EDUCATION
Campus safety conference held in Louisville 
04:23 PM EDT on Monday, April 23, 2007
A moment of silence today on the campus of Virginia Tech marked the one-week anniversary of the shooting rampage that left 32 people dead.
After the silence, bells tolled and balloons were released in memory of the victims, and classes resumed at the school today.
The Virginia Tech massacre has schools everywhere reviewing their security plans, and today, a campus safety conference was held in Louisville.
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To prove a point, Chris Dorn demonstrates how easily he can conceal multiple weapons under his baggy school clothes. But his father Michael stresses this is not the biggest safety problem our schools face today.
“We lose more kids in a bad week from heart stops than we will lose to violence all year,” he says. “In our higher ed and K-12 campuses, We want to make sure while we’re talking about metal detectors maybe for a K-12 school, do you have automatic external defibrillators in your building? You’re more likely to save a life with that than with a security camera.”
While Virginia Tech and other school shootings make headlines, a non-profit safety organization is leading a two-day workshop at the University of Louisville for school administrators, police officers and architects.
“You can take a $40 million high school, shave a million bucks off the cost, make a more beautiful building and make it safer from earthquake, tornado, terrorism, bullying, violence, sexual assault, and raise your test scores while you’re doing it,” he says.
Most parents fear the student with the guns hidden in his clothes, but this isn't a student’s biggest threat.
“Number one was a fire situation with a fourth grade Catholic school student who killed 95 people using fire, which shows us there are the means besides guns and knives, and fire should be a priority.”
Campus safety, whether K-12 or at the university level, goes way beyond locked doors and text messaging in the event of a shooting. It means how officials respond in the more likely natural disaster, a hazardous material event or a medical emergency.
Web story produced by Jay Ditzer.
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