AWSP Blog

One popular app, TikTok, recently launched a number of enhancements to safety policies, controls, and educational resources that will help keep kids safe. The National PTA -- along with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Family Online Safety Institute and ConnectSafely -- are partnering with TikTok to help inform parents of the new parental controls, like its Family Pairing feature, which gives parents the ability to guide their child's online experience while also educating them about online safety and digital citizenship.

We are coming to the close of what will go down as perhaps the most challenging school year in history. Part of the ongoing challenge, as well, is uncertainty about the coming school year. Where we will be, and how and when we will move forward all remain to be seen. We have guidance. We can predict measures we will have to take. We can anticipate that, as we proceed, the future will look and feel different. Let’s take a look at some safety-related actions we can take now to carry us into that future. These suggestions are made with district, school, classroom and home activities in mind.

These are not normal times. This is not our new normal. We hear that expression used frequently these days about these days. However, rather than thinking of the current situation as ‘normal’, I prefer to see it as a challenge to the comfortable normal of not too long ago. Within that context, we need to remember that we did not plan for this. We should have, but we didn’t. However, we have been flexible and agile. We have been creative and adaptable. We cannot forget that this did really happen. (Just give it 6 months or so after schools reopen!) Because of COVID-19, we have experienced and learned much. So, as we approach the end of the current academic year, and as we look forward to what a new normal will hold, let’s begin reflecting on this experience and planning for the future.

When the requirement for comprehensive school and district safety plans was first written into law nearly 20 years ago, the legislature had some very insightful comments on the need for such plans.

Daylight Savings Time! Spring! St. Patrick’s Day! March is full. Here are some important topics rising to the top in March.