A vital new guide, entitled Keep Your School Safe (KYSS), is currently en route to all Jewish schools. Parents and community members can read and print the free KYSS guide now at www.keepyourschoolsafe.com. The guide helps schools conduct a thorough security review to help them carefully evaluate and improve school safety.
The KYSS guide emphasizes the combination of existing resources along with new innovations to create a strong and manageable security program. This timely guide refers administrators to funding sources, such as available federal grants, that will allow them to achieve their safety and security goals.
The Keep Your School Safe guide includes sections on protection of school grounds, lockdown procedures, proper safety and security training for the teachers and staff, and other emergency preparedness measures. It is a practical, comprehensive, unique manual that will prove invaluable to Jewish schools everywhere.
In light of recent events, there can no longer be any doubt that all parents must encourage and maximize safety in their children’s school. We enroll our children in Jewish schools in order to impart the lessons of Torah and our heritage. Keep Your School Safe simply underscores how much Judaism values life.
Keep Your School Safe has been recommended by security organizations such as The Secure Community Network (the National Homeland Security Initiative of the Jewish Federations of North America and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish organizations) and SWAT members. The guide has also been recognized by the Agudath Israel of America and The Orthodox Union as an essential safety and security resource.
The initial print run of the KYSS guide is ten thousand copies. KYSS is intended for all Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Community Day schools. In addition, it will also be sent to Jewish organizations, synagogues, and camps. A similar guide is being prepared for all public and private schools throughout North America.
The author, Frank Storch, is a Security Consultant, Coordinator for CERT (the Community Emergency Response Team in Northern Park Heights, Baltimore) and an expert in security for over thirty-five years. Mr. Storch feels that the Jewish community needs no further wake-up call than the tragedy last December in Newtown, CT; it is imperative to review and tighten school safety and security measures. Frank Storch is also the founder of the guide’s sponsors, The Chesed Fund Limited and Project Ezra of Greater Baltimore, Inc.
This guide is published in memory of the faculty and students of Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, as well as the victims of the Boston Marathon terror attack. For more information and resources about ensuring greater protection of our children, schools, and communities, please visit www.keepyourschoolsafe.com. For any questions or comments call 410-358-2525 or email [email protected].
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8 Responses
Have any Hareidi schools, in America or elsewhere, experienced attacks from terrorists or criminals? To what extent is this “problem” being pushed by vendors hoping to get money off the deal, money that should better be spent on hinukh or reduced tuition.
Having at all times ten or so trained and armed employees would be cost effective, but you likely will not find that idea at the above mentioned site.
#1… after about 2.6 seconds of thought, the answer to your question is a definitive YES. I think through all your ranting about how non-Jews only hate Zionists, you are forgetting Toulouse, France just last year, where four Jews including 3 children were murdered in cold blood HY”D. Not to mention all the vandalism and threats that don’t make it to your mainstream media feed.
Right, so instead of spending money to protect our children so that t DOESN’T happen in a Jewish school, we should wait until chas be shalom something DOES happen. But wait, then everyone (I’m sure yourself included) will be demanding to know why security wasn’t increased after all of these tragedies…..
Ten armed guards would cost more than the typical budget spent by most schools on faculty. School shootings in the United States have involved a variety of factors that make it unlikely to occur in one of our schools. If security is such a concern, perhaps we should switch to home schooling. What goes is a “safe” school if it excludes most potential students who are unable to pay the higher tuition costs involved in massive security, or if it can’t get teachers since the security budget took so much away from the budget from teachers that no one can afford to teach there.
Akuperma, Have you forgotten the attack on the Jewish school In France last year that killed students and rebbeim?
There have been many instances of surveillance of Yeshivas and Bais Yaakov’s by middle eastern looking people. A few were even caught.
I served on my son’s Yeshiva’s security committee and we made a series of recommendations. The ends result was the Yeshiva didn’t want to spend the money, but did a few insignificant things. They didn’t bother to implement less costly suggestions that would have made it more difficult to gain entry into the building.
I guess the smart people out there think that nothing will ever happen….until it does, ch’v!
Akuperma. You might first want to look at the guide before assuming it’s a commercial venture. I worked on this project with its creator, Frank Storch. He is a well-known askan who has invested countless hours and dollars, with nothing but tzorchei tzibbur in mind. NOTHING is being sold in it, and only rarely are brands mentioned, and that’s when they provide solutions which others do not. The sole intent here is to keep our children safe, and all parents and administrators should insist that schools use the guide. They may only be able to implement 1 in 100 ideas, but if we don’t even make a hishtadlus, how can we expect that we will be immune from the craziness which is going on?