September – the smell of a freshly waxed floor in your school. This is something that teachers and school administrators are only too familiar with. Along with the clean school, the textbooks piled up on the student desks and the neatly stacked library books always comes some anxiety. When I was a teacher I remember the first-day-of-school nightmares. In my dream was I was not able to control my class. The students were running out the classroom door and I was not able to shout at them to “Come back to the room.” When I became a principal I still had dreams before the opening of school. These were different. I couldn’t get the teachers to supervise their kids. I don’t have those dreams any more but I’m still concerned about supervision of children and keeping them from harm.
This is a good time to reflect and to plan for the new school year.
If you are a teacher – how safe is your classroom?
How can you arrange your classroom so that you can minimize the chance of a student accident? Look around the room and consider what your most distracted student would do in the environment. Plan for the worst so that the worst won’t happen. Avoid hazards so that the likelihood of school accidents is reduced. Don’t keep a hot plate or a crock pot in your classroom and don’t use extension cords not made for the job. Check the chairs and desks. Are they all safe, or do some need to be repaired? Let your principal know when you feel that something is not safe in the class.
If you are a principal – how safe is your school?
How can you effectively communicate with your teachers about safety in their classrooms? Do you have a one-time meeting at the beginning of the school year to review safety or do you go into each classroom with your head custodian and “inspect” it along with the teacher? After all, you are the leader of the school and that includes not only academic leader but the person who oversees the safety of your students and staff. Check to be sure that your school is using the right AV cart to hold that television and that the straps are securely holding it to the right type of cart. I worked on a case several years ago where the jury awarded a student $1.7M when an AV cart with a 55 lb. television fell over and hit him in the head. The cart was unsafe and had been recalled but the school ignored the notice.
