucial for kids to understand the importance of protecting their personal information and how they can be smart, ethical internet users. We all have roles to play in strengthening our cybersecurity and privacy. NCSAM is a great time for parents and teachers to talk to kids about online safety; here are a few tips to get you started.
Resources That Work
About the Author
Michael Kaiser joined the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) in 2008. As NCSA’s chief executive, Mr. Kaiser engages diverse constituencies—business, government and other nonprofit organizations—in NCSA’s broad public education and outreach efforts to promote a safer, more secure and more trusted Internet. Mr. Kaiser leads NCSA in several major awareness initiatives, including National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM) each October, Data Privacy Day (Jan. 28) and STOP. THINK. CONNECT., the global online safety awareness and education campaign. NCSA builds efforts through public-private partnerships that address cybersecurity and privacy issues for a wide array of target audiences, including individuals, families and the education and business communities. In 2009, Mr. Kaiser was named one of SC Magazine’s information security luminaries.
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School Nurse, Helen Bailey of Cold Spring, Kentucky, reflects on her focus on school safety at the start of another school year.
Summer IS always too short for this school nurse! I treasure the lazy days of summer spent with family and friends. However, just like the students, I must face the reality of back to school.
In fact, I am thinking of back to school even during my summer break. Over the summer, I obtain my 14 hours of continuing education required for my nursing license. On a more personal level, I maintain contact with my students who have Type 1 Diabetes by inviting them and their families for a swim party at my home. This at-home connection helps the students feel more comfortable coming to me during the school year.
So here we are. Back at school. This year, my goals focus on safety. In July, I attended Michele Gay’s 4-hour presentation on school safety. She was the keynote speaker at the Kentucky Firefighters Association conference. Six faculty and staff from our school attended. We are preparing to present at the next faculty meeting to share what we learned that day.
My number one goal has always been the safety of our students. But now, I am even more informed. For instance, as I leave one building to go to the next for a parent meeting on food allergies, I take the extra second to make sure the door is locked behind me. When I am checking a blood sugar before snack, from time to time, I will take that student with me to practice a lockdown drill. As I fill in at the front desk for our secretary, I answer the door and ask visitors to provide their name and reason for their visit as they sign in and get a badge. I teach CPR and the use of a defibrillator while making certain everyone has access to our defibrillator on the ball field.
Our school administration and the school board are acutely aware of school safety. Many measures have been implemented to improve the safety on our campus. More changes are on the horizon. I am proud to belong to a team that strives to keep our campus as safe as possible, from the individual health needs of our students all the way up through the entire school community.
I wish everyone a safe and healthy school year!
Helen Bailey, RN
School Nurse
Cold Spring, Kentucky
