Creating a Safer School: A Practical Guide for Administrators

Roshni Jha

Sep 30

4 min read

Safety is not an emergency plan; it is a daily practice. Schools regulate attendance, movement, transportation, communication and a host of other activities that have a direct impact on the school environment from the time students arrive at school until they leave.

For administrators, a safer school means keeping a close eye on these regular processes to see where better coordination, clearer procedures, and more reliable information can close preventable gaps.

Look at Safety Through the Student’s Daily Journey

One practical way to understand school safety is to walk a student through a school day.

What happens when a student arrives at school?
How do you take attendance?
How does the school know when students change from one activity to another?
What about transportation and authorized pickups?
How do you tell parents about an important change?
Such questions can help administrators identify what elements of current processes are up for improvement.
Safety can be improved if staff know what information is needed at each stage and there are clear roles and responsibilities.

Keep Important Student Information Organized

Schools collect a lot of data about students, such as attendance, parent information, transportation information, and other administrative records.

If data is stored in paper registers, spreadsheets or various separate systems, the time it takes to find the latest information increases.
A digital, centralized system allows authorized staff to easily access and update relevant information.
School automation facilitates the maintenance of student information in electronic form so that authorized staff can access and manage the information they need.
The organization of information also helps staff members make better decisions because records are more easily retrieved and maintained.

Make Attendance More Than a Record

One of the most important ongoing processes for student safety is attendance.

It gives schools information regarding student attendance.
It can help staff identify situations that may need attention.
Manual attendance procedures may require many steps including collecting records, preparing summaries, and communicating information.
Digital attendance workflows can automate such processes, allowing authorized staff to see attendance information.
The school automation helps in recording the attendance information and makes it available through a more structured workflow.
Attendance isn’t simply about taking the temperature of the room; the information can also help schools recognize trends and take action when something needs to be addressed.

Bring More Structure to Pickup and Transport

Dismissing students can get complicated with multiple busses, parents and authorized guardians and schedule changes.

Procedures need to be clearly defined.
Schools need to have up-to-date collection data.
Staff should know who has the responsibility to confirm arrangements.
A system for communicating changes to the appropriate staff should be in place.
Technology can help centralize transportation and pick-up information and make these processes easier to manage.
Digital records and tracking can help schools know what normal student movement looks like.
These systems are designed to support rather than replace staff responsibility and should operate alongside existing school procedures.

Improve the Flow of Parent Communication

Parents should be kept informed regularly about attendance, announcements, schedules, transportation, and other school activities.

Manually updating each routine can add pressure to admin teams.
Automation in schools can help to organize daily communication.
You are able to set up predefined workflows to provide routine notification.
That frees up staff to focus on conversations or situations that need individual attention.
Good communication is not simply about sending more messages.
The aim is to get the right information to the right people at the right time and in the right way.

Automate the Processes That Need It

Automation doesn't have to rule everything at a school. Administrators should be looking for activities that are:

Repetition
That takes time
Difficult to track
Error prone

For example

Routine attendance taking may be a good fit for digital workflows.
Notices can be handled through digital workflows.
Reporting and information management can be simplified as well.
School automation plan must include data security, user permissions, staff training, system reliability, and ease of integration with existing school processes.
The goal should be to eliminate unnecessary work and to make relevant information easier to comprehend.

Share Responsibility for Student Safety

Technology can help promote student safety but is not a replacement for people, oversight or existing safety procedures.

Teachers, administrators, transport staff and support teams all have different roles.
Schools can identify practical gaps through regular discussion and review.
Regular review can make sure everyone is clear on what they are responsible for.
Rather than waiting for something to go wrong to find a gap, schools can regularly review safety procedures.
When student safety is integrated into the fabric of day-to-day school operations, rather than being relegated to a separate emergency function, it can help to cultivate a stronger safety culture.

Connect Everyday School Operations

There is a lot of information that is common to many school processes.

Attendance could be a related student record.
Student information may also be related to communication, transportation, reporting and safety related activities.
When these functions are separated, staff may need to reenter or re-check information.
Connected digital workflows can help to reduce duplication.
They can additionally allow authorized staff to access information related to their work.
This means that administrators can manage each process in isolation rather than have a more holistic view of how the school operates.

Building a More Connected Approach With MyKawach

Making schools safer is a continuous process. Administrators can begin by:
Identification of common safety gaps.
Strengthening the existing processes.
Better communication.
Making it easier to get to key information.
Connecting essential day-to-day school operations.

This is where connected technology can help schools.

MyKawach combines student management, attendance, parent communication, transportation, reporting and safety processes in one connected environment.
This is not about replacing responsible staff and proven safety procedures with technology.
The goal is to give schools better tools to handle information.
It can help in coordinating the daily activities.
It can help to create a more connected environment where safety is built into the fabric of the day-to-day running of the school.