Has Chimona Unified School District taken appropriate security measures to improve or sustain the safety of students and faculty within the district? How likely is it that students or teachers within the district will become victims of school crime? National trends show a decrease in injury related behaviors at school from 1991 to 1997. Is this the case for Chimona Unified School District?

A preliminary study may include meeting with the principal of each school within the district. There are three good questions that can be asked to identify the status of security within the school district; however, the answers must be direct enough to draw valid conclusions regarding the district. The first question should be; "Does the school provide strong administrative support for assessing and enhancing school safety?" An effective answer to this question should be "yes." Following the answer, however, should be a short description of how the school may go about this. Board meetings that require attendance of all faculty and discuss safety criteria might be a good description. Criteria, for example, may include monitoring the school facility to ensure it is a clean and safe environment or implementing policies that support and reward pro-social behavior.

A second question that could be asked is; "Does the school have a system for reporting and analyzing violent and noncriminal incidents?" Again, an effective answer should be "yes," followed by a short description of the characteristics of the system. The system should be successful in obtaining accurate records of violent incidents and injuries from year to year. This helps school officials identify overall trends in school violence. Hopefully, the system has the capability to track individual student behavior patterns over time to identify students in need of additional assistance before their problems become more serious.

The third question that should be asked is; "Does the school staff have training in all aspects of violence prevention?" "Yes" is the hopeful outcome. Characteristics of successful training should include handling disruptive students, treating students with respect, and discipline enforcement. This type of training decreases the likelihood that students will become violent in the school setting. In addition to training, limiting the number of students per teacher increases the chances that the training will have desired results.

In conclusion, if the schools within Chimona Unified School District answer all three questions with positive answers, the schools should be in good standing regarding security. At this point, no further action may be required. If any of the questions have negative answers, this should be noted as an area for improvement and should be implemented to continue safety and security in schools.

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