Description

In the Commonwealth of Virginia, all public schools are required through legislation to conduct an annual school safety audit in order to assess school safety conditions. As a means for collecting individual school safety audit information, the Virginia Center for School Safety (VCSS) annually administers the Virginia School Safety Survey. This web-based survey provides all public schools (K-12) with a standardized report format for conducting and submitting their audit information to the VCSS.

Authority

According to the Code of Virginia § 22.1-279.8 (School safety audits and school crisis, emergency management, and medical emergency response plans required) and § 9.1-184 (Virginia Center for School Safety created; duties):

• The Virginia Center for School Safety shall develop a list of items to be included in the school safety audits and shall prescribe a standardized report format for school safety audits.
  
  
• Each local school board shall require all schools under its control to annually conduct school safety audits.

For purposes of the Virginia School Safety Survey requirement, a school is defined as: "Any separate physical structure that houses and instructs public school students during school hours."

The 2009 Virginia School Safety Survey

The 2009 Virginia School Safety Survey can be accessed from this website. Completion of this year’s survey will satisfy the legislative requirements for the 2009-2010 school year. However, your school division superintendent reserves the right to require additional school safety audit processes to be completed within your division. Please check with your division superintendent or safety audit contact person to determine if you have additional division requirements.

Principals should click on the Principals link below to review survey instructions and questions. Superintendents should click on the Superintendents link below to access the Survey Manager feature where they can update their division's list of schools and contact information. NEW THIS YEAR: In addition, Superintendents review their schools’ individual surveys and certify their response accuracy via this feature.