Endorsements

Max Schachter has worked tirelessly in honor of his beloved son, Alex, building a legacy that serves students and empowers parents as advocates, informed decision-makers, and active participants in school safety. Through the creation of this dashboard, Max has provided a practical tool to unite school safety stakeholders around the common goal of Safe Schools for Alex, safe schools for all.

Michelle Gay

Co-founder and Executive Director of Safe and Sound Schools, mother of Josephine, killed in the tragedy at Sandy Hook School.

Since the tragic shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Max and I have worked together on many school safety issues. His drive to prevent other families from experiencing his loss and pain has produced very significant progress towards making our schools safer. Two months after the shooting, he and I worked together to hold a school safety summit in the U.S. Senate where we brought together experts from all over the country. It was there that the concept of a federal school safety clearinghouse was born and, at my behest, was later included in the Federal Commission on School Safety recommendations. Today, SchoolSafety.gov is an important tool for states and schools to protect our children and teachers. Recently, I was happy to reintroduce the Luke and Alex School Safety Act, which seeks to make the Federal School Safety Clearinghouse permanent. Today, I congratulate Max and Safe Schools for Alex for developing the School Safety Dashboard. Data from the School Safety Dashboard will assist those who work tirelessly to ensure that every child can go to school in a safe learning environment.

Marco Rubio

United States Senator (R-FL)

The safety of our children is of the utmost importance for every family, and no parent should fear for their child’s safety at school,” said Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart. “The School Safety Dashboard takes us one step further by ensuring Florida schools remain accountable while providing real data regarding events that impact our children, such as cases of bullying, fighting, and weapons possession. Having this information readily available for parents and administrators is paramount in making our schools a safer place and I thank my good friend Max Schachter for his steadfast leadership on this issue. I remain impressed by Max’s advocacy and dedication in the wake of such an unspeakable tragedy and I look forward to continuing to work with him in Congress on this very important matter.

Mario Diaz-Balart

U.S. House of Representatives (R-FL 25th District)

In honor of his beloved son Alex, Max has worked tirelessly to make schools safer for all students. Through Safe Schools for Alex, he’s helping to promote proven steps that students, teachers, and parents can take to make their classrooms safer. The new dashboard is an excellent way to share information about safety incidents in schools that can help administrators, staff, and parents work together to create safe and secure schools where our students can learn and grow.

Ted Deutch

U.S. House of Representatives (D-FL 7th District)

The School Safety Dashboard database is something that we, as law enforcement professionals, can use to quickly view school reported incidents. This database bridges the gap between parents, schools, and law enforcement and provides information in an organized and seamless manner.

Anthony W. Rosa

Sunrise Police Chief, on behalf of the Broward County Chiefs of Police Association

Max did an admirable job in collecting data related to crime and violence in individual schools throughout the state.  The collection of this data is unprecedented, it hasn’t ever been done.  We can’t however stop at collecting data.  We need to do more.  More specifically, we need to ensure that the data that has been collected is used by administrators, teachers, students, family members, and community groups in the design and operation of programs, policies, and practices based on need not on guessing.

Bill Modzeleski

Sigma TMA, Former Assistant Deputy Secretary at US Dept. of Education

Florida PTA is thankful for the training on Incident Reporting tools used in our schools. This information is vital to effectively advocating for the changes needed in each school environment. We can now see what areas we can focus advocacy efforts and programming on.

Jennifer "Jen" Martinez

President, Florida PTA

This website is an excellent resource for public awareness and to help with prevention to decrease incidents.

Anna Fusco

President of Broward Teacher's Union

I want to commend Max Schachter and Safe Schools for Alex for the creation of the Dashboard to Reduce School Violence.  The Dashboard provides an easy-to-use snapshot of School Safety Dashboard which will enable the school leadership, parents, youth and community groups to work together to address areas of concern and build the strengths of the school.  I look forward to using it at CSC.

Cindy Arenberg Seltzer

President / CEO, Children’s Services Council of Broward County

I was extremely impressed with the Dashboard to Reduce School Violence and believe it will provide easy to navigate, much-needed transparency. Max has turned his grief over Alex’s tragic murder into a resource to make all schools safer – and that is inspiring and important work.

John Mina

Orange County Sheriff (D)

To maximize the academic success and safety of our children it is important for parents and community stakeholders to understand how effective their schools are in managing the day-day safety needs. School safety has many components such as technology, security, safety, emergency preparedness. mental health training/response, preparation and planning. Schools are responsible for anticipating and preparing to respond to a variety of emergencies, but with that in mind parents and community stakeholders can have a dramatic impact on improving school safety in our schools as well.  The Safe Schools for Alex School Safety Dashboard System is a tremendous example of a component of school safety that can empower parents and community stakeholders to understand school safety concerns in their schools and communities.  As a school safety professional for the last 35 years it is quite evident to me that empowering parents and stakeholders to help can go a long way in helping students to focus on learning , and our educators to focus on teaching in a holistic productive way.

Guy Michael Grace Jr.

Former Director of Security and Emergency Planning for Littleton Public Schools, 2020 Campus Safety Director of the Year

I commend Max for an incredible job putting valuable information at the fingertips of our parents, community members and other stakeholders. This tool will allow for data driven decisions that will improve school safety across our state.

Manny Diaz, Jr.

Florida State Senator (D-36th District)

School safety should be every elected leader’s top priority. It is heartwarming to see that Max is honoring his son Alex through his advocacy, ensuring that no other parent or child should have to endure what he and so many Parkland families went through three years ago. This dashboard should not be looked at as a “got you” tool, but it should be seen as an improvement tool. I am looking forward to this dashboard going live in Florida, and then being shared across the country.

Shevrin Jones

Florida State Senator (D-101th District)

I am in awe of Max Schachter’s dedication when it comes to keeping Florida’s schools safe. The School Safety Dashboard is a useful tool for families to know the kind of environment they are sending their children to.

Chris Latvala

Florida State Representative (R-67th District)

I am grateful for Max Schachter’s advocacy for school safety. This dashboard will provide user-friendly data for stakeholders to make decisions that will address student’s needs.

Christine Hunschofsky

Florida State Representative (D-96th District)

Kudos to Mr. Schachter for bringing this information to parents. It should spur more support for schools in helping troubled students and preventing violence.

Dewey Cornell

Expert on School Safety, University of Virginia

School officials frequently face three major resource limitations when trying to improve school safety – limited time, energy and money. School officials often lack adequate staff time, energy to address all important needs and limited budget to address many mission critical needs in addition to critical life-safety demands.  The School Safety Dashboard is designed to help school officials spot opportunities for improvement, focus limited resources, learn about available resources, validate budget requests and document need when applying for grant funding or seeking public support for bond referendums. As an independent and external data source, the School Safety Dashboard is designed to help school officials and stakeholders more effectively increase available resources while focusing existing precious and limited time, energy and budget to achieve safer schools.

Michael Dorn

Executive Director Safe Havens International

The School Safety Dashboard provides a clear and easy to understand dashboard that will assist school districts and communities in their discussions surrounding school safety and security. This tool will support more frequent, robust, and meaningful dialog, all of which are necessary to ensure the safest school campuses for our staff and students.

Andrea Messina

Executive Director Florida School Boards Association

As someone who has had the privilege to oversee the Department of Education under President Obama, I am grateful for the steps Max and Safe Schools for Alex are making to help reduce violence in our schools. Safe Schools for Alex has developed the most comprehensive analysis of school based incidents I have ever seen. The School Safety Dashboard is an essential tool that every parent and school administrator should have at their fingertips. It empowers parents, schools, and school board members with the data they need to work collaboratively in order to reduce violence in our schools and help the ones that need it most. The School Safety Dashboard is a model for every state. I encourage other states to work with Safe Schools for Alex to develop their own School Safety Dashboard. There is nothing more important than the safety of our children.

Arne Duncan

Emerson Collective Managing Partner, Former Secretary of Education

Keeping our children safe in school requires a whole on community approach, and it is my hope that public efforts like Safe Schools for Alex’s School Safety Dashboard will foster collaboration and information sharing across the state in this endeavor.

Stephanie Murphy

Congresswoman (D)

The School Safety Dashboard launched by Safe Schools for Alex provides viewers with the ability to see how different schools compare to each other as it relates to disciplinary actions and on campus crimes.  This information is invaluable for any parent or concerned community member who cares about school safety and the education of our children.  I applaud the efforts of Safe Schools for Alex and hope the information helps make positive changes in the safety and education of our children.

Clyde H. Parry

Chief of Police, Coral Springs Police Department

As a parent and as the state attorney for Broward County, I welcome this effort to increase transparency and make this information more widely available. Knowledge is power and with this information, we can all work together as parents, educators, law enforcement and government to keep all of our children, our teachers and our whole community safer, while also helping those who need our help.

Harold F. Pryor

Broward State Attorney (D)

When information about school safety is transparent, accessible, and user-friendly, everyone wins. This database will empower schools, school districts, municipalities, police departments, counties, and state leaders to make positive decisions to keep Florida students and employees as safe as possible.

Sarah Leonardi

Broward County School Board Member, District 3 (D)

I believe the School Safety Dashboard, a statewide dashboard to reduce school violence, on the Safe Schools for Alex website will be an important resource for parents and communities.  The data focused on incident reports for all the state public schools can now be found in one place.  The public will be able to see how many incidents have been reported and the types of issues occurring at each school.  This will help parents and communities identify issues in their local schools and provide resources for critical areas of safety. Thank you Max, and Safe Schools for Alex for making this important information accessible to everyone!

Debbi Hixon

Broward County Public School Board Member, District 9 (D)

As a School Board Member, it is vitally important to understand what incidents are happening in our schools when it is reported through SESIR.  Then at this point we can prevent violence from occurring by taking a proactive approach to reduce crime in schools through programs and specific allocation of funding.

Lori Alhadeff

Broward County Public School Board Member, District 4 (D)

Student safety will always be our number one priority and I appreciate all of the work that went into creating this dashboard. Having this data at our fingertips allows us to dig into the “whys” and the stories behind these incidents so we can fully understand how to better serve our students and their families while continuing to focus on the safety of ALL students.

Bill Husfelt

Bay County Public Schools Superintendent

The School Safety Dashboard produced by Safe Schools for Alex is an invaluable resource for parents, school districts, and the public alike. By providing readily accessible and easy to understand information concerning school-based victimization, various stakeholders will be able to quickly understand the extent of victimization and suspensions happening within Florida’s school system resulting in better informed decision making. I suspect this dashboard will serve as a model nationwide in the future.

Cheryl Lero Jonson, Ph.D

Associate Professor, Department of Criminal Justice Xavier University

The School Safety Dashboard is an incredible step toward increased transparency about the threats to student safety in Florida’s schools. Accurate, up-to-date, and publicly available information is indispensable for reducing student victimization. As a parent of children attending school in another state, I wish the School Safety Dashboard covered schools nationwide.

Justin T. Pickett, Ph.D

Associate Professor School of Criminal, Justice University at Albany, SUNY

The new School Safety Dashboard provides a comprehensive look at school safety and discipline in a visually-engaging and easy-to-understand way. This tool will allow parents, as well as state and district-level policymakers, to identify opportunities for improvement to ensure that all students in Florida’s schools have the opportunity to enjoy safe learning environments. Other states should follow the lead of Safe Schools for Alex to ensure that decisions about school safety are informed by data.

Jaclyn Schildkraut, Ph.D

Associate Professor Department of Criminal Justice State University of New York at Oswego