Start with a Walkthrough

One of the most straightforward things a school administrator can do at the start of a new year is walk the campus with fresh eyes. Not a formal audit, not a third-party assessment, just a deliberate, unhurried walk through every building and outdoor space with safety as the lens. It is surprising how much becomes visible when you are looking for it specifically.

Notice what has changed over the summer. Deferred maintenance that creates physical hazards, new access points that were not there last year, landscaping that now blocks sightlines, doors that were repaired improperly and no longer latch correctly. These are not exotic threats. They are the kind of incremental vulnerabilities that accumulate between attention cycles and are inexpensive to address when caught early.

Bring someone with you who uses the space differently than you do. A teacher, a custodian, a security officer if you have one. Different roles produce different observations. The goal is a brief, documented list of items to address before students arrive, not a comprehensive risk assessment.

Update Your Contact Trees

Emergency communication depends on accurate contact information, and contact information changes every summer. Staff turn over. Phone numbers change. Administrators move to different roles. Taking an hour in the first week of pre-service to verify that your emergency contact trees are current is time well spent and rarely happens with the consistency it deserves.

This includes internal staff contacts and external agency contacts. Local law enforcement liaisons, fire department contacts, mental health resources, district emergency management staff if your district has them. These relationships are worth a brief touch-base at the start of the year to confirm current contacts and remind partner agencies that a new year is beginning.

It is also worth reviewing your family communication systems. If your school uses a mass notification platform, run a brief test before school starts. Confirm that the distribution lists are current and that the system functions as expected. A notification system that fails during an actual emergency is worse than no system, because it creates the impression that communication was attempted.

Brief Your Staff Early

Emergency preparedness tends to be an orientation-week topic that competes with everything else being covered before students arrive. That competition often means safety content is rushed or deferred. Making a deliberate choice to give emergency preparedness adequate time in pre-service professional development signals to staff that this is a genuine operational priority, not a compliance checkbox.

The briefing does not need to be lengthy or technical. The most useful pre-year safety conversation for most staff covers three things: what to do in the most likely emergencies for your campus, where to find resources and who to call with questions, and what has changed since last year. That last item matters because changes in protocol or physical layout need to be communicated explicitly rather than assumed.

For new staff, this is also an opportunity to convey that safety is a shared responsibility, not something that only falls to administrators and security personnel. New teachers in particular benefit from understanding that their role in student safety is active and specific, not passive.

Practice Before You Need To

Drills are more valuable when they happen early in the year, before routines are fully established, than when they happen mid-year as a scheduled compliance exercise. Early drills surface gaps in understanding before those gaps matter. They also communicate to students from the beginning that practiced preparation is a normal part of how this school operates.

The most effective drills are followed by brief structured debriefs. Not lengthy after-action reports, just a ten-minute conversation with the staff involved to identify what worked, what was confusing, and what should be reinforced. That debrief loop is where most of the learning actually happens and it is where most schools skip a step.

Back-to-school season is also a good time to consider whether your current drill schedule reflects your actual risk profile. Schools in earthquake-prone regions should be practicing drop-cover-hold as regularly as fire egress. Schools that have not updated their drill types in several years may be practicing for a narrower set of scenarios than their environment warrants.