The People Behind the
Guided Self-Evaluation Standard.
Protecting Our Students, Inc. (POSI) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded to answer one question every parent in America deserves answered: How safe is my child's school — really? We built the framework, the methodology, and the movement to deliver that answer.
We're a team of safety professionals, educators, technologists, and parents united by the conviction that a child's protection should not depend on a zip code. This is the story of how we got here — and where we go next.
A national standard for school safety — real, measurable, within reach.
Built by a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to protecting students, staff, and communities — with an evidence-based framework every campus can measure against.
Protecting Our Students, Inc.
A 501(c)(3) nonprofit delivering America's first national standard for K–12 school safety. When every campus is evaluated against the same evidence-based criteria, safety becomes transparent, accountable, and actionable.
Our Dynamic Safety Score℠ establishes a clear baseline for every campus — private by default, public by choice.
The work is made possible by a two-part architecture: a nonprofit that sets and owns the national standard, and a commercial platform — licensed from the nonprofit — that operationalizes that standard at national scale.
Protecting Our Students, Inc.
Sets the national baseline and self-scoring methodology for K–12 safety.
SafeSchoolMAP℠
The platform that operationalizes the standard at national scale.
Born from lessons learned.
Born from hard lessons across decades of school safety failures, we believe every student, in every school, deserves baseline protection — not just in crisis, but every single day. Yet today, school safety remains inconsistent, reactive, and often invisible to the communities it serves.
We change that.
A four-tiered framework for safety readiness.
Through a proprietary, four-tiered framework, we help schools baseline, score, and continuously improve their safety readiness — across physical security, mental health, emergency response, and community coordination. Free to schools, transparent to the public, and validated by first responders and safety experts nationwide.
Physical Security
Entry controls, surveillance, and campus infrastructure evaluated against a consistent baseline.
Mental Health
Student wellness resources and support systems that prevent harm before it happens.
Emergency Response
Crisis protocols and coordination procedures aligned across every level of response.
Community Coordination
Partnership with first responders and local stakeholders to close the gaps between systems.
Core Frameworks.
Four tools. One shared language for school safety — from baseline audit to live scoring to improvement roadmap.
4-Level School Safety Standard℠
A progressive, nationally consistent pathway — from foundational protocols to full operational readiness.
94-Point Safety Zone℠
The most comprehensive campus safety audit in the U.S. — from entry controls to student wellness resources.
Dynamic Safety Score℠ (DSS)
A real-time safety rating that updates as schools improve — private by default, public by choice.
SafeSchool REPORT℠
Clear, evidence-based improvement plans — not just risk flags, but roadmaps to action.
Together, these tools empower schools to prevent incidents before they happen — not just respond after.
How it works.
Any school can begin at no cost. Community members, staff, or parents can claim a school through our public platform, initiating a free assessment and partnership with local first responders. Self-verified schools earn a private or public Dynamic Safety Score℠ — their choice.
Claim your school
Stakeholders — parents, staff, or community members — initiate the process through our public platform.
Free assessment
Partnership with local first responders begins; the school is evaluated against the national standard.
Earn your score
Private or public Dynamic Safety Score℠ awarded — the school chooses visibility.
Continuous improvement
Ongoing reassessment, progress tracking, and validation throughout the year.
Unlike fragmented audits or one-time drills.
Our system delivers four things a patchwork approach cannot.
Standardization
One benchmark for all 130,000+ U.S. schools, evaluated against the same evidence-based criteria.
Transparency
Self-assessed real-time scores visible to parents and donors — when schools choose to share them publicly.
Accountability
Progress tracked, validated, and shared — self-verified improvement, not assumed compliance.
Prevention
Risks identified before they become tragedies, with roadmaps to close each gap.
For donors and advocates, this means measurable impact: every contribution supports a system where safety isn't assumed — it's proven.
To ensure every K–12 campus in America meets a self-verified, living standard of safety — so students are protected, communities are informed, and tragedies are prevented.
Key differentiators.
First national safety standard for K–12 schools.
Real-time scoring, private or public — not static snapshots.
Free for schools, funded by mission-aligned supporters.
Community-initiated — anyone can claim a school.
Donor-transparent — see exactly how support drives verified safety outcomes.
The safety of our children shouldn't depend on zip code, district budget, or luck.
Building a safer future together.
Protecting Our Students is building a future where every school — urban, rural, public, or charter — operates from the same evidence-based standard of protection. With your support, we can scale this self-verified system nationwide — turning transparency into trust, data into action, and prevention into promise. Because when safety is measurable, it's improvable — and every student deserves that chance.
© 2026 Protecting Our Students, Inc. A 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
The 4-Level School Safety Standard℠, 94-Point Safety Zone℠, Dynamic Safety Score℠ (DSS), and SafeSchool REPORT℠ methodologies are the exclusive proprietary property of Protecting Our Students, Inc. The commercial platform SafeSchoolMAP℠ operates under license to scale the national standard.
