U. S. Department of Education

Scientists who study how the brain works have shown that children learn earlier—and learn more—than we once thought possible. From birth through age 5, children are developing the language, thinking, physical, emotional and social skills that they will need for the rest of their lives. This book is for families and caregivers who want to help their preschool children to learn and to develop the skills necessary for success in school—and in life. It begins with information that will help you prepare your child to learn and to get ready for school. The major portion are simple activities that you can use with your child. These activities are only a starting point. We hope that you and your child will enjoy them enough to create and try many more on your own. In addition, the text provides suggestions for how to monitor your child's TV viewing and to choose good TV programs and videos and how to choose suitable child care. It also provides a checklist to guide you as you prepare your child to enter kindergarten. As a parent, you can help your child want to learn in a way no one else can. That desire to learn is a key to your child's later success. Enjoyment is important!

In response to the Virginia Tech incident on April 16, 2007, former cabinet Secretaries Michael Leavitt and Margaret Spellings, and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales submitted the Report to the President on Issues Raised by the Virginia Tech Tragedy dated June 13, 2007. The report included a recommendation that the U. S. Secret Service (Secret Service), the U. S. Department of Education, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) explore the issue of violence at institutions of higher education (IHEs). Accordingly, we initiated a collaborative effort to understand the nature of this violence and identify ways of preventing future attacks that would affect our nation's colleges and universities.

Choosing a postsecondary institution is a major decision for students and their families. Along with academic, financial and geographic considerations, the issue of campus safety is a vital concern. In 1990, Congress enacted the Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act of 1990 (Title II of Public Law 101-542), which amended the Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA). This act required all postsecondary institutions participating in HEA's Title IV student financial assistance programs to disclose campus crime statistics and security information. The act was amended in 1992, 1998, 2000 and 2008. The 1998 amendments renamed the law the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act in memory of a student who was slain in her dorm room in 1986. It is generally referred to as the Clery Act and is in section 485(f) of the HEA. On March 7, 2013, the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013 (VAWA) (Public Law 113-14) was signed into law. VAWA includes amendments to the Clery...

Reporting, a compendium of U. S. Department of Education (ED) guidance on complying with the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act (Clery Act). Since that time, the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA) was signed into law, amending the Clery Act and adding a number of safety- and security-related requirements to the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended (HEA). This new legislation necessitated writing The Handbook for Campus Safety and Security Reporting-an updated and expanded version of the previous handbook. This new version of the handbook will familiarize you with the amended Clery Act and the new regulations that were added by HEOA. Similar to the 2005 version, this handbook takes you step by step along the path to compliance and explains what the regulations mean and what they require of your institution. It also includes new examples and enhanced explanations of many topics based on questions asked of our Campus Safety and Security Help Desk (see inside back cover for e-mail address) over the past several years. What hasn't changed is the handbook's emphasis on compliance as a whole system of developing policy statements, gathering information from a variety of sources and translating it into the appropriate categories, issuing alerts, disseminating information, and, finally, keeping records. Although we address "you" throughout, we want to stress that this is not a one-person job. As you will see when you read further, a key ingredient in ensuring compliance is coordination-knowing who does what and when. This means that most of you will find it necessary to coordinate compliance activities with many people and offices in the campus community. We hope that you will use this handbook not only to comply fully with the law and its regulations, but to make sure that your disclosures to students, employees, families and the public are easily understandable and useful. So, please read the handbook carefully, think about how the requirements apply to your situation and then review the handbook again. Remember: the goal of the safety- and security-related HEA regulations is to provide students and their families, as higher education consumers, with accurate, complete and timely information about safety on campus so that they can make informed decisions.