Woman threatens to shoot teachers/kids at my kid's elem scho

[suthdj]

I would certainly support an approach that relieved some LEO's from their duties driving around town writing tickets, to allow them to be placed in each school building during school hours.

and still writing tickets only now it is to kids.

[chasfm11]

Perhaps I can shed some light on the topic of school security; I work IT in a small, rural school district (which I will not name for obvious reasons) and we've been making quite a few changes to accommodate for increased security and safety for the kids in the past few months.

Regarding the whole "Silent Alarm" idea - such a thing does exist. Our department has been working with a company called COPsync to integrate their product into our district technology plan for months now. The gist of their program is that each computer in a school (issued to Teaching or Administrative Staff) has a small unobtrusive program installed on it. This program basically runs in the task bar constantly, until needed. If a situation arises that requires immediate law enforcement presence, a user simply double clicks the icon, and an alert is sent out after a short delay (to make sure it is not actuated by accident). This alert is sent out to every Law Enforcement agency in our area - sheriffs department, local PD, DHS and all of it's alphabet cousins in an effort to get a better response, both in numbers of responding officers, and time.

So thankfully, the technology does exist, though not every ISD is going to implement it for whatever reason. I know that as far as how we have things setup, it's intended to provide another option to contact help as there are some plausible scenarios where a phone may not be a viable option to do so. I think this is a great idea personally, as I'm one of the few folks in the district that feels our security could use some massive bolstering. Thankfully we're headed in the correct direction. We do have a sheriff at each campus all the time to improve in response to a threat. Which is great...BUT, without getting into details, the entire district needs SERIOUS training regarding lockdown drills and emergency procedures for something like an active shooter scenario, the Sheriffs Dept included. We ran a drill some months back that had an abysmal outcome (in my view).I sincerely hope they've been training more - and likewise, the staff needs to be better trained, however the emphasis is simply not put on this need by our School Board or SI.

A close friend of mine who is a teacher has invited me to help create a presentation for the school board regarding our security protocols, and how despite the improvements we are making need to be much more far reaching with a lot more constant training. School Marhsalls, and allowing CHL on campus will be included by this. We really strongly believe that things as they are now, are no where near where they should be. I've even suggested that we have a small number of selected staff attend a course such as ICE/Rob Pincus' SARC to our SI, however he simply seems to have dismissed it for whatever reason. Hopefully as time develops, we can help initiate better training and protocols for all of our staff to help create the utmost secure environment without taking extremely impractical measures.

So, as far as I can tell, school security can always be improved. Ours wasn't great but is getting better - and still needs a ton of work to meet what I feel are acceptable standards. Technology can really help deliver the extra edge to help things become safer, if you can swing it. Since I only have experience with my area, I'd be interested to see and hear about how security is for a large ISD - I'd imagine it'd be a far cry from how it is for us.

Many, many more districts in Texas need to take a cue from your district. I'm glad to hear that there are ways to implement a "panic button" without major additional expense.

Thanks for sharing that information. I hope that others will catch on.

[drumbdummer]

What kind of price tag does this copsync carry? I work at a school
District that is small and rural and would love to see this presented to my school board.

[Z1166]

My organization recently installed this system, similar to what's described above:

http://www.lynxguide.com/index.shtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

You can just press buttons F9 and F11 on your keyboard and a panic alarm is activated. It can also be used to transmit messages about situations.


Lots of options out there. Of course, the panic alarm just starts the clock ticking in minutes when seconds count.

[punkndisorderly]

Not saying I oppose police presence on campus, but just to play devils advocate, adding police isn't all rainbows a d cotton candy.

Take a medium/small sized district with 12 elementary schools, 3 junior highs, a high school, and and alternative school. That's 16 cops. Add in another couple to fill in for officers out for training, sick leave, FMLA. Add in 2 more for covering after school events (games, concerts, weekend festivals, etc. So, 20 officers. The cost in salaries, benefits, training, equipment, etc. Is probably 100k a year, give or take 20k. That's either 2 million more in taxes, or 20-40 fewer teachers. Schools may piss away a lot of money in dollars, but not so much as a percentage of their operating budget. (at least in my experience)

Whether or not that's a worthwhile cost is debatable.

Another thing to consider is what happens when you have police on campus. Police are there to arrest people and write tickets
. Having one on campus brings in potential for misuse/abuse. Principals, rather than taking charge of discipline and meting out school punishments, now can pawn it off on police. Johnny gets in a fight at school (I know I did, often). 20 years ago, Johnny would have gotten paddled by a coach, detention, or suspension (plus more when he got home). With police there, Johnny gets an assault or disorderly conduct charge and a rap sheet. Cursing? A ticket and order to appear in court for him and his parents.

Again, not saying that's always a bad thing, but rather a judgement call.

Lastly, it, like most solutions that seem to be proposed, only addresses the symptoms and not the problem itself (poor mental health system, break down in the family, poor parenting, or whatever you choose as the "problem").

[flechero]

Ha! got me on the resurrected post!

[bblhd672]

5 year old thread resurrected.....

[WildBill]

5 year old thread resurrected.....

Thanks to the new Jr Member.

[anygunanywhere]

Did anyone click on the links?

[joe817]

Did anyone click on the links?

I didn't. For someone who joined 4 hours ago, and post 2 links, raised red flags. Trust has to be earned. And this guy didn't give me any reason to trust him/her.

[bblhd672]

Did anyone click on the links?

You funny Petersan!

[WTR]

The links are fine - I clicked on them for you.

Now Andy has cooties.

[The Annoyed Man]

The links are fine - I clicked on them for you.

Now Andy has cooties.

Is there any known cure?

[anygunanywhere]

The links are fine - I clicked on them for you.

What did you see?