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City, CISD work together to avert campus tragedies
By DAN EAKIN, deakin@starlocalnews.com
Following the shootings of several children and adults at a school in Connecticut last week, some people in the Coppell Independent School District may be wondering what steps are being taken to ensure that students here are getting an education in a safe environment.
Sgt. Cayce Williams of the Coppell Police Department’s School Resource Division, said major steps have been taken to do everything possible to keep students safe on all CISD campuses.
First, anyone visiting any campus must sign in at the entrance to the school.
During the last school year, the Coppell Police Department, Coppell Fire Department and Coppell Independent School District approved a Standard Response Protocol (SRP) to be followed on all campuses in the event of a threat caused by weather, fire, accidents or an intruder.
“Before that, each campus had its own procedures to follow,” Williams said.
Police, firefighters and all school personnel have received training as to what procedures are to be followed in the event of a threat.
“Having all Coppell schools utilize the same emergency response procedures is very important.” Williams said. “The Standard Response Protocol is a shared vocabulary and expectations between first responders (police officers and firefighters), teachers and students. Utilizing the same procedures enables First Responders to effectively respond to school emergencies in an effort to ensure a safe outcome.”
He added, “The Standard Response Protocol makes our job easier to help students, teachers, and administrators.”
Evacuations (fire drills) are conducted once a month on each campus, and lockdowns are practiced twice a year on each campus.
Williams oversees the CPD’s School Resource Division, which includes five resource officers, including himself. Two officers are stationed at Coppell High School. One serves both at New Tech High School and Middle School East and another at Middle School North and Middle School West.
The officers also visit the elementary schools and officers on patrol have adopted elementary schools which they frequently patrol.
The SRP was developed by the I Love U Guys Foundation and its entire program can be found at http://iloveuguys,org.
The SRP is based on four actions: lockout, lockdown, evacuate and shelter.
A lockout involves securing the perimeter from an outside threat. In a lockout, all students and staff are to be inside the building and classes are to continue in a normal way, but with increased awareness of the situation.
A lockdown is called when there is a threat or hazard inside the school building. Students are to move away from being seen from outside the classroom and be quiet. Teachers are to lock the classroom door, turn out the lights, move away from sight, maintain silence, wait for first responders to open the door and take a roll call and account for all students.
When an evacuation is called, students and staff are to move to another location, leave stuff behind, form a single line, take the hand of the person in front and behind and be prepared for alternatives during the response.
Teachers are to grab a roll sheet if possible, lead the students to the evacuation location and call the roll and account for all students.
When a shelter is called, students are to “duck and cover,” and stay silent. A shelter may be in order in case of a tornado threat, a bomb threat or a Hazmat situation.
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