Campus Safety Task Force recommendations from Virginia Tech
Posted by Judy Breck on January 14, 2008
A report from News 14 Carolina provides updates on the efforts to learn from last spring’s Virginia Tech shootings. A bottom line in the report: “Attorney General Cooper has one suggestion for the state legislature: ‘People with severe and dangerous mental illness shouldn’t be able to buy a gun and it’s as simple as that,’ Cooper stressed.”
The following 11 suggestions, that can improve safety for all schools, have been made by the Campus Safety Task Force appointed to study the massacre last April:
1. Campuses should establish threat assessment teams.
2. Campus administrators and mental health professionals should be provided accurate guidance about student privacy laws.
3. N.C. should prohibit those who have been involuntarily committed from purchasing guns by reporting this information to the National Instant Background Check System.
4. Campuses should adopt emergency plans that integrate into the National Incident Management System.
5. Campuses should enter into mutual aid agreements or MOUs with key partners where relevant.
6. Campuses should practice and regularly update their emergency plans.
7. Campuses should educate and train faculty, staff, and students as part of their emergency plans.
8. Campuses should adopt multiple, redundant notification systems and rigorously evaluate such systems.
9. Campuses should partner with local law enforcement and first responders to ensure interoperable communications.
10. Campuses should incorporate victim counseling services in their emergency plans and establish a system of regular briefings for victims’ families.
11. The State should establish a Center for Campus Safety to coordinate training programs, hold an annual summit, and share “best practices” information.
