Building Safer Schools in 2025

School safety remains one of the most searched and debated education topics worldwide in 2025. Headlines often focus on school shootings, but the latest data shows a more complex picture: bullying, cyberbullying, mental health, hoax threats, and cybersecurity now sit alongside physical security as top concerns.

Recent analyses show that bullying and cyberbullying are consistently ranked by teachers as their number one safety concern, above weapons and active shooters, over the last three school years RAND. At the same time, incidents of gunfire on school grounds in the United States reached record or near-record levels in recent years, with 346 incidents in 2023 and 349 in 2023 according to separate reports Volt.ai and RAND.

In Canada, a 2025 report noted that around 71% of youth experienced at least one bullying incident in the past year ArcadianAI. Globally, schools are also managing a surge in swatting and hoax threats, with more than 700 swatting incidents recorded at K–12 schools in 2023 alone Motorola Solutions.

At the same time, schools have dramatically increased their use of safety infrastructure. Around 93–98% of U.S. public schools now use visitor sign-in, controlled building access and CCTV, and most conduct regular lockdown and emergency drills Volt.ai, RAND. Many are adding anonymous tip lines and student-device monitoring tools, though some investigations have flagged privacy and data security concerns if these tools are poorly governed AP/RAND summaries in RAND report.

Why this matters for school leaders and parents

The data tells us:

• Catastrophic events (shootings, bomb threats, swatting) are rare but devastating—and increasing enough to demand serious planning.
• Everyday harms—bullying, cyberbullying, hate incidents, and mental health crises—are more common and are what educators worry about most RAND.
• Technology (AI cameras, device monitoring, apps) is reshaping school safety, but must be balanced with student privacy, ethics, and school climate.

Families, staff, and boards want to know: What does “good” school safety look like in 2025?

Practical, evidence-aligned steps schools can take

1. Strengthen a layered safety model, not just hardware
• Maintain basics: controlled access, visitor management, functioning CCTV, and clear signage.
• Regularly test lockdown, evacuation, and reunification procedures with staff and local responders.
• Review after every drill: what worked, what confused students, where were delays?
2. Prioritize bullying, cyberbullying, and mental health
• Implement whole-school anti-bullying programs and Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) that build empathy and conflict resolution—current research shows these reduce incidents and improve climate Concordia University Nebraska.
• Create multiple “safe reporting” pathways: anonymous tip lines, trusted adults, and digital reporting tools.
• Ensure access to counselors or mental health partners, particularly for secondary students, where suicide and self-harm risks are higher RAND.
3. Address hoaxes, swatting, and lockdown fatigue
• Develop a tiered response plan so not every threat triggers maximum disruption.
• Educate students and parents about the real legal and emotional consequences of hoaxes.
• After any high-stress incident—real or hoax—schedule debriefs and emotional support for students and staff.
4. Use technology—and AI—responsibly
• If deploying AI-enabled surveillance or device monitoring, involve parents, student representatives, and legal counsel.
• Publish clear policies on data use, retention, and access; conduct regular audits for misuse.
• Focus tech on well-defined problems: perimeter breaches, weapons detection, unauthorised access—not on overbroad “student behavior scoring.”
5. Make safety part of everyday school culture
• Train all staff—not just security—on early warning signs, de-escalation, and trauma-informed responses.
• Build student leadership in safety (peer mediators, digital safety ambassadors, student advisory groups).
• Communicate regularly with families: what the school is doing, how incidents are handled, and how parents can help.

For school leaders and child care administrators, 2025 is not the year to rely on old plans. Use current data, involve your community, and review your school safety strategy across people, procedures, environment, and technology.

Parents and caregivers: ask your school about its safety plan, reporting systems, and mental health supports. Safety isn’t only about preventing tragedy—it’s about creating a daily environment where every child feels seen, protected, and ready to learn.