School, Safety and Health
Posted by Gary O'Rielly
on Mar 29, 2016
Our speaker last week was our own member Randy Celori. During Ken Collins introduction of Randy, he commented that two years ago the Lake Stevens School District administration set down looking at "what" was slipping through the cracks. It became very apparent that since the State was mandating lots of safety and truancy issues that they needed an expert to take charge of the school district's Safety, Security and Health program. That's when the district selected Randy Celori to be the District's Safety, Security and Health administrator.
One of the top priorities became school safety as well as stopping unwarranted truancy in the schools in Lake Stevens. It started with developing a school safety and health plan. Without a plan, how do you deal with earthquakes, fire alarms, intruders, lock downs, evacuations, look for shelter in the schools, bomb threats, hazard material spills, student threat assessment, self-harm and suicide prevention, blood borne pathogen, chemical hygiene and family reunification during a lockdown or similar incident?
The work within the District and the schools was split with 20 employees working with Randy. The plan was adopted by the Board. Now, they are currently working on a family unification plan at two unidentifiable schools. Student threat assessment-multi agency threat assessment process implemented after district wide training session while Randy was the Chief of Police.
ALICE, Emergency Resouces which means, run, hide or lockdown was adopted from experiences at Columbine and several other schools around the United States with similar tragedies. The history behind ALICE is listed in the next paragraph. In order to lock down doors securely, the District requested funding through the State Legislature and our own member Senator Steve Hobbs secured the funding. With the funding secured, the District was able to purchase 740 lock down devices. The biggest issue in schools is intruders. Since 1980 nationally there have been 270 school killings.
HISTORY of ALICE: In its 2007 publication, the US Department of Education's guidance for active shooter response was limited to lockdown-only approach that included students hiding under desk or against walls. Some of these techniques originated during the cold war as a method of protection from nuclear threat. In 2013, the US Department of Education spent considerable resources researching active school shooting events. Their findings have resulted in a change in guidance. ALICE protocols are used almost exclusively in all new guidance. Following current federal and state recommendations is a major step in limiting a school district's liability by demonstrating they have met today's standard of care.
A.L.I.C.E. is a lot easier to teach from elementary to high school. ALICE stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate. Auburn University video program shown highlighting ALICE. Anyone can use this to protect themselves. Examples of the principles of ALICE, Night Lock Door Latch Activated, Rave Panic Button using Rave Mobile as an alert. If you want to learn more about the Rave Panic Button you can go to www.ravepanicbutton.com for more information.
Rapid Responders and Easy Alert K12 Campus can be linked with RAVE. Currently, all district employees including substitute teachers are attending training sessions. This was a fantastic program that Randy presented, going over our normal timeframe but the members asked for the additional time for Randy to complete his presentation. He certainly goes to show you, "why" we have such a wonderful, experienced School District staff in Lake Stevens. Another session is likely again in the future.