Ghosts, goblins and witches too! Don`t let violence haunt you! Here are some useful ideas to help keep your school and community safe during the Halloween holiday, football season, and throughout the fall! The third week of October (October 18-22, 2004) is National Safe Schools Week. This week provides a unique opportunity for schools to focus on educational issues that directly affect the safety and security of the entire community. Planning and preparation can be done before National Safe Schools Week to make sure your school and community have a week filled with awareness and activities. The first National SAVE (Students Against Violence Everywhere) Day (Wednesday, October 20, 2004) will be celebrated concurrently with National Safe Schools Week.

• Place purple and orange (SAVE`s colors) ribbons on lockers before school starts on Monday morning. Place purple ribbons on every locker except the fourth locker where you place an orange ribbon. This represents the statistic that one in every four students will be affected by violence this year. You can also place orange and purple ribbons on light poles and trees.
• Have a campus watch and monitor the parking lots to report vandalism.
• Initiate a bus monitoring and safety program.
• Conduct seat-belt checks in the school parking lot or on a heavily traveled road, give out "smarties" candy to those who are wearing their seatbelts, and "dum-dum" suckers to those not wearing seatbelts.
• Encourage a neighborhood watch on Halloween night to promote safe trick-or-treating routes.
• Encourage good sportsmanship among fall athletic teams.
• Sponsor a Halloween dance as an alternative to pranks.
• Sponsor a Peer Mediation Training Day in which anyone can attend or look into starting a Peer Mediation Program at your school.
• Encourage appropriate behavior by sponsoring a Dress-To-Impress Day.
• Hold a school fundraiser by selling paper links to a peace chain. Make it a competition between the grades and display the chain around the school.
• Sponsor a community clean-up event. Students can assist elderly community members with general household maintenance, including raking leaves, and trimming trees and shrubs to deter crime.
• Sponsor a School Safety Fall Festival with safe activities for youth.
• Write letters to local government officials to advocate for better lighting in crime-ridden areas.
• Contact your local law enforcement agency to establish a "Park a Cop Car" program where off-duty cars are parked at local businesses to deter crime.