Safety & Security

The mission of the Department of School Services is to provide a positive, safe and respectful environment for students, staff and families of Memphis-Shelby County Schools and to ensure that each student has the opportunity to develop to his or her full potential. To support our mission, we aim to use a holistic approach to contribute to students’ well-being, creating a high level of well-preparedness for learning, life and success.


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About

The Memphis-Shelby County Schools Department of School Services aims to provide a safe and respectful environment for students, staff and families of Memphis-Shelby County Schools. To achieve this goal, our department has instituted a comprehensive approach in addressing school violence and other fault-line areas such as the suspension rate, arrest and transport rate, overage for grade students and internal gang involved youth. Our knowledge and understanding of these factors has led us to develop and implement a comprehensive approach to address these concerns. 

Our enhanced training of 12 SRU Units and 128 school resource officers in addressing and recognizing problem areas  that contribute to student violence has been extremely valuable in our comprehensive approach.  Additional training in Kingian Non-Violence, Crisis Prevention Intervention (CIP), and gang reduction has also contributed to this effort. 

As a partner in the Operation Safe Community Initiative and the Memphis Youth Violence Prevention, Memphis Gang Prevention and the Department of Justice Violence Prevention programs, we work closely with these agencies to reduce crime in the community and prevent it from precipitating over into the schools. We understand that safety and security is a pervasive paradigm that affects us all. When an environment is unsafe, students cannot excel, parents cannot be at ease, employees cannot be effective, and families and communities cannot enjoy life. However, we recognize that reducing crime in our city and schools takes a collective and collaborative effort that involves the community, parents, law enforcement and other key stakeholders.

Additionally, our Emergency Management Division serves an integral role in helping us to promote safety. Today, more than ever before, schools are faced with the ongoing challenges of being prepared for a wide-range of emergency situations. We work to train, collaborate, and plan with internal departments and external agencies to ensure essential preparation and the safety of our students and staff.  Some of those agencies are the Center for Safe and Drug Free Schools, Emergency Management Agency (EMA), Memphis City Fire Department, and Memphis City Police, County and City Mayors, National Weather Service (NWS), State of Tennessee Education Department, and the U. S. Department Education.  These agencies have helped our school district to meet these challenges by helping us to become better prepared in our all-hazard approach of emergencies.  We teach standard procedures for emergency situations, which provide our school district with a foundation for planning and a frame for action should an emergency situation arise. Multi-Hazard Emergency Management Planning is presented in the four phases of emergency management: Prevention-Mitigation, Preparedness, Response, and Recovery.

The Emergency Management Division through consultation with other agencies has provided schools with different forms of emergency assistance.  Some of the items that have been provided to schools in addition to extensive training includes: incident command boards, search/rescue kits, talking first aid kits, weather radios/fm alert radios, emergency preparedness manuals, AED’s, survival kits and CERT training.

Our School House Adjustment Program Enterprise (S.H.A.P.E.) aims to reduce the number of Memphis-Shelby County Schools’ students transported to Juvenile Court for minor infractions. We understand that it is not only important to provide support to students academically so that they can engender a good report card, but it is also important to assist them in other areas to maintain a good record. 

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