Media Alert: Unique Collaborative Event To Focus On Strengthening School Safety Preparedness

Conference Set For April 18 In Northern Virginia

For Immediate Release                                    

Maryland Center for School Safety/ Virginia Center for School and Campus Safety Release

Baltimore, MD (April 14, 2016)

Two of the nation’s leading School Safety Centers are collaborating on a unique school safety conference.

The Maryland Center for School Safety and the Virginia Center for School and Campus Safety in  partnership with Kristina Anderson, Virginia Tech tragedy survivor, and founder of the Koshka Foundation for Safe Schools, and the Northern Virginia Community College Police Department are presenting this special event - “The Briefings: Life after School Tragedy” on April 18, 2016. 

This one-day event will bring together local educators, law enforcement, and other school safety stakeholders from both states to hear compelling field-tested and expert methods for advancing school safety protocols, and police response from individuals who have responded to and experienced school violence first-hand through the Columbine,  Virginia Tech, and Platte Canyon shooting tragedies.  This symposium will highlight the importance of leadership, training and preparation; steps to create preventative solutions; and guidance on creating immediate recovery plans. Attendees will receive tangible resources in school safety initiatives and hear personal accounts from a survivor, a parent of a victim, a school principal, and a responding law enforcement SWAT officer.

This powerful day of lessons learned from those involved in acts of school violence is set for April 18, 2016 beginning at 9:00 a.m. and will be held at the Northern Virginia Community College – Alexandria Campus in the Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center, 4915 East Campus Drive. Alexandria, Virginia 22311.    
 
For additional information as to this special event please contact: 
Ms. Donna Michaelis, Manager, School and Campus Safety, Virginia Center for School and Campus Safety at 804-371-6506

Mr. Edward Clarke, Executive Director, Maryland Center for School Safety at 301-370-3497
Additional information is available at the following link:
http://www.dcjs.virginia.gov/vcscs/training/thebriefings-lifeafterschooltragedy/

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