Welcome to the Nebraska Department of Education’s Safety web page.
In 2014, the Nebraska Legislature mandated multiple safety and security measures for Nebraska schools: the development of standards to use as guidelines for creating safer and more secure schools; the submission of safety plans by all schools; and all schools have a security assessment by the school security director.
After the standards were developed, four main areas emerged that best represent the overall big picture of safety and security that translates into everyday planning in Nebraska schools:
Prevention (aimed at preventing an incident)
Preparedness (targeted at limiting incident casualties, chaos, and destruction
Response (focused intentional planning for responding to an incident both immediate and long term)
Recovery (designed to restore climate and environment to pre-incident conditions)
The basics regarding the state statute regarding school safety:
§79-2,144
The state school security director appointed pursuant to section 79-2,143 shall be responsible for providing leadership and support for safety and security for the public schools. Duties of the director include, but are not limited to:
(3) Conducting an assessment of the security of each public school building, which assessment shall be completed by August 31, 2019
The Big Picture of School Safety
Steps to the Security Assessment for all school buildings:
Step 1
- Safety committee/team completes the on-line self-assessment located at NDE Security Self-Assessment
- The team may first want to complete paper copy prior to electronic copy
- The school will have access to the completed electronic copy
- Other details for the security assessment (Word document)
Step 2
- Notify jolene.palmer@nebraska.gov of completion
Step 3
- NDE Security Assessor will contact point of contact identified on the self-assessment to schedule a school visit to validate the security self-assessment
Step 4
- NDE Security Assessor will conduct the security assessment validation
Dr. Mario Scalora and Dr. Denise Bulling of the University of Nebraska Public Policy Center are partnering with Dr. Jolene Palmer, the Nebraska Department of Education Safety and Security Director, to conduct basic and advanced threat assessment training for Nebraska schools. The training is sponsored by local Educational Service Units in all areas of the state and features guidelines created by the Public Policy Center that translate the science and practice of threat assessment for use by local school and community teams. Participants in the training include educators, administrators, law enforcement, mental health, public health, and human resource professionals around the state of Nebraska. This training utilizes a threat assessment strategy specifically tailored for rural settings and other schools with limited resources.
Take your team to Targeted Bullying Intervention Program (T-BIP) training! School pyschologists, counselors and principals are invited to attend this training together on March 19, 2019 in Kearney, Nebraska at ESU 10. Training begins at 9:00 AM CST and ends at 3:30 PM.
Charting the Future of School Safety (2016 PowerPoint)