Tragedy after tragedy has occurred in our country’s public schools. Many lives were lost, safety and security practices have caused uproar between neighbors, and tensions have increased. Are you looking for tips your students can practice to stay safe? You’ve come to the right place. With the ever-increasing security and safety threats to schools, parents, teachers, and school leaders are more concerned than ever for student safety. As a school leader, you must do your utmost best to ensure everyone is safe at school. APS is here to give you the tools you need to ensure everyone stays safe and can get faster response time in the chance of a threat. With us and our Alert-Com system, you and your students can remain safer in a threat and know how to respond to danger if you are in need. Now, let’s go over tips your students can practice to stay safe.
Take the time to educate them
The purpose of kids going to school is to get an education. If you haven’t taught them properly how to defend themselves and how to act in a threat, you’ve failed your job. The most important part of being an educator is to teach them realistic skills that they need. We truly hope no one ever needs those self-defense skills, but they are extremely valuable to have ingrained in one’s mind. You know the best methods to educate someone, so use them wisely. Children need hands-on experience to remember these things, so take the opportunity to incorporate self-defense practices in gym class. Show them visually. Not everyone learns the same, and teaching them to study and memorize won’t do anything for self-defense unless they practice it. This leads us to our next point.
Encourage practice
As the saying goes, “practice makes perfect,” the same goes here for safety tips. Once you educate your students about safety practices, you must include drills. If they don’t get experience, how will they fully grasp the concepts? Encourage them to practice at home as well. They can set up a plan on how to respond to different emergencies or threats.
Now, what are these safety practices?
Three tips your students can practice to stay safe
- Stay alert
- Observe the environment. Is it safe? Incorporate the five senses.
- Trust your gut instinct. If something tells you to leave an area or something feels off or wrong, do it.
- Don’t talk to strangers if they are trying to get you to go with them, no matter what they say. If you don’t know them, don’t listen to them, even if they say they know your parents.
- Fight, hide, or flight response
- Fight
- The most critical response, but one hopefully to never be used. Teach them how to physically defend themselves. One way to make an impact almost immediately is to scream as loud as possible. This has worked to prevent people from being jumped before. Do research on practices, and consider Brazilian jiu-jitsu, the most recommended method
- Hide
- There are different methods but here are a few:
- Barricade a door if you worry someone dangerous will come through it. Cover windows.
- Stay low and quiet
- Hide under a desk that cannot be seen from windows
- There are different methods but here are a few:
- Flight
- If you need to run from danger there are different ways to do so per situation. For example, zig-zags, running in a populated area, etc.
- Fight
- Teach them how to use Alert-Com
- Alert-Com has different features per threat or emergency. By pressing a button, like the red threat button, your plea will instantly alert first responders. Through the installation of Alert-Com, you can inform your local authorities ahead of time like the mapping of your location. You can also understand what to do in a threat with the “need assistance” button. This tells you exactly how to respond.
Contact APS
We can explain everything you need to know about what we do and Alert-Com. We serve you. With our technology, you can get first responders acting fast, and understand how to respond to a threat. We want all schools safe, so let’s start with yours. Contact us today.
