Review of Violence Prevention at the Yakama Nation Tribal School

We conducted an inspection of the Yakama Nation Tribal School, located on the Yakama Reservation in Toppenish, WA, to determine the quality of safety measures in place to prevent violence against students and staff from internal and external threats. We found Yakama Nation Tribal School’s safety measures to be inadequate. 

 

Specifically, while school personnel were able to run both evacuation and lock-down drills during our visit on April 30, 2014, we found that the school did not always use these exercises to identify campus weaknesses and develop options for improvement. Yakama Nation Tribal School’s comprehensive emergency plan contained all five topics we reviewed.

 

Further, of the 18 safety measures we checked for, Yakama Nation Tribal School did not have 8 in place. While no single safety measure is so critical that its absence at an educational facility is cause for immediate concern, we found that the more safety measures not in place, the less prepared the school is to respond to an incident. We provided two recommendations to help Yakama Nation Tribal School improve its safety measures.