School safety is a very important issue that involves balancing students' rights, teachers' rights, and the increasing rate of violence on school campuses. Federal, state and local governments work together to improve and ensure our schools are safe for our children. Whether the issue is preventing violence in schools, preparing crisis management plans, or figuring out policies that keep everyone safe while not unreasonably infringing on our basic rights, the legal side of school safety can often be challenging.
School safety is a concern at all levels of education, from kindergarten, to high school, through college. The rights and obligations may vary slightly at each of those levels, but the overall goal is the same - to keep our schools safe. To achieve this, a variety of laws have been enacted to deal with issues like bullying, hate crimes, guns on campus, student discipline codes, community and law enforcement involvement in schools, and conflict resolution and peer mediation programs, to name a few.
