School District Facility Safety and Security Audits

2008-2011 District Audit Report

The 2008-11 District Audit Report (DAR) is now available for districts to view. Comparable to the 2005-08 DAR, the findings of the 2008-11 DAR indicate Texas school districts are overall in compliance with Chapter 37 safety and security audit requirements. The majority of school districts have completed safety and security audits on all instructional facilities (95%) and to a lesser extent on non-instructional facilities (79%). Analyses also revealed comparable results to previous findings in the practice of drills.

The majority of instructional facilities within districts conducted evacuation drills on a monthly basis (82%), lockdown drills once each semester (78%), and severe weather drills once each semester (60%), similar to previous results. Findings varied considerably for non-instructional facilities; districts report conducting each of the recommended drills less than 30% of the time.

No Certification Required to Conduct School Safety and Security Audits

As required by Section 37.108 of the Texas Education Code, each school district shall conduct a security audit of the district's facilities at least once every three years. And to the extent possible, a district shall follow security audit procedures developed by the Texas School Safety Center or a comparable public or private entity.

Neither the Texas Education Code nor administrative rules require that school district personnel conducting the audit hold a specific certification. Each school district should ensure the audit is performed by competent personnel; however, currently the Texas School Safety Center does not require certification for school safety and security auditors nor is there a recognized certification program or designation.

School Safety and Security Audit Update

This is a reminder that Texas school districts must complete a safety and security audit of district facilities by 8/31/2011. Audits should be conducted during normal operations to the extent possible. This will allow for a more accurate evaluation of safety and security in school district facilities. Time is running short to complete audits prior to the end of the regular school year.

The Texas School Safety Center has received many inquiries regarding audits and audit training provided by various organizations and entities. Some of these entities offer a designation as a "Certified School Safety Auditor". To clarify, there is no recognized designation, certification process or training standards in Texas, for persons conducting the required school district safety and security audits. Also there is no requirement that a person be certified or trained by any entity including the Texas School Safety Center, in order to complete the required audits. Training of district auditing teams and personnel conducting the facility audits is recommended and should provide for a more accurate assessment of the overall safety and security of all district facilities and operations.

In regards to Safety and Security Audits, Texas Education Code 37.108 states:

b) At least once every three years, each school district or public junior college district shall conduct a safety and security audit of the district's facilities. To the extent possible, a district shall follow safety and security audit procedures developed by the Texas School Safety Center or a comparable public or private entity.
(c) A school district or public junior college district shall report the results of the safety and security audit conducted under Subsection (b) to the district's board of trustees and, in the manner required by the Texas School Safety Center, to the Texas School Safety Center.

The Texas School Safety Center offers a 12 hour/2 day district facility audit training for school district personnel using the audit procedures developed by the center. A certificate of achievement is provided upon completion. Training is scheduled on a first come first serve basis and requires a minimum of at least 20 participants and that the training be hosted by a district or an Education Service Center (ESC).

In April 2011, District Superintendents will receive instructions for completing the web- based District Audit Report (DAR). The DAR can be completed from the results developed by the District's facility safety and security and audits. Please do not submit the results of your audits to the Center in any other format than the DAR. The web-based DAR will be available for completion through 8/31/2011. Please feel free to contact the Texas School Safety Center with any questions you may have at 877.304.2727.

School District Safety and Security Audit Toolkit

The School District Facility Safety and Security Audit Toolkit is now available for download. The audit toolkit consists of two parts, an introduction and the audit checklists. Together these constitute the audit toolkit. The toolkit can be downloaded and printed and also the checklists can be entered and stored electronically.

The introduction contains information about how to begin the audit process at your district facilities. It reviews the purpose of the audit and provides direction about how to set up and conduct an audit. The checklists are a series of excel spreadsheets which provide a format for evaluating a facility and providing data about the observations. Read More..

Download   School District Facility Safety and Security Audit Toolkit Introduction (PDF)

This version is locked to preserve the formatting and to provide added functionality for this document. It allows you to enter all of the findings of your audit as well as basic information about your school. If you are not familiar with excel and you don't have a need to change the audit to fit your needs we recommend you use this version.

Download   School District Facility Safety and Security Audit Toolkit Checklists (LOCKED XLS)

This version is unlocked and allows you to add, edit, and delete any of the audit items to fit your needs. We cannot guarantee the formatting or functionality of this excel document once you have changed it, if you have issues with your altered copy please download a new one.

Download   School District Facility Safety and Security Audit Toolkit Checklists (UNLOCKED XLS)

If you have any questions regarding the school safety and security audits please contact us at 1-877-304-2727.

We have also created several additional data collection tools to help with your safety and security audit process. These tools are an optional way that you may collect data about the perceived safety of your school. Please click on a tool below to view:

Surveys

Interviews

Report Templates

We hope that these tools will help to make the audit process straight-forward and less time-consuming. If you have any questions about this toolkit, please send an email to txssc@txstate.edu.

School District Facility Safety and Security Audit Training

TxSSC has designed a two-day training course for district audit team members that will enable them to perform comprehensive safety and security audits. This training will focus on all parts of the School District Facility Safety and Security Audit Toolkit , as well as best practices in emergency management and school safety. Training will include a walk-through exercise at two facilities in a district, one of which will be a high school with a chemistry lab. Training participants will then have the skills, knowledge, and materials necessary to perform school safety and security audits at additional facilities. Most of these trainings will be provided through the Regional Education Service Centers, but may be provided through districts as well.

For upcoming audit trainings, please visit the TxSSC training calendar.
To receive technical assistance, please send an email to txssc@txstate.edu.

School District Facility Safety and Security Audit Reporting

The Texas Education code requires school districts to report the results of their security audits under 37.108b not only to their school board, but also to the Texas School Safety Center in the manner required by the center:

37.108(c), Education Code, to require a school district to report the results of security audits to the Texas School Safety Center in addition to the districts board of trustees. (Sections 3.02 and 3.04 of SB 11- 80r.)

The Texas School Safety Center has setup an online system to collect certain results of security audits. This system will be activated for inputs during the last quarter of an audit cycle.

We want to assure school districts that the current School District Facility Safety and Security Audit Toolkit contained on our website covers all elements that will be included in the online audit collection system. The district should complete the audit and save the data to be entered when the system is activated. We will announce on our website and via email when the collection system becomes active.