Episode 154: Safety and Security in the New School Year

Anthony Godfrey:
Hello, and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. The safety, security, and wellbeing of all students and staff in Jordan School District is our top priority. On this episode of the Supercast, we sit down with the District's Emergency Operations Manager to find out more about on-going efforts to enhance safety measures in our schools and buildings. Also, find out how a strong relationship with local law enforcement agencies along with having School Resource Officers assigned to every school is helping to reinforce our safety and security measures.

We're here with Emergency Operations Manager, Lance Everill. Lance, thanks for taking the time.

Lance Everill:
My pleasure.

Anthony Godfrey:
I've worked with you for a long time and your team is on the cutting edge of making our schools as safe as possible. You're quick to respond when we do have a concern and you guys just, I can't imagine anyone doing a better job, so I really appreciate everything that you do.

Lance Everill:
That's nice. Thank you very much.

Anthony Godfrey:
I'm glad that we can sit down for a few minutes and talk about some of the things we've been doing as a district over the years to make sure our schools are as safe as possible. And I think we've done a lot of things to move forward in that direction. Some things that may have been forgotten over the years, or may not be noticed anymore because they've been around for so long. One of those things is name badges. Name badges started a long time ago, and it's a small thing, but it makes a big difference. You can spot who works in Jordan School District or in a school from a very long distance, because they're wearing their name badge. Right?

Lance Everill:
Yeah. And that becomes a natural filter. What you'll hear is that it makes it an easy way to identify from a distance who is an employee and who's potentially a visitor. And so when you have some of those simple filters, it helps staff with looking at who's in the building. But it also just as importantly, helps students, parents, guardians and visitors know who do I go to for help.

Anthony Godfrey:
That's right. I also like when people forget to take their badges off and they wear them in a restaurant or a store into the wild and I am able to go up and talk to some district employees after hours who maybe are still wearing the badge. There are some other things that we've done over the years. And one of those is an audit. There's a regular audit of every school to be sure that they are compliant with the plans that we have in place for each school to make sure that they are safe. There are some small tasks, some small things that need to be maintained to be sure the building is safe. What I love about that is ever since it was put in place, I think in 2013. So it's been a long time now, that we all get an email. Everyone at the cabinet level in the administration gets an email about every school. So we have a clear sense for where the patterns are. Now scores have soared over the years on those audits, it's brought attention to the things that needed to be done. And I think we have consistently had high scores in all of our buildings, right?

Lance Everill:
Yeah. We implemented it in February of 2013 and it's a pretty rigorous assessment where I wanna say there's at least 40 indicators on there. And so our school safety specialist goes around and randomly just shows up at a school and conducts this assessment. So just like you said, the nice thing is, it provides data. It shows what we're doing well, which is huge, right? We want to continue the things that we're doing well. And then it also isolates the areas where we can make improvement. And it's very specific. The idea is that a school safety team, incident command team, can sit down and look at those or the district administration can look at 'em and we can see the areas where we're seeing trends and routines where we're doing well and where we can improve. Then it becomes easy for the school or the district to make a plan that says, okay, this is how we're going to tackle this area and get better. So just like you had mentioned, what we've seen since 2013 is a gradual increase in scores and performance overall. So there's such a culture of safety and security and just more attention to it and more of knowing what those expectations are.

Anthony Godfrey:
Now, along with that, there's a lot of training that happens as well. There's a regular training, regular drills that are required by law, but all of those drills are done following that same protocol. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Lance Everill:
Clear back in as early as 1999.

Anthony Godfrey:
Back in the 1900s. Yeah.

Lance Everill:
Back in the 1900s, Jordan School District, in response to some of the critical events that had been happening around the nation, and specifically Columbine High School on April 20th, 1999. The District hired an outside law enforcement professional team to develop an incident command manual specific to Jordan School District. And it's designed to follow the FEMA, the National Incident Management System, but it is written specific for schools. And we have used that same system ever since. We update it to grow with the times, to modernize. But the nice thing is when the police show up or the fire department shows up, city emergency management, county emergency management, state, and federal government, they're following that same basic emergency response hierarchy and protocol outlined in the incident command system. And so that becomes our foundational response plan for every school. The beauty is when you go from elementary school as a student to middle to high school and from high school to your tech center, or a family moves from West Jordan to South Jordan, a teacher transfers from one school to another school, an administrator gets reassigned next year. That foundational plan is the same.

Anthony Godfrey:
And not only is that foundational plan the same from school to school, but as you said, it mirrors what law enforcement is using in their organization. So when they come into an incident, it becomes really clear who's in charge and who's making decisions. And our decision making tree matches theirs, so we can really be efficient in dealing with a problem and not be subject to confusion in the same way that some others might be.

Lance Everill:
Right. A lot of what happens in an incident is just trying to figure out who's in charge, right? Who can we talk to to ask those key critical questions and then make those critical decisions. And sometimes in emergencies decision making, I mean, seconds, minutes matter. Seconds and minutes can really matter. And it's important for us to, as you said, expedite that response. Get to what we need to do and make good decisions as a team. And an important thing too, is that we use clear plain language, but we use age appropriate language for schools, right? It's important that we're honest and clear with kids, but also at an age appropriate level as to not cause panic in them, but for them to understand what the responses are and to empower them with safety measures and safety actions.

Anthony Godfrey:
Let's talk a little bit about that. Avoid, Deny, Defend. Can you explain that?

Lance Everill:
So Avoid, Deny, Defend is a great program that was implemented, I don't know exactly how many years, within this last decade. And we heard back in the past, there was run, hide, fight, and it's these situations to deal with a violence. A violent intruder, or some type of violence thing going on in the environment. Avoid, Deny, Defend became a really good program for Jordan School District to look at when you talk about the nature of our business, right? Kindergarten through 12th grade, educators in schools. So you talk about that Avoid aspect of it. And it's just kind of this response continuum. And really Avoid, Deny, Defend doesn't just have to be applied to violence. It can be applied to any type of an emergency situation. Any student at any age can see a problem or feel like they're nervous or at risk, and they can avoid that problem and get away from it.

And then we can teach kids in an age appropriate way to get help, to report things when they see things. And that's huge, right? So the best way to deal with the problem is go the opposite direction and report it. The Deny response piece of that is something our schools have been doing for years. And that's when we do a lockout, which locks a potentially dangerous person or situation outside of the school. And we stay on heightened alert inside of the school. Or will we lock down inside of our classrooms and offices in immediate areas when the threat is potentially already in the building. So that locking down, by locking those doors, creating a physical barrier between us and a threat, denies them immediate access to you. And so these are logical things that we can teach kids of any age about locking doors to protect yourself and to stay on the opposite side.

Anthony Godfrey:
Right. And the Defend portion?

Lance Everill:
Well, when we talk about that defense portion of it, and it's only in a last resort, right? The best thing again is to get away from the problem, if you can, or to create a physical, deny barrier by a lockout or lockdown. So avoid it or deny them access to you. Defend becomes a last resort. And it becomes a way to make sure that you're doing all you can to protect yourself and/or others. Here's the thing about warm, fuzzy educators. They are fierce advocates of students, right? And so it's pretty clear to them that they'll do most anything that they can to take care of their kids. We talk about having all these other measures and we have tons of engineered solutions and hardware and things in place to avoid having these problems and putting people in these conflict situations. But it's also something that we discuss and we partner with our law enforcement on to make sure that teachers and teenagers understand that they can do things to protect themselves.

Anthony Godfrey:
Now, we also have very sophisticated first aid kits in every classroom and an even larger kit in every school to deal with injuries when they occur. Tell us about that program.

Lance Everill:
When we talk about Avoid, Deny, Defend, we naturally piggyback off of that with talking about trauma care. Just basic trauma care that we can conduct in a school. So leaning on our law enforcement and fire professionals, they advised us on what best practices would be and what the best contents would be for these trauma kits. When we presented this to our Board of Education four years ago, the Board instantly said, yes, let's do it. Let's follow our professionals, law enforcement and fire’s recommendation. And the Board said, let's order these kits. We have been able to put a classroom kit and there's almost 3,200 of them out there in every dedicated classroom inside of Jordan School District. Additionally, like you said, we have larger wall-mounted kits. One next to every wall-mounted AED in every school. Plus we also put additional larger wall-mounted kits in large mass gathering areas like gyms, cafeterias, auditoriums, commons. So the whole idea is that we have tourniquets, pressure bandages and great tools like that available on top of our regular first aid kits, to be able to help people in those critical moments until the first responders can get there and give them proper medical care.

Anthony Godfrey:
Tell me about the specific drills that are required throughout the year.

Lance Everill:
Elementary schools are required to do at least one drill per month. Every school starts with a fire drill, and then they do another emergency, like earthquake or lockout or shelter in place. And they alternate fire, other, fire, other all throughout the year. So elementary's one drill every month, fire, other, fire, other, all throughout the school year, secondary schools, fire, other, fire, other, they only have to do a drill every two months. So a secondary school, like a middle school or high school can do a minimum of six drills per year. That's a minimum, some of them do more. And they do what I like to call two-fors. And so when we do the great shakeout around the third week of April with the state practicing for those earthquakes, then the school has an opportunity to do an earthquake drill and to practice drop, covering, and holding. And then they can also do an evacuation, which would be relevant in those situations. If the building was untenable and we needed to get outside, right? So they have lots of opportunity to practice them together.

Anthony Godfrey:
So there's a lot of practice built in throughout the year. So we have protocols in place that are audited on a regular basis, so that we know what to celebrate and where we need to improve. We have drills so that adults and children are ready for whatever may come their way. And we have kits in place in case there is an injury so that we have all the equipment and training we need to help people in that situation immediately. But we've also made some changes to our buildings to make them safer as well. Talk about that.

Lance Everill:
So when we were talking about ID badges, that work as filters, one of a really important thing. When you talk about crime prevention through environmental design, layers become a real clear way to slow things down, to slow people down. Not only if somebody's ill-intended, we want to slow him down and then hopefully we can catch it or dissuade them before they come in and do something. But it also gives us an opportunity to vet people. So we've been working on single point entries. We've been working on a rigorous check in/checkout process verification, vetting who our visitors are. We have multiple layers of doors that our visitors are required to get into those areas, to then announce themselves and their business there at the school. And so that all becomes all those layers to vet, filter and slow down.

Anthony Godfrey:
Now, what you're talking about, those layers have been created over time in almost all of our schools. Because the Board of Education has invested a lot of money in remodeling our schools, to be sure that that point of entry moves folks through the office. And I think it's an important point that part of that is to be sure that we're monitoring that and making sure that everyone gets what they need as they come into the building.

Lance Everill:
You know, safety and security isn't just about responding to disasters. And it's not just about responding to people with ill intent. Safety and security is about running an efficient campus. You know, most of the time when we have our interactions with firefighters and medical professionals, it's because people have had a personal emergency or accident. So it's really important that we know where people are. We know who's in our building. We know where they're going and we can account for them.

Anthony Godfrey:
We've talked about things that we've been doing internally, but you also interact a lot with law enforcement throughout the district. We have a number of municipalities that are included in the Jordan District boundary, and you're in constant contact with them on any number of issues. And that's really essential being partners with them, that's essential to our success.

Lance Everill:
You know, I know as part of this podcast you'll be having some conversation with our School Resource Officer Mike Ashley, who's from the Riverton Police Department. And he's a prime example of that relationship that you're talking about. As emergencies happen nationally, and whenever there's an emergency at a school, anywhere, every school district then looks at how they're doing business. And not only just the school district, but our law enforcement partners and our fire medical partners. And it's logical that we all say, what are we doing? Let's have that assessment. Are we doing enough? Can we do more? Can we do better? Those are logical things for us to ask of ourselves, to ask of each other. For parents, guardians and students to ask of us, and teachers to ask of us as well. So one of the most critical things that we can do is just to have an important, well cultivated relationship with those professionals in the community, our law enforcement and fire medical professionals.

I have been tasked with helping to form those relationships and make sure that we are giving them opportunities to give us their best practice input. To get inside of our schools, to become familiar with our schools. But just as importantly, our schools welcome them to come in and sit down and chat once in a while, or let's go on a tour after hours. It's so nice when a police chief walks in and calls a principal by their first name, and they know exactly who that chief is, or the sergeant or the SRO, that says a lot about the relationship. But I think is what's just as important. We can talk all day about the investments Jordan School District is making towards keeping schools safe, but they are all making huge strides. And the level of dedication, the caliber of the officers that they put in our schools and the commitment response time is just stellar. Like, I think we've always had good relationships, but I believe truly that they're the best they've ever been.

Anthony Godfrey:
Though you can't prevent every incident from happening, I really appreciate how hard we have worked as a district and how you and your staff have worked to make sure that we are as safe as possible. And we're always looking for the next thing that we need to do to be better.

Lance Everill:
Thanks, Anthony. Appreciate it

Anthony Godfrey:
Stay with us. When we come back, Officer Mike Ashley joins us to talk about the important work being done by School Resource Officers who have a passion for working with students and keeping everyone safe.

Break:
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Anthony Godfrey:
We're here with Detective Ashley, the School Resource Officer at Oquirrh Hills Middle School, but much more, you're everywhere. You've been a DARE officer over the years. And you've really advanced things for us in terms of safety with just giving us the opportunity to talk things through with you and sharing your ideas along the way. Tell me about your interactions with Jordan School District over the years when it comes to safety.

Mike Ashley:
Sure. Of course there's policies and guidelines that we're given when we start. We are assigned to this job, this assignment, but also what I really like about it is I feel like we're a team. I can sit down with my own administration, wherever I've been. I've been in several different schools in the Jordan District, and I've been able to feel like I'm a team. That I'm part of that team. And also with the District, I can go to anybody, any given time at the district office and be able to communicate my ideas or feelings and they can do the same for me. So it seems like it's just a team effort and we're all working together. We all, we're all kind of traveling down the same highway, but we're all just in different lanes. And it's nice that I feel that I have that support and connection with them and that they have that connection with me.

Anthony Godfrey:
I like to say that we have the same goals, but different roles. And I really have felt that teamwork from you and from the officers we work with throughout the district. Tell me, one of the innovations that you were responsible for here at Oquirrh Hills Middle School was color coding all of the hallways. Tell me about that.

Mike Ashley:
Yeah. So there was an incident that happened, not at our school, but that I saw that the numbers sometimes on the halls are confusing for our officers that respond. And a lot of departments do this where they hand out maps and have guidelines and training, which is awesome. A lot of 'em train in their own schools, which really helps. Helps us prevent any future problems. But one of the things for our school was that we decided to put color codes. We have like a tape running down one of the hallways, like a blue hallway. And then it'll cross over to a yellow hallway, which it has a line like you would see on a road. And one good purpose for it was our seventh graders, when they can't find a way to the class, we’re able to get them to go buy color codes instead of by the hallways.

Anthony Godfrey:
I walk into a lot of schools and some of them are very large. And a lot of them have similar layouts and sometimes the layouts flip flopped and I get confused a lot. So I really like the color coding. I think that can help a lot of people, not just law enforcement.

Mike Ashley:
Yeah. And then when I showed, of course my chief supported it too and so did the district. And then when we have officers respond from the outside, they can see what color that hallway is before they even go down that hallway. So it makes it easy for them to know where we're at if something occurs.

Anthony Godfrey:
Helps everyone be in the right place at the right time. Now, I know that you have personally been creative in thinking about ways that you can connect with the community, and help prevent problems before they happen, and create a positive relationship between the police and the community. Tell me about some of the things that you've put in place.

Mike Ashley:
Sure. I started off when our department started with business contacts. Those are the people that support us a lot of times. And so the first thing is to give them the numbers that they can contact us with. And so that was our first step, just introducing ourselves as a new department and giving that information, they would need to contact us. And then from there, since I worked in the schools, I wanted to reach out with a message. So the message was either a crime prevention message or a message of a hardship card, where it had a list of numbers that people could call. If you had somebody that had addictions, or homeless, or domestic violence. All the numbers that people who reach out that need help, that sometimes they may not wanna call 911. And then we went from there to try to educate parents that things are always changing with the youth. Just to help educate them, to understand the newest trends that are happening with their youth and all the things that are going on.

Anthony Godfrey:
You and I have talked about it before, but describe for listeners what you do with the tennis ball that you carry around.

Mike Ashley:
Oh yeah. So I do a circuit training  during the seventh period in PE here. So I can just kind of rub shoulders with the kids and have something fun other than just talking about programs. And I do it in the summer. And it was a thing I just kind of carried around and then I decided to start bouncing it to the students during recess or during class breaks. And I started trying to get more of a connection because I saw that most kids were receptive to me doing that and feeling I could see it kind of empowered them.

Anthony Godfrey:
So if someone's walking down the hall, you want to connect with you bounce the tennis ball their way. Yeah. Yep. And instinctively you catch it. Yeah. And now you've made a connection with that that person. And you've kind of opened a dialogue.

Mike Ashley:
Yeah. And it doesn't matter what, what state they are in and how they're feeling that day. Or maybe they're feeling down, it just kind of hopefully lifts their day. If I have a student that maybe doesn't wanna do it, then I'll kind of go, oh, it's kind of interesting. Why didn't they want to do that? And try to maybe mend that relationship that for some reason went wrong as far as me being a police officer. What I really feel strong about is, and I know I talked this with Lance, if you know the businesses and you know the kids and you know the parents and you know your senior citizens, you know the community. And so anytime there's an issue, I want the parents to be part of that with my administration. Me and those parents in the same meeting. So we can come to the same conclusion, the same safety plan, you know, as we call it. So that we can understand each other. And I think it feels better if we're working together than if we're all against each other and come from different perspectives. We will, but we can come to some kind of agreement if they really feel it. We really do care about their kids and we really do want to help them.

Anthony Godfrey:
Love it. Thank you for everything you do.

Mike Ashley:
Thank you.

Anthony Godfrey:
Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Remember, education is the most important thing you'll do today. We'll see you out there.