49 Voices: A D49 Podcast
49 Voices: A D49 Podcast
Keeping Students Safe
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The pinnacle of D49’s strategic big rocks is launching successful students. We can do that by making sure our campuses and facilities are safe and secure – in fact, you hear us drive home “the safety of our students, staff and guests is non-negotiable.” D49’s commitment to safety and security is led by a team of professionals with a combined 90 years of experience who proactively partner with local law enforcement and first responders to ensure everyone finds safe environments every time they arrive at a D49 school or building. It is an around-the-clock promise to everyone we serve – especially those who make the best choice, their choice.
I believe we've got a really strong team right now, and everybody on our team recognizes that our students are our most valuable asset, and we want to get that point across that our our guards are prepared to put themselves in front of the students, in front of the staff, in front of the community, if they have to respond to an incident or a threat, and they're happily do it. And we're very proud of that.
NANCARROW:Put together decades of experience, a laser sharp focus and a deep care for protecting people. And you have the formula that drives the D49 safety and security team to role model performance. I'm D49 director of Communications David Nancarrow. In this episode of 49 voices, Superintendent Peter Hilts welcomes the leaders of a unified district team, we’ll unpack the power of partnerships, dig into emergency prep and response, and find out what drew seasoned experts to serve students and staff right here in D49. Let's get to it.
ANNCR:You're listening to 49 voices, a D49 podcast. Spend some time with us as we take an in-depth look at how our workforce, students, families, and community make D49 the best choice to learn, work, and lead. These are our stories of dedication, innovation and inspiration as we deliver excellence in education. And now your host, Peter Hilts.
HILTS:Hello friends of D49 voices, our ongoing podcast, and thank you for joining us on this episode. We're talking about a topic that we care very deeply about at district 49, and that is school safety. We work tirelessly to make sure that learning happens in secure and safe environments, which directly supports the topmost of our strategic Big Rocks. Launching successful students. It matters to our students. It matters to their parents and guardians. It matters to our workforce. And it absolutely matters to the team we've assembled to carry out this important work. So it is a pleasure to welcome our safety and security team. Gentlemen, thank you for joining us.
WATSON:We're happy to be here, sir.
Thank you for the invite. HILTS:Absolutely. We are going to do a quick whip around for our listeners to give you a sense of the firm foundations you bring to your roles here. So would you just give us a quick self-introduction of rundown of your experience prior to D49 and Dave Watson, we'll start with you.
WATSON:I thank you, chief. My name is David Watson and I'm the Director of Safety and Security for School District 49. And prior to being in this role, I served as a law enforcement officer for about 21 years, as well as did 16 years in the military. I've had a lot of great assignments to include Swat, patrol, community policing. However, two of the roles that prepared me for serving here with School District 49, as I was honored to serve as a D.A.R.E. officer or D.A.R.E. instructor, to talk to kids about self-esteem, drugs, and other items that are important in today's society. And then I was also honored to be a school resource officer, where I served actually in this school district as an SRO at Falcon High School. And so it was a pretty seamless transition from my last assignment being a school resource officer to taking a role in School District 49, Safety and Security department.
HILTS:And I think that pathway is something that you share with another one of our colleagues who's here, Dave Pratt.
PRATT:Yeah, I had the opportunity to serve with the Colorado Springs Police Department for many years, actually crossed paths with Mr. Watson in that role as fellow school resource officers and rapidly realized that my greatest, I think enjoyment serving was blending law enforcement and school cultures, you know, the language of success in schools and the language of safety and law enforcement. Those two touched my heart and gave me an opportunity here to to work with Dave and other great folks on the district.
HILTS:We're also joined by Travis Cormaney, who is the newest member of this leadership team for safety and security.
CORMANEY:I've been part of the department for about a year. I had recently retired from 23 years with federal probation parole served in that manner, and when I retired, I still had a desire to serve my community. And I thought to myself, what better form than taking care of our kids and maybe using my skill set to help keep kids safe?
HILTS:Well, I think, folks, you can hear the depth of experience here from local across our school district federal experience. And so I appreciate that you all take this job very, very seriously. But as serious as your work is, I also want to point out that you're very intentional about building relationships with everybody you work with. Someone at this table is known to wear a Ninja turtle cap from time to time. Tell me about that relational side of the work.
PRATT:I'll embrace that. Chief. Yes, the Ninja Turtle persona is important to me. I like to tell the students, the staff, the parents, everybody in our community that they're my turtles. And I embrace a Splinter persona. And I know Travis and D.W. also look at ourselves as sheepdogs protecting the flock.
HILTS:I think that relational side is something that maybe a little bit unexpected. How do people respond to you when you try to connect them on more than just a kind of a technical security level?
CORMANEY:I would say it's a huge component. We're working with all of our administrative teams, and you have to have that good rapport, that open line of communication, because if you're dealing with a safety or security matter or threat, being able to have those relationships to quickly work that issue and work to resolve that issue is just so very crucial.
WATSON:Yes, sir. What we do is very serious. We have the responsibility of carrying firearms in our roles, and we're charged with protecting individuals in our schools, all visitors, staff and students. And it's important that we bring the human kindness to the table prior to interacting with our community. There is a time to obviously be serious, and we're all serious in what we do. But I think when it comes to building that relational capacity first, I think that's extremely important in what we do in the success of the safety and security department and our school district particularly. Dave Pratt likes to say connections are important. And what's your saying?
PRATT:Corrections before compliance.
WATSON:Connections before compliance. And so it's hard to ask someone to comply, especially in the important work that we do carrying firearms, because people automatically notice that firearm first. That's where their eyes gravitate. And it's important for us to have them focus on us as the person and get that connection first before we see compliance.
HILTS:That's a great point. And I also want to point out, although there are three of you here representing today, the team itself is larger. It's not just the three of you. And by necessity, we listened to our students, our parent community, our staff, security professionals, and we decided that we needed to have a larger workforce. So can can one of you speak to the role of listening to our stakeholders when it comes to doing the work of protecting our district?
WATSON:Absolutely. We we love the community voice. And back in 2018, after an unfortunate national incident, we started receiving feedback from our community about what steps we were going to take to ensure the safety and security of our school campuses. And through that process, we created our ESCAC group, which is the Enhanced Security Community Advisory Council, which is a combination of community members, law enforcement personnel, fire safety personnel, school administrators, students, district personnel. We come together and talk about key topics that impact safety and security in the school district. But during that process, we were challenged to find a way to provide additional armed presence inside of our schools and the community conversation, which was a wonderful conversation, talked about, you know, arming general staff members that talked about a dedicated uniformed armed security unit, which is where we landed as a district through this conversation. And you're correct. Over the years we have grown. We do have armed officers in most of our district 49 schools. We also have patrol division that is able to patrol around and visit different schools as well as other assignments. And so over the years it has grown and we are blessed to have a community that cares so much and lends their voice to us and and our partners along the way.
HILTS:Dave, you used that acronym and you spelled that out. That's been a great one. I think the Security Advisory Council is unique to district 49. The way we run it, the way that group has a voice in our strategy, something that is more common across other school districts is another acronym, and that's the acronym of an SRO. Mr. Pratt, maybe you can tell us a little bit about this role of the SRO and and the partnership that it represents.
PRATT:Both Dave Watson and I got to serve as school resource officers. We work closely with our SRO team. That partnership. It's parallel missions that we have on protecting schools, students, staff, community. But we know when to step out of their way and let them lead, and they know when to partner with us and watch us lead. The the role for the SRO is truly one of prevention, intervention and enforcement. And we couldn't do our jobs without that strong partnership with the sheriff's office, with the Colorado Springs Police Department.
HILTS:Dave Watson, given that you are representing both, both the armed force and the partnerships that we have with local law enforcement agencies, when we think of law enforcement and armed security officers, a phrase that doesn't normally come to mind is, I love you, but can you tell us why has the phrase I love you or I love you guys? Why has that become so important in district?
WATSON:I believe you're referring to the I live you guys foundation and the standard response protocols we utilize. You know, I became friends with John Michael Keys, who is the founder of I Love You Guys Foundation. Earlier on in my career and at that time, there wasn't necessarily a standard when it came to school safety protocols. And it was after an unfortunate incident that John Michael Keys daughter was involved at Platte Canyon High School. There was a very unique need to have standards in place when it comes to communicating with school officials and law enforcement when it comes to crisis management. Therefore, he saw the need and he created this foundation, the I love you guys and created what are now known as the SRPS or the standard response protocols. And I am proud to say that we are actually the very first school district in the city of Colorado Springs, on the Front Range here that adopted the SRPS as our crisis intervention or standard, if you will, and eventually the rest of the city caught up in other school districts, eventually adopted them as well.
HILTS:And you know what? I would want our listeners, especially parents, to know that using standard response protocols increases safety. Think about how many of our colleagues who work as guest teachers or substitute teachers, and they're working in multiple districts. We wouldn't want them to have to learn a new system when they come over from D20 or go down to district two. And so we appreciate the consistency that the law enforcement partners Colorado Springs Police Department, the El Paso County Sheriff's Department, even the security teams in the various school districts, and of course, all of our trained staff, we use the same language. We have the same expectations. We create the same safe conditions so that we can act decisively and secure our facilities and the people in them.
WATSON:That is correct, sir. And we have we have ran into that in the past, prior to other school districts adopting the standard response protocol. However, now that all the school districts have adopted it, it's definitely a really seamless transition for guest teachers or other staff who may leave another school district and and come partner with us as a district 49 family member. So it's really important for us to have that standard existing in our city. We also have a requirement that all the standard response protocols posters have to be posted in every classroom. Any type of crisis can happen when you think about medical emergencies or any other types of emergencies. What if a classroom teacher falls ill or something that happens to them in the classroom? We need that visual indicator for our students who have also gone through. When I say training, they have gone through the motions of participating in our emergency drills. And so that constant visual reminder inside the classroom helps everyone in the learning environment to stay reminded that this is a real possibility. That could happen and we need to be prepared.
HILTS:We know that as we go forward into this new school year, there will be disruptions. There will be law enforcement activity in neighborhoods near our schools. There may be anonymous threats. There may be actual incidents that we have to respond and secure our facilities. And as part of that response, there's going to be some communication. But what can you tell us about the timing and content of that communication? Just to kind of set expectations in our community?
WATSON:We understand that, you know, during a lot of our debriefing processes that, you know, some of the feedback we receive is that they wish the communication would have taken place sooner. But I think it's really important for our community to realize we do want to communicate with them. We will communicate with them. But our priority, because their children are in our care is of the utmost extreme importance. And so our priority has to be first on securing the school and implementing our safe and secure strategies or our protocols so that we can maintain or have that safe and secure environment so that our law enforcement partners or other emergency service partners are coming on scene or to the location to partner with us through this process. And so I would want our community to to to know that we are taking the steps that we have promised to them that we would take. And we're we are going through those steps. And although the communication to them is extremely important to us, we we have a responsibility to keep everyone in that school safe. And we're going to go through those steps first.
HILTS:You know, all three of you have taken oaths of service. You have made promises to serve, to protect, to guard our students and everyone else that's in our buildings. And one of the things that has changed as you make those commitments is the the dynamic of social media. On the one hand, it can be a really positive thing to help us understand and have have rapid information. On the other hand, it can amplify hoaxes and it can create anxiety and and inappropriate reaction. So how are we managing those social media channels of communication and trying to optimize and find value in this, this kind of new wave of social communication?
PRATT:It really begins with strong teams. You know, we've got a strong, strong partnership with our communications team. We believe we've got the best communications team in the state of Colorado, and they think we have the best safety and security team in the state of Colorado. There we go. We also benefit greatly from our school resource officers, law enforcement. They advise us when trends are happening nationally, locally. And so we're kind of preemptively ready for the challenges of social media and hoaxes. We know how scary it can be for parents, staff, for everyone in the community. And so we don't overreact. We have a very deliberate process where we listen, learn and lead. And I would say that the key on this is in the beginning, parents want more information than we're often able to give. Just be patient with us. Know that we are prioritizing safety and keeping the buildings safe and secure. And the information that you're going to get is going to be accurate. It's not going to be rumor based, it's going to be vetted, and it's going to be delivered in a timely, professional manner.
HILTS:I appreciate that as a parent who has dropped a child off at a school that was managing a hoax threat, it was very comforting to know that we were taking it seriously without overreacting, that we were we had extra visibility and alertness, but we weren't going to be intimidated or unreasonably deterred from offering our students what they what they trust us to provide a great education and in a safe environment. Let's talk about something that does not require any social media whatsoever, although it it may sometimes appear on social media. And that is just how do folks need to keep in mind the new school year in terms of driving, in terms of cooperating, getting their kids in and out of schools, checking in and out? Tell us about all the mechanics of that of getting people to our school safely and making sure that the the right students are where they're supposed to be.
WATSON:The first thing I would like to note for our community is school safety is a shared responsibility. There you go. Although in our roles we are charged with the policies, the procedures and the follow through of initiating the protocols that assist in keeping our school campuses safe, it's everyone's responsibility. We've had some successes with improving the roadways around our schools with additional school zone signage. There have been some unfortunate incidents not only in our city, but around the country when students are in transit to school, whether it's through a means of a bus or they're dropped off by a parent, or in a lot of cases, they're walking to school, especially around our elementary schools. And we need to be our community to be mindful of the speed zones during these critical times. In the morning when our most precious assets in our community are transitioning to their school day for the day that they can partner with us to adhere to this signage that is clear and marked with flashers and signage.
CORMANEY:And if I could add a little bit. Two words come to me when you ask that question kindness and common sense. If everybody could use those two things. We understand that dropping off and picking up is incredibly hectic, but it's a short amount of time. We're really talking about ten minutes or less. Our schools are pretty efficient in getting these kids out of school, into their cars and on their way. And if everybody could just practice a little kindness and common sense and understand that it is hectic, we can only do so much with our the way our schools are configured and just abide by the traffic laws and use your crosswalks and understand that'll be over very quickly and we can keep everybody safe.
HILTS:When it comes to school zones are our normal driving habits aren't good enough. We need to be on extra alert and be extra patient and extra kind compared to how we might normally move around the community. There's also a program that is coming up this year. And Mr. Watson, you've really led us in a direction that I respect a great deal. We want to assure our parent community, in particular, that our schools are thinking about safety and security across the full dimension. So what can you tell me about a new role model, performance award system, or recognition system that we are rolling out this year?
WATSON:Yes, sir. I'm extremely proud about this. You as the superintendent of the school district, and I get the opportunity to meet monthly. And during our conversations, we started talking about how can we elevate our schools to the next level. And you first wrote this subject by talking about was there a way that we could create an award process for our schools to show that dedicated hard work and commitment to school safety and security, and we landed on through our conversations and then taking this to our ESCAC group again, that's made up of our community members and school staff and students and other district staff members. And we landed on this initiative called the five Star Safe Schools Award, and created some criteria through input through the ESCAC and and then through other district leaders to talk about what are the foundations of school safety and security and what are some of the must haves. And we won't waver on the commitment to those standards in order to become considered a five star safety and award. And I don't want to get into all of them, because I believe some things should be kept under the radar. But I will say that completing all the emergency drills that are prescribed for a school year extremely important for any safe schools mission site audits that should take place, and make sure that certain things and criteria are in place. So we're extremely excited about those five star safe schools and award. And in the last couple of weeks since, our administrative teams have returned back to their school campuses, have had the opportunity to have some conversation with some of them. And I think they're energized and committed to wanting to receive this five star safety award. And so they've been asking more questions about it. Just this morning, I had a charter school leader reach out to me and say, hey, how can we get in on on this? And so I think you're going to see great things in the motivation to take our school safety and security mission to the next level.
HILTS:I love that that is a great that is a great kind of ending commitment that I want our parents to hear. But as we close up Dave, Travis and Dave, I just want to ask each of you if if every parent in particular parents that are listening to this podcast, remember just one thing after this conversation, what would you want it to be?
PRATT:We often say in our district chief that good is the enemy of great. We know we're good, we know we're very good, but we're not satisfied. We really want to be great. We want to learn from our community. We want you to hold us accountable. We're pursuing excellence every day. Some days we hit it. Some days we miss it. On those days we own it, we learn from it. And we're asking you to help us be better, help us be great.
WATSON:I would add that we we had a previous great leader in our school district who had a saying that said it's not an appropriate time to exchange business cards during a crisis. Yes. And I will take that to the level of exchanging business cards with our community needs to be done up front, and we need them to partner with us early and often when it comes to the safe and secure schools mission. And although unfortunate crises do occur and we have to react to them, and we are going to continue to react to them with sound protocols. But if instead of exchanging that business card or having that conversation in an ARR or a deep briefing with our community after the crisis, if we can start that conversation sooner by having them commit to being a part of the conversation early on and be a part of the escape that we talked about earlier, as well as other forums and opportunities to speak with district leaders, I think that would be extremely important for us to continue our relational capacity with our community moving forward.
CORMANEY:I believe we've got a really strong team right now, and everybody on our team recognizes that our students are our most valuable asset, and we want to get that point across that our our guards are prepared to put themselves in front of the students, in front of the staff, in front of the community, if they have to respond to an incident or a threat, and they're happily do it. And we're very proud of that.
HILTS:So I would some that up, you know, from from Dave Pratt. We've got this idea that we are pursuing excellence from Dave Watson, that we want to be proactive and get in front of the conversations and relationships. And if needed, we will we will keep our promise to keep our students and staff safe. And all of those are things that I've observed and appreciated. And so I want to thank you as the leadership team for our Safe Schools efforts in the district. Thank you for joining us on this episode. I would love for all of our listeners to remember that our strategy for Safe Schools includes valuing all of our people, our students, staff, guests, community members on our campus. But it's also how we sustain enduring trust so that our community and everyone in our community can trust the safety and the security of our schools, and you are a huge part of that. So thank you. Thank you to our audience for helping support that. D49, is committed to making our schools the safest, the secure that they can be so that we can get on with the mission of educating and launching successful students. So thank you for being part of that. We'll close up this episode for today and get out there and get after it.
CORMANEY: Thank you. WATSON:Thank you, sir. PRATTT: Thank you chief.
HILTS:Thank you for choosing 49 Voices a D49 podcast. Once again, I am Peter Hilts and we'll be back soon with our next episode.
NANCARROW:Thank you for listening to the 49 Voices podcast. Find all of our episodes anywhere you find your podcasts, and on our website at D49.org. We are always looking for topics to bring to you, our listeners. If you have an idea. Drop us a line anytime at info@d49.org. We'll be back soon with our next episode. And always remember, district 49 is the best choice to learn, work, and lead. We are the home of more than 30 distinct campuses, where we launch every student to success and safe and welcoming learning environments wherever you want to go. D49 is a great place to start.