Safeguarding Your Athletic Fields
Tips on keeping your field of dreams from becoming a liability nightmare
When I was a kid I would often head to the
schoolyard after class for a pickup game of
baseball or soccer. Even as an adult, I have gone
jogging on my local high school track after
work. While having easy access to these open
fields was great for me, I wonder if those schools gave much thought
to the liability of me being on their property.
Now that my job involves safety and security issues for K-12 and
higher education institutions, it is something I caution school administrators
about a lot. Protecting school property is not just about
safety and security.
It is also about liability and risk management. While virtually all
schools channel resources into protecting everyone in the building
during school hours, it is also important that they protect their athletic
fields after the bell has rung.
According to the National Center for Spectator Sports Safety and
Security (NCS4), a leading research and education organization
focused on threats and safety issues related to sports venues, “This
forgotten period [when interscholastic athletics and after-school
activities occur] remains a weak link in the safety and security planning
of our nation’s schools with little, and in some cases, no understanding
of the potential threats.”
To address this shortcoming, NCS4 offers school faculty and staff
an extensive array of training courses as well as access to a knowledge
base of best practices that can help them improve their safety and
security position and mitigate risks. The partnership between NCS4
and a school often begins with a survey of students and parents to
assess “the feeling of security” among its constituents.
From there, NCS4 works with the school to create a viable security
plan that would include some best practices the school might consider
adopting.
While the complete list of those school security best practices is
too lengthy to enumerate here, I would like to highlight a few for your
consideration.
This article originally appeared in the January / February 2020 issue of Campus Security & Life Safety.
