Schools should be safe places for young people, educators, school staff, and community members, and policies and practices can help create learning environments where kids thrive. Gun violence in U.S. schools has prompted calls for increased school safety measures; however, which policies contribute to safe school environments is often a topic of…

Mass shootings in schools raise important questions about how best to keep individuals safe and increase survivability in such situations. One of the most common techniques used is lockdown drills, which train individuals to build time and space between them and the threat. Despite their use in 95% of public K-12 schools nationwide, their efficacy…

Given their significance to school violence, this study quantifies the association between bullying victimization and perceptions of safety separately for victimization where the type is not specified versus victimization that is physical in nature. Generalized liner mixed modeling was employed with 5,138 sixth- to eighth-grade students in 24…

The Extended Adolescent Injury Checklist (E-AIC), a self-report measure of injury based on the model of the Adolescent Injury Checklist (AIC), was developed for use in the evaluation of school-based interventions. The three stages of this development involved focus groups with adolescents and consultations with medical staff, pilot testing of the…

Background: Violence at a school can have a negative impact on the health of students, teachers, administrators, and others associated with the school and surrounding community. The use of weapons in school buildings or on school grounds accounts for the majority of violent deaths, particularly among males. This national trend suggests the need…

The purpose of this study was to investigate school playground safety practices. The study used a purposeful sample of school nurses who attended a playground safety workshop at the 2006 National Association of School Nurses annual conference. Seventy-five questionnaires were distributed, and 64 useable questionnaires were returned. The responses…

Background: Approximately 10-25% of child and adolescent injuries occur at school. Little is known about school-related injuries to teachers and other adults or about the direct cost of injuries to schools. This study examined the characteristics of cases involving injuries resulting in lawsuits against schools, compared cases in which schools…

Purpose: The primary purpose of this paper is to examine the kinds of injuries that preschool teachers working in Indiana, USA, believed to be the most common in their preschool (3-6 year olds) classrooms, the causes of such injuries, and the most important precautions they take to prevent them. Also examined are the measures the teachers take…

Earthquakes are low-probability, high-consequence events. Though they may occur only once in the life of a school, they can have devastating, irreversible consequences. Moderate earthquakes can cause serious damage to building contents and non-structural building systems, serious injury to students and staff, and disruption of building operations.…

The national Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) monitors priority health risk behaviors that contribute to the leading causes of death, disability, and social problems among youth and adults in the United States. The national YRBS is conducted every two years during the spring semester and provides data representative of 9th through 12th grade…

Almost 22 million children are injured in the United States each year, and an estimated 10 to 25% of these injuries occur in and around schools. However, the problem of injuries in the school environment is often unrecognized and preventive measures are often ignored. The Children's Safety Network has designed this packet to inform school…

This guide has been developed to provide resources to teachers to address injury prevention in their classrooms. Entries in this guide represent materials which the Injury Prevention Program has identified. Chapters are divided by their target grade and age level. Curricula are listed by the youngest grade which they target. For each entry,…

Fire safety in schools, long recognized as a serious problem by both public officials and lay citizens, is concerned with preventing personal injury or death and property damage or destruction. The responsibility for this prevention is lodged in many hands, but school officials having jurisdiction in the matter are usually charged with developing…

Details types and causes of accidental injury to young children. Notes that of the average 5,000 accidents per day nationwide, falls account for the greatest number. Concludes with four cautions: check for hazards in child's environs; think safety at home; lobby and advocate for safer toys, furniture, and equipment; and report defects and…

Escalation of worker's compensation claims led Saint Cloud State University (Minnesota) to implement an injury prevention program including warm-up exercises, worksite inspection, examination of work practices, employee training in safe body mechanics, and flexibility tests. The program is found to be effective in reducing injury and improving…