Each year, campus administrators juggle dozens or hundreds of critical tasks to prepare staff, students, and families for a successful back-to-school experience. While physical security checks and emergency preparation are a critical part of that process, other things like clearly defined responsibilities, prevention strategies, process updates, and mental health check-ins should also be on a back-to-school checklist for schools.
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Prepare Staff, the Campus, and the Systems
Each staff member has critical roles and responsibilities that help a school run smoothly. Administrators need to make sure everyone knows what they are responsible for and how to document that they’ve completed it. This helps provide defensibility if certain processes could be audited later in the year.
1. Front Office Preparations
While office staff can easily remember what date they need to be back full time, it’s helpful to check in with them before and after that date to make sure they have all the tools or information they need. August is also a good time to train them on any updated policies and procedures regarding visitors, event management, or reporting concerning behavior.
2. IT Systems Tests
School IT staff likely worked through the summer preparing or upgrading new systems, evaluating the security of programs, and managing contract renewals. As school approaches, it’s also essential that IT teams run a variety of tests to make sure emergency systems are operating as expected. Tests could include gateway testing, battery testing on wearable devices, integrated alerting systems, and more.
3. Physical Security Checks
The safety directors, assistant principals, school resource officers (SROs), and other safety personnel that manage safety on your campus should take time to verify that all emergency and security systems are functioning correctly or ready to use, such as
- door locks (exterior and interior)
- fences and gates
- alarms
- security cameras
- weapon detection systems
- strobes
- lights
- vehicle gates
- backup generators
- signage
- intercoms
- buzzer systems
- key controls
- AEDs
- fire extinguishers
4. Staff Training
Professional development and mandated training are essential for helping your educators and other staff function at the highest standards. Plan your training schedule so staff continually build confidence in responding to student behavior or using emergency systems. Consider what topics are most important to discuss in training as staff come back to school, such as
- student-athlete safety
- violence prevention
- combatting cyberbullying
- dismissal processes
- trauma-informed
- safeguarding
- role- and scenario-based safety training
Over 600 courses are available through the PublicSchoolWORKS Staff Compliance Catalog. Each role is automatically assigned mandated courses for their state, making it easy to know who is up-to-date on professional development and compliance training.
Review Your EOP and Run Drills That Reflect It
An emergency operations plan (EOP) should reflect the current state of the school and campus, since updates or renovations might have occurred during the summer. Back-to-school is a natural point to confirm the plan aligns with any legislative updates, includes new school safety systems that were purchased, and clarifies responsibilities of any new roles at the school.
5. Update the EOP
Reviewing the EOP in the summer gives districts a chance to update any changes since the last update, such as
- renovations
- new staff in key roles
- updated contact information
- new systems
- shifts in local considerations like severe weather patterns or public health guidance
The plan should stay clear, accessible, and actionable for everyone who might need it, not just the people who wrote it. Review it through the lens of a new employee who hasn’t been to your campus before and doesn’t know all the staff. This perspective helps make sure anyone can understand and follow it when needed.
6. Schedule the Right Drills
Drills are how schools make sure their EOP holds up under pressure. School drills work best when they’re age-appropriate for the students involved and scheduled with enough variety to cover the full range of scenarios in your specific plan: lockdowns, evacuations, severe weather, and reunification. Building in an after-action review turns each drill into a chance to strengthen the plan rather than just complete it.
7. Document and Share Outcomes
Using a system like Drill Manager to keep a record of when drills happened and how they went gives administrators a clear view of readiness across the building and offers defensibility during an audit. During the after-action review, participants (including admins and law enforcement) can make data-driven decisions to improve the next response and make sure updates to maps or the EOP are done in a timely manner.
Implement and Test Multi-System Alerting and Communication
Effective communication during an emergency depends on information reaching the right people quickly. Back-to-school is a good time to confirm that every connected system in the emergency response plan still works as intended, and clear communication processes exist to update the community of families and guardians during an incident.
8. Retrain Staff on Emergency Systems
Some states require annual training on emergency systems, so planning that into the back-to-school training sessions might be mandatory. Regardless, it’s strongly advisable. Staff need to feel confident knowing how and when they can use a panic alerting system, and administrators should have adequate customization built in to suit the unique needs of students and the campus.
9. Involve Families and the Communities
Mass notification systems let schools share timely, accurate updates with families through text, email, and app alerts, which keeps the community informed through an authorized channel. Administrators also need to tell families about any updated anti-bullying policies, other prevention strategies, threat assessment processes, or security updates, so they aren’t surprised. Consistent messaging across those channels also reinforces trust in the school’s communication going forward.
Reinforce School Climate and Support Early Behavioral Threat Assessment
Data from 2022-2025 RAND surveys noted that about half of educators worry more about bullying, cyberbullying, and peer victimization as bigger concerns than active shooters—up sharply from just a few years prior. While physical security measures exist in every school, more and more school administrators are recognizing that effective violence prevention, low-level concern reporting, early intervention, and student wellbeing are becoming necessary to truly create safer schools.
10. Reinforce a Climate Where Students Feel Safe Reporting Concerns
Students are more likely to speak up when they know how to report a concern and trust that doing so will be taken seriously. Reintroducing tip reporting channels at the start of the year (and reminding students and families they exist) helps normalize their use so real problems and concerns can be caught early. Administrators can help build a stronger tip-reporting culture when they reinforce processes that act on a report or reassure a student that it will be reviewed.
11. Ready Your BTAM Team and Staff to Report Early Warning Signs
Reconvening the behavioral threat assessment team before students return gives it a chance to start the year prepared rather than reactive. That preparation should include reviewing referral trends and outcomes from the previous year, confirming the referral form and reporting pathway are current, and briefing new staff and substitutes on exactly how and when to bring forward a concern.
Anti-bullying policies and procedures need to be reviewed and new staff trained on the school’s methods. It’s up to school leaders to help raise awareness about what bullying really is and how to prevent it through a supportive school culture and strong intervention strategies.
Staff should clearly convey concerns about a student who may be at risk of suicide or self-harm to make sure the team uses immediate, direct escalation as any other urgent safety concern, not the standard referral timeline.
All staff, not just the BTAM team, benefit from a brief refresher on recognizing warning signs during back-to-school training, since teachers, coaches, and front office staff are often the first to notice a change in a student’s behavior or mood. Software like StudentSafe centralizes processes and documentation, giving administrators a clearer view of patterns across campus as the year progresses.
12. Checking in on Student Mental Health Early
Teachers and support staff are often best positioned to notice shifts in a student’s wellbeing. If school leaders help staff start the year with a deliberate check-in process for at-risk students, rather than waiting for a concern to surface on its own, they’ll be better positioned to help earlier. This is also a good moment to confirm students and families know how to access counseling or support resources on campus.
Communicate Any Updates to Visitor, Volunteer, Student Movement, and Dismissal Procedures
Day-to-day campus activities need just as much attention as preparation for an emergency. Back-to-school is an ideal time to review what worked well and what needs adjusting this year in managing visitors, events, and student movements throughout the day.
13. Refresh Visitor and Volunteer Screening Procedures
Front office staff should confirm visitor screening procedures have been updated for the new year with any considerations like:
- updated policies
- refreshed custom watchlists
- new system training and processes
Staff should remember that new or returning volunteers are checked and managed within the current process as well. This is also a good time to remind staff how to handle an upset visitor calmly and consistently, so they feel confident that they’ll get the help needed if a situation escalates.
14. Reinforce Dismissal Processes
Dismissal procedures sometimes drift over the course of a year as routines get comfortable, so reconfirming them at the start of the year is essential. Staff should know
- who releases which students
- how changes to a student’s pickup list are communicated
- when pick-up changes are cut off
- who verifies the guardian
- how documentation is handled for defensibility
Make sure any new staff understand their roles and responsibilities, and how essential this time of day is to get right. Changes in custody disputes or the general chaos of moving students can cause safety gaps that need to be closely watched by prepared staff. Using a system like DismissalSafe can streamline these processes for better visibility, smooth workflows, and less chaos.
15. Watch for Attendance and Movement Patterns as Early Signals
In those early days and weeks, changes in attendance or unusual patterns in hall pass or student movement patterns are sometimes the earliest visible sign that a student may need support, well before it becomes a larger concern. When staff use digital hall passes, they can review these data patterns regularly, rather than only when something is already amiss, gives staff a better chance to notice and respond early.
A Safer Year Starts With Strong Preparation During Back-to-School Season
The start of each new school year should bring excitement and confidence to staff on campus, and administrators play a critical role in setting staff and students for a successful and safe schools year. From the plans reviewed and drills practiced to the conversations about individual students and security systems tested, the weeks of back-to-school can be filled with intentional practices that last throughout the year.
Related Resources
You probably have the security and emergency systems in place, now it’s time to build stronger strategies for early interventions. Use our guide to student wellbeing to help staff recognize early warning signs and support students before a crisis happens.
