School safety conferences are a great way for school administrators to keep abreast of “best practices” and establish a network of professionals that possess a common interest in making schools even safer. School administrators should try to attend a conference with someone from their local law enforcement, fire and/or emergency management agency. This can help foster discussions back home and strengthen relationships between stakeholders.
While many of the conferences may discuss lessons learned from events such as Columbine or Virginia Teach, take time to ensure the “experts” are not trying to shape the lessons learned from a tragedy to meet their particular product or services.

Someone that I strongly believe is a leading expert in the area of school safety is Dr. David Grossman (www.killology.com). If you have not had a chance to hear Dr. Dave – grab a cop and two and go. If you are interested in saving lives, I can think of no better way to spend a day.

The Missouri School Boards’ Association is putting on a Coordinated School Safety Conference August 14th & 15th in Branson, MO (http://www.schoolsafetyconference.com). I know Dr. Grossman is the keynote along with several other highly respected authorities in the area of school safety. If you know of other conferences that may be of interest to readers, please feel free to post them here.

Thanks and stay safe

Brad