School Safety Pt. 2: Developing a School Safety Team

Overall plan and design

Identify Problems

In collaboration with the principal, parents, and students, discuss and identify problems happening during drop off (and if you’re brave, pickup) at the school.

1. Identify the laws, rules, and best practices that are commonly violated so everyone knows and understands what should be happening.
2. Prioritize the rules/laws/best practices that are most important to solve first.
3. Consider issues specific to those who walk, bike, or roll to school in addition to vehicle drop offs. 

Brainstorm Solutions

As a group, propose solutions for fixing the issues you identified. When designing solutions, consider using the following:

1. Volunteers issuing directions, helping students out of cars, lock bikes, etc. (This is a huge part of existing programs). 
2. Cones or other temporary barriers (Note, if putting cones in the street, consider getting Orange as they are easier to legalize)
3. Mascots
4. Signage
5. Marketing materials and communication channels to distribute them. The creation of videos to educate the school community. (See this Maya Lin example)

Be sure to avoid blocking bike lanes and crosswalks with cones, signs, and other items. It’s important to ensure everyone can get to school safely, especially cyclists and pedestrians.

You can see pricing for some of these (cones, vests, etc.) in the Example Budget.

Start with a Pilot Program

If resources are scarce or you’re starting in the middle of the year, consider starting with a small pilot program to solve the most important problems. 

Create a Communication, Implementation, and Enforcement strategy

1. Communication Tips
   1. Communicate changes with the behavior you want to see (positive messaging – not negative)
   2. Include different languages in messaging or globally understood images
   3. Send communication through multiple channels
2. Implementation
   1. Identify what implementation will look like
   2. Consider volunteer identification and training
   3. Getting and storing supplies (You may need to figure out a budget in advance)
   4. What will day 1 look like?
3. Enforcement
   1. Determine enforcement procedures. Ideally violation messaging should come from the school (likely principal), not volunteers.
   2. Create a process for reporting violations to the school (license plate, child name, etc.)

Legalizing your program

Technically, putting things like cones into the street qualifies as an encroachment and requires a permit. These permit forms and documentation are difficult to understand for non-traffic engineers (they are designed for construction companies who have engineers on staff), so don’t hesitate to ask the city staff for help.

To get formal city approval, you’ll need to:

• Get an encroachment permit application from the relevant department in the city (You can find Alameda’s package here).
• Find someone with traffic engineering design chops who can document what you’re doing
  • NOTE: Technically there are specific colors allowed for things like cones. If you want to legalize the program, consider following these guidelines to make the process easier and avoid having to re-purchase supplies).
• Complete the application and pay a permit fee

Encroachment permits require taking on an amount of legal liability, so an organization (like the PTSA) must have insurance that meets minimum requirements to qualify.

Legalizing the program takes a while, but adds peace of mind.

Continue to Pt. 3: Volunteer Identification and Training.