How should a school conduct a hazard analysis?
Well, your hazard analysis has to have multiple phases. You have to do a review of the local community hazard assessment through your emergency management agency, you have to do surveys of students, staff and parents – safety surveys, a tactical site survey on every facility owned and operated by the school or school district – and that’s a pretty critical piece. We physically walk through, check every classroom, every closet, the grounds, and look for any types of hazards that might be present. Without those various types of assessments, we’re not going to get a real clear picture, and we’re not going to get an accurate, assessment-based approach to safety. We’re not going to really connect our safety efforts to our real risks and concerns that we have out there. We have a variety of free checklists and tools on our website, and the U.S. Department of Education and other organizations have other instruments that can be used to help make this job easier.
