The National School Boards Association announced the launch of the NSBA Center for Safe Schools (CSS), a new initiative that provides critical resources to help education leaders, administrators and the public enhance student and school safety. CSS focuses on four key areas — infrastructure, crisis and emergency management, whole child health and cyber security — to create and maintain safe and secure learning environments for students, staff and surrounding communities.

“Safety is a top priority for public education leaders and communities and the Center is a resource for them as they continue working to provide a secure learning environment. The Center works with all involved in educating and empowering these stakeholders on the variety of factors that impact school safety,” said NSBA Executive Director and CEO Thomas J. Gentzel. “Empowering these stakeholders on the variety of factors that impact school safety requires extensive collaboration, and CSS is an excellent platform to engage everyone in the shared objective to ensure every child’s emotional and physical safety at school.”

A nonpartisan, national platform, the Center is the culmination of planning with member state school boards associations. CSS will collaborate with national, state and local non-profit organizations in education to support CSS by providing insightful content and resources on school safety and offer a forum for all school leaders involved in safety, including school board members, superintendents, school resource officers, school counsellors, teachers, principals, community partners and business representatives. Through networking and sharing best practices, CSS will serve as a needed resource to foster collaborative relationships and develop solutions best suited for the schools in the community.

The public may access CSS and its resource library, which include webinars and white papers. Additional services are provided to NSBA’s state associations as a member benefit and on a subscription basis to district employees, law enforcement, parents and communities.

SWORD™, the world’s first mobile threat detection platform offering schools real-time security intelligence, is the Center’s founding sponsor.