SHARING

IDEAS & 

RESOURCES

to Keep Our Nation’s

Schools Safe!

VOLUME III

INTRODUCTION

From the blue-jacketed volunteers helping to de-escalate tension in Pennsylvania to the teens taking a stand against bullying 

in Tennessee – and throughout the rest of the United States – 

schools, law enforcement agencies and communities continue 

to come together to create innovative and groundbreaking 

solutions to the persistent problems of violence, bullying, 

security breaches, gang tensions and social media abuse. 

The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) and the National Law 

Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center (NLECTC) 

System bring you more of these solutions in this third volume 

of Sharing Ideas and Resources to Keep Our Nation’s Schools 

Safe. We want you to know about the people who are searching 

for, and finding, positive ways to address these problems. We want to tell you 

about the technologies and strategies that are working across the country, and 

we want to hear from you about what’s going on in your area. In addition to the 

success stories that fill the two previous volumes in this series, we continually 

post new ones on SchoolSafetyInfo.org, the NLECTC website dedicated to 

school safety news, information and technology. In addition to downloadable 

files of Volumes I and II, our site includes links to a wide range of resources at 

the federal, state and association levels, and access to school safety-related 

publications and videos from NIJ and the NLECTC System. 

In this third volume, beside the stories mentioned above that open and close 

the volume, you will read about school safety-related programs from national 

agencies such as the National White Collar Crime Center, the National Crime 

Prevention Council and the National Center for Campus Public Safety; efforts 

at the state level from Illinois, Alabama and Michigan; and community efforts 

ranging from smartphone apps to cops in the classroom, from gunshot detection systems to job-specific school safety training. 

While we neither finance nor endorse specific products, we introduce you to 

people who have successfully used new tools to address growing problems. 

And, we encourage you to investigate and decide what is right for you and 

what has a place in your school setting. 

INTRODUCTION • i
First responders, school staff, students, parents and community leaders continue 

to work cooperatively to combat the myriad safety issues that affect our 

nation’s schools and provide safe and healthy environments in which to 

learn. As your schools and your communities work together with local 

public safety professionals to do the same, we hope that you will 

continue to use NIJ, NLECTC and SchoolSafetyInfo.org as resources. 

Sincerely,

Lance Miller 

Director, National Law Enforcement and 

 Corrections Technology Center 

lmiller@justnet.org

ii • SHARING IDEAS & RESOURCES TO KEEP OUR NATION’S SCHOOLS SAFE! VOLUME 3
CONTENTS

Erie’s Blue Coats Promote Community Connections, 

Help Reduce Violence..........................................................................................iv

Volunteers Watch Lansing Streets to Promote Safety ......................................... 4

STARS Addresses the Concerns of Today ............................................................ 6

Illinois School Takes Team Approach to School Safety ...................................... 10

Alabama Schools Leave Digital Footprint.......................................................... 14

Michigan Students Learn It’s “OK2SAY”............................................................ 18

Illinois Schools Share iPad App, Information ..................................................... 22

New National Center for Campus Public Safety 

Sets Immediate and Long-Term Goals............................................................... 24

NW3C Helps SROs Find a Place in “Communities” .......................................... 28

McGruff Turns to Technology............................................................................. 32

Cooperation Is the Key in School Safety Planning............................................. 34

Promoting Parental Involvement to Reduce Risky Behaviors ............................ 38

Safety Savvy Provides the Answers to Your Questions ...................................... 42

App Uses “Peer Power” to Help Stop Cyberbullying........................................ 46

Panic Button App Allows Silent Communication............................................... 50

Best Practice Solution Closes School Safety Gaps ............................................ 54

Gunshot Detection System Provides Early Warning .......................................... 58

Roanoke City Uses Social Media to Build Trust ................................................. 62

Online Program Brings Cost-Effective, 

Job-Specific Training to Florida Schools ............................................................ 66

Video Encourages Viewers to Plan for Survival.................................................. 70

Knoxville “Takes a Stand” Against Bullying ....................................................... 74

School Safety Tracker Offers “Four in One” Value ............................................ 78

CONTENTS • iii
CHAPTER 1

ERIE’S BLUE COATS PROMOTE 

COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS, 

HELP REDUCE VIOLENCE

By Becky Lewis

March 2015

In colonial America, knowing that the Red Coats would 

show up pretty much guaranteed that a fight would 

take place.

Some 240 or so years later, knowing that the Blue 

Coats will show up at a school in Erie, Pa., ensures the 

opposite.

A volunteer organization started 10 years ago by Daryl Craig, a former gang 

member in Buffalo, N.Y. , and now-Erie County Councilman Andre Horton, the 

Non-Violence Initiative members (now known as the Blue Coats) turn up outside 

iv • SHARING IDEAS & RESOURCES TO KEEP OUR NATION’S SCHOOLS SAFE! VOLUME 3
CH. 1: ERIE’S BLUE COATS PROMOTE COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS, HELP REDUCE VIOLENCE • 1

city schools around the time of the morning bell, during lunch hour, in school 

hallways, during dismissal, at sporting events and at other activities open to the 

public. Taking a mentoring approach to stopping conflicts before they start, the 

Blue Coats’ 20 to 30 volunteers use their training and sense of compassion to 

foster a connection between administrators, students and the community. Since 

the Blue Coats began their outreach efforts in 2005, violence around the nine 

school buildings where they maintain a presence has sharply declined, including 

a 57.9 percent drop in incidents at East High School and a 65.9 percent decline 

at Strong Vincent High School. These positive results led to Erie’s Public Schools 

recent receipt of a $300,000 grant from the Erie Community Foundation, which 

will ensure that the school district can continue its commitment to fund the Blue 

Coats to remain on the streets, in the hallways and in the stands.

Craig, better known as “Brother D,” 

started a grassroots campaign to visit 

streets known for gang activity and 

spread a message of non-violence as his 

way of paying back to the community, 

first in Buffalo, then in Erie following a 

job transfer. Several other volunteers 

had joined this proactive communitybased effort before a murder in the 

general area and a non-fatal shooting 

during an East High basketball game 

brought their efforts to the attention 

of Erie Public Schools administrators in 

January 2009.

“We never had a shooting incident in a 

school before, but during a basketball 

game, there was a shooting in the stands. A young lady was hit and there was a 

lot of panic, but fortunately everybody ended up okay,” says Superintendent Jay 

Badams. “I remember the next day standing shoulder to shoulder with Brother 

D, greeting kids and working to bring calm. It was quite an introduction.”

Following that introduction, Erie’s Public Schools and the Non-Violence Initiative 

began formalizing the partnership that has grown to include a strong rapport 

with the Erie School District Police under Chief Timothy Vona, and led to the 

significant reduction in violence. 

“I saw firsthand the need and that it could work. We devised a schedule and 

picked out some locations that needed extra help and extra attention. We gathered our troops and trained them on the responsibilities and commitment they 

should have to the community, and we went out with the hope we could make 

a difference. There were a lot of fights in that first couple of months, but now 

we’re happy to say that most times, in our presence, there may be one fight a 

year on school grounds,” Craig says.

“When he says fight, we’re talking big events. There are a couple of main actors 

leading the fighting, but there are also ancillary groups, spectators egging kids 

on...it can take over the entire front yard of a high school and there are always 

threats that there could be a knife or a gun,” says Badams. “Whenever there’s 

a flashpoint incident, there are always people who want to have a vigil and 
march, but when it comes to putting in time day to day, they don’t want to be 

involved.”

Craig describes the situation early on as pandemonium, but says that through 

persistence and collaboration, violence has steadily declined: “Erie’s Public 

Schools administrators admitted they needed help in certain areas from a 

community perspective and they were willing to learn cultural things they might 

not have otherwise known. I think overall, our schools have been allowed to be 

viewed as separate from the community, but that’s untrue. They are staffed by 

community members and are part of the community. It’s all about getting the 

community to invest in the schools and it’s working.”

“Today, the Blue Coats serve as respected and recognizable members of both 

our schools and neighborhoods. The Blue Coats are uniquely positioned because they are deeply familiar with the families, friends, churches and community 

centers that are at the heart of many of our students’ lives and, in this unique 

role, they are able to build trust with students and families and encourage them 

to transfer that trust and respect to their school community,’ Badams says. 

The Blue Coats help Erie schools in four primary areas: They support non-violent 

and conflict resolution strategies among students and staff, build and strengthen 

relationships between students and staff, provide training to educators on 

cultural competencies and serve as familiar, positive adult role models for 

inner-city youth in order to reinforce positive behavior.

2 • SHARING IDEAS & RESOURCES TO KEEP OUR NATION’S SCHOOLS SAFE! VOLUME 3
CH. 1: ERIE’S BLUE COATS PROMOTE COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS, HELP REDUCE VIOLENCE • 3

Although Badams cautions that the school district takes great care to make it 

clear that the Blue Coats are not affiliated with law enforcement, Chief Vona 

makes it equally clear that his 14-member department values the relationship 

with the volunteer organization.

“We have great rapport with the Blue Coats. If there’s an incident after school 

hours, Brother D gets on the phone right away to let us know there could spillover the next school day and we may need to be proactive, whether it’s through 

mediating or by having additional manpower at that location. We have each 

other on speed dial,” Vona says. “The members are very respected in the community. They can de-escalate incidents by working with families and alleviating 

issues from moving into the schools.” 

Vona especially values the Blue Coats’ efforts to get a feel for what is going on 

at sporting events – some of which are played outside his jurisdiction at local 

universities – and says that with their help, he’s noticed a definite reduction in serious incidents since he became chief in 2007: “We’re stopping incidents before 

they happen. They’re basically another set of eyes and ears that the community 

and the school district has out there to help.”

More than just that desire to help is required of volunteers who want to become 

Blue Coats. Curtis Jones, another leader in the Non-Violence Initiative, explains 

that in addition to requiring that volunteers have at least a high school diploma 

and pass a stringent vetting process, they also must complete school district 

classes and workshops required for third-party organizations, as well as NonViolence Initiative-specific trainings based on Martin Luther King’s six principles 

of non-violence and training on interacting with multiple generations. Students 

who volunteer to be Junior Blue Coats, receiving extra mentoring and working 

with the adults to build community from within, also must meet strict qualifications related to grades, attendance and behavior.

“Our training is rooted in the 1950s and 1960s, but has evolved for the 21st century and continues to grow and evolve based on the needs of schools. Because 

our organization is growing, it can adapt to changing needs,” Jones says. 

Without completing all of the required training, volunteers can’t receive the ID 

badge and clearance that identify them as a formal agent of the school district 

who will enforce its policies and procedures. And they also need the training 

to receive the jacket that gave the organization its name, which Craig explains: 

“When we started at Wayne Elementary School, we ordered jackets that 

matched the colors of the signs we had been taking out on the street, blue coats 

with white lettering that said Non-Violence Initiative on the back. During the 

holidays, we got handmade cards from the kids thanking us, addressed to 

‘Dear Mr. Blue Coat.’ That was our first indication this was going to work.”

For more information on Erie Public Schools and its partnership with the Blue 

Coats Initiative, contact Matthew Cummings, director of communications, at 

mcummings@eriesd.org or Chief Timothy Vona at tvona@eriesd.org.
CHAPTER 2

VOLUNTEERS WATCH LANSING 

STREETS TO PROMOTE SAFETY

By Becky Lewis

October 2014

The final bell still echoes in the hall when the first 

students spill out of the school, shouting, laughing 

and walking down the neighborhood streets. Some 

head home. Some head toward jobs. Others head 

toward trouble. 

With the eyes and the ears of Lansing School Watch 

volunteers on them, the ones that initially head toward 

trouble may seek a different destination.

Launched in June 2014 as a pilot project, Lansing 

School Watch expanded in late August 2014 to encompass the neighborhoods 

near the city’s three high schools (Lansing Eastern, Lansing Everett, J.W. Sexton) 

and plans call for expansion to the streets near the city’s middle schools in the 

near future and eventually, to elementary school neighborhoods. 

4 • SHARING IDEAS & RESOURCES TO KEEP OUR NATION’S SCHOOLS SAFE! VOLUME 3
CH. 2: VOLUNTEERS WATCH LANSING STREETS TO PROMOTE SAFETY • 5

Volunteers wearing easily identifiable hats and safety vests walk, bike or cruise 

the streets near the schools for an hour before and an hour after classes, serving 

as non-confrontational eyes and ears for the local police and as a visible presence to remind students that responsible, committed adults are watching out 

for them. Volunteers are encouraged to engage in positive contacts with the 

students and residents of the surrounding neighborhoods. 

“This not only makes sure that the students have a safe environment, it’s also an 

opportunity for neighbors and citizens to get involved. It also provides extra protection for them. Sometimes kids would meet up not far from the school and get 

into a fight, or a loud boisterous wave of kids walking through a neighborhood 

would cause disruption. Sometimes they would bully other students, or take 

over a street and not let them walk through,” says Lansing Police Chief Mike 

Yankowski. “While it was still in the planning stages, we had five students injured 

in a shooting incident about a block and a half from one of our high schools. It 

was an instance where students met up and started a fight, only this time gunfire 

erupted in the neighborhood. That really resonated that this was the right thing 

to do.”

The costs involved in launching the program were minimal: vests, hats, car rental 

and decals, cell phones, promotional brochures. Yankowski explains that rented 

cars are available for volunteers’ use, particularly in inclement weather, but they 

are encouraged to walk or bike in nicer weather to be a more visible presence. 

In all, startup costs came to approximately $25,000, with Sparrow Health System, 

a local community hospital, donating $10,000. Lansing School District and the 

city of Lansing also partnered in the police department efforts, which included 

training for the volunteers and assemblies in the high schools to introduce the 

program. 

“We’re pitching this to the community as a civic duty, and we tried to educate 

the students about being good and respectful neighbors,” he says. “We also 

went out to the local community college and universities and encouraged them 

to take it on as a project, and we have a number of volunteers who are students. 

Most of the rest are adults over the age of 50, many of them retired.”

“The safety of our students, not only while in school, but on their way to and 

from school, is a top priority for the city of Lansing. The primary mission of this 

initiative is to provide an additional layer of security empowering not only the 

neighborhoods that the students travel through, but also empowering the students themselves,” says Yankowski. “The volunteers have enjoyed what they’re 

doing to this point, and we haven’t had any issues where they’ve had to step in. 

They’re a visible presence in the neighborhood, and the kids feel somebody is 

out there looking out for them.”

Learn more about the program by visiting https://www.lansingmi.gov/media/

view/School_Watch_Fly/7117, or contact Chief Yankowski at (517) 483-4800, 

michael.yankowski@lansingmi.gov
CHAPTER 3

STARS ADDRESSES THE 

CONCERNS OF TODAY

By Becky Lewis

March 2015

For millennia, there have been stars in the sky.

For more than a hundred years, there have been stars 

in Hollywood.

And for several months, there have been “STARS” in 

Sudbury, Mass.

The result of a partnership between the Sudbury Police 

Department and Sudbury Public Schools, Students 

Thinking and Acting Responsibly in Sudbury (STARS) teaches fifth-graders to 

tackle decision making and addresses issues such as cyberbullying, digital safety, 

6 • SHARING IDEAS & RESOURCES TO KEEP OUR NATION’S SCHOOLS SAFE! VOLUME 3
CH. 3: STARS ADDRESSES THE CONCERNS OF TODAY • 7

navigating the Web and using smart phones. School Resource Officer Alan 

Hutchinson and Wellness Curriculum Specialist Elizabeth Gams worked together 

to create the details of the STARS curriculum, which replaces the DARE program 

in the fifth-grade learning plan.

Sudbury Chief Scott Nix says 

he made helping the community’s youth a personal priority 

when he became chief of the 

28-officer force in 2013, and 

when the department’s longtime DARE officer retired at the 

end of the 2013-2014 school 

year, it seemed like a good 

opportunity to transition “to a 

program that is more indicative 

of the concerns of today.”

“STARS encompasses the 

aspects of positive decisionmaking contained within the 

DARE curriculum while adding, enhancing and updating the lessons for today’s 

issues. The department and the school worked together to create an up-to-date 

curriculum tailored to our community’s needs,” Nix says. “At the same time, 

we had an opportunity to assign a school resource officer to circulate among 

the four elementary schools and the middle school for the first time, further 

strengthening a positive relationship between the schools and our department.” 

Hutchinson, better known to the students as “Officer Al,” started his duties in 

the schools in September 2014, and began assisting with teaching the STARS 

curriculum in January 2015. 

“The partnership between the police department and the schools is an extremely important reflection of what we value. We have enhanced safety as a whole 

in the broadest of terms,” says Sudbury Superintendent Dr. Anne Wilson of the 

program, which wrapped up its first session in March. 

“I had a general vision of where we wanted to go, but I didn’t want to adversely 

impact the ever-increasing mandates on our teachers. There is a lot of curriculum 

that can be more powerful when taught by police officers,” Nix says.

In contrast to DARE, STARS focuses more on cybersafety, including smartphone 

use, sexting and the dangers that can be encountered on the Internet. The program also uses real-life examples for emphasis. 

“There is so much more now that students have to deal with compared to when 

DARE was conceived. STARS adds more about media messages and advertising, 

especially social media. It includes more up-to-date refusal skills and information on bullying prevention,” says Wilson. “While DARE had self-advocacy and 

did some good instruction around drugs and alcohol and smoking, there’s just 

more now that we need to be explicit about, not only messages in the media 

but things that students communicate to each other. We also wanted to create a 

connection that follows the students through their school years.”
That’s exactly the kind of ongoing connection that Hutchinson is working to 

build by coming to games, attending concerts and in general circulating around 

the school buildings during class time.

“He’s connected to each staff member and to each school. He’s really become 

part of each of our school communities and he has been able to forge relationships so that students realize they have another adult they can go to and they 

see the broader community supports them,” Wilson says. “It was the absolute 

right thing to do and we’re thrilled to have him.”

And Nix also has received nothing but positive feedback about the program 

from the community of 18,000 residents: “The feedback has been tremendous. 

I live in the community, and when I met with the PTO last week, everything I 

heard was positive. If we can use the STARS class to develop positive relationships that reinforce sound decision-making, that will be incredible.”

For more information on STARS, contact Chief Scott Nix at (978) 443-1042, email 

NixS@sudbury.ma.us. or Dr. Anne Wilson at (978) 639-3211, email anne_wilson@

sudbury.k12.ma.us

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CH. 3: STARS ADDRESSES THE CONCERNS OF TODAY • 9
CHAPTER 4

ILLINOIS SCHOOL TAKES 

TEAM APPROACH TO 

SCHOOL SAFETY

By Becky Lewis

January 2015

Again. She reads through the essay a second time, 

growing more uneasy with the re-reading. For the third 

time this marking period, the same themes show in the 

same student’s work, themes of despair and anger. 

Should she approach him herself? No, better bring 

it to the attention of the Learning Support Team. 

Counselors, social workers, the school’s resource 

officer...they can focus a variety of skills on helping the 

student come to terms with his problems and get back 

him back to enjoying his final year of high school. 

10 • SHARING IDEAS & RESOURCES TO KEEP OUR NATION’S SCHOOLS SAFE! VOLUME 3
CH. 4: ILLINOIS SCHOOL TAKES TEAM APPROACH TO SCHOOL SAFETY • 11

According to the Libertyville High School website, the school’s three Learning 

Support Teams (LSTs) support the academic, social-emotional and physical 

well-being of students. Instead of a more traditional approach where a single 

dean carries the responsibility for all students, the Illinois high school divides its 

2,000 students among three LSTs. Each team includes two counselors who deal 

with academic planning and scheduling, a social worker who becomes involved 

with individual students as needed and a team leader. The SRO, the school 

nurse and the student assistance program (SAP) coordinator, who deals with substance abuse and code of conduct issues, all attend every scheduled meeting of 

all three teams and also help with interventions as needed. 

“School safety breaks down 

into two elements. One is 

the physical brick-and-mortar 

things we do, but the more 

important element consists of 

developing social-emotional 

and interpersonal relationships. 

The LST approach helps us get 

information about students 

and determine whether this 

is someone we need to have 

on our radar. Has he isolated 

himself? Is she being bullied? Is 

he exhibiting violent characteristics and making threats?” says 

Det. Bob Uliks of the Libertyville 

Police Department, who is the 

Libertyville High SRO.

Each team has a scheduled weekly meeting, but additionally meets on an 

as-needed basis to address specific concerns: “A teacher might identify something she found in a student’s paper that is alarming enough to bring to a team’s 

attention. At that point, we sit down and decide how to move forward. Obviously most students are well intentioned and take advantage of their educational 

experience. However, there also students who are not able to thrive for various 

reasons. These are the students we would like to have on our radar to address 

what they are lacking. At that point we would look at what the team has done 

before and whether it is working.” 

Uliks says the LST may decide to interview the student and assign counseling or 

social work assistance, or it may determine that a law enforcement response is 

needed, perhaps because of disturbing social media posts.

“One example that comes to mind is a picture that a student had posted of 

himself with a gun and comments about how he was feeling that day. We took a 

copy of the photo and went to his house and spoke to his parents. We established he had no access to a weapon and there was no clear and present danger. 

It turned out he had taken the orange tab off an airsoft gun, but even I honestly 

thought it was a real gun,” Uliks says. “Once we addressed that aspect, we 
12 • SHARING IDEAS & RESOURCES TO KEEP OUR NATION’S SCHOOLS SAFE! VOLUME 3
rolled it back to the LST and assigned the student to do a decision-making class 

with the social worker, learning about actions and consequences. That’s an example where everyone became involved, and the team approach really worked.”

Uliks says the LST concept predates his 11 years at the school, but he has seen 

the extent of SRO involvement in the process continue to increase over time. Prior to implementing the LSTs, Libertyville, which is a northern suburb of Chicago, 

used the more traditional single dean approach. Switching to LSTs allowed the 

team members to really get to know and understand the students in their group.

“The LST concept helps the student from a more holistic standpoint. Thinking 

back to when I was in school, if you got in trouble, you went in and received your 

punishment. This approach addresses the behavior. Is it something more than 

just being a normal teenager? Is there something going on at home? Is there a 

substance abuse issue? A learning issue?” Uliks says. “It ties school behaviors to 

what is going on in the community and at home, and we can usually figure out 

why the kid is not succeeding. It just comes full circle to address everything and 

determine what the student might need to get back on track.”

For more information on Libertyville’s LST approach and how it relates to school 

safety, contact Det. Bob Uliks at (847) 327-7011 or email robert.uliks@d128.org. 

CH. 4: ILLINOIS SCHOOL TAKES TEAM APPROACH TO SCHOOL SAFETY • 13
CHAPTER 5

ALABAMA SCHOOLS LEAVE 

DIGITAL FOOTPRINT 

By Becky Lewis

October 2014

When was that fire extinguisher serviced? Virtual 

Alabama School Safety System (VAS3) knows.

Where’s the gas shutoff valve for this floor? VAS3 

knows.

What evacuation route do students use in the event 

of natural disaster? VAS3 knows.

There’s very little that VAS3 doesn’t know about the 

facilities and the school safety plans of Alabama’s 

1,536 individual schools. 

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CH. 5: ALABAMA SCHOOLS LEAVE DIGITAL FOOTPRINT • 15

Using back-end GIS technology with a front-end Google Maps interface, VAS3 

provides a “digital footprint” of every physical detail of a school, including 

detailed information, photographs, first responder information and real-time 

camera feeds, all of which can be updated and shared in real-time.

“Rather than a tragedy like 

Sandy Hook or Columbine, this 

effort simply started with a grant 

from the U.S. Department of 

Homeland Security to map one 

school in each district across the 

state as a model,” says Phillip 

Henderson, director of the 

Alabama GIS Program Office 

and the state’s Geographic 

Information Officer. “Alabama 

is the first state in the nation to 

have an established tool (VAS3) 

that allows the appropriate 

personnel to view school safety 

plans and floor plans in a digital 

format online. As we put it together, we learned how to make 

it simple and how to make it easy to use. The State Department of Education 

saw its value, and from the grant effort came an initiative to take all of the paper 

school safety plans gathering dust in filing cabinets and digitize them. It next 

became a tool that could be used by first responders and government entities 

for planning — and if an event happens.”

The Alabama Department of Homeland Security provided the initial funding 

for the statewide project and ongoing funding now comes from the Alabama 

Law Enforcement Agency. According to Sarah Jones, Virtual Alabama Program 

Manager, VAS3 includes information on 51 items of interest within a school, and 

more layers continue to be added as schools request them. For example, the 

state mandate to map K-12 public schools does not require a photo of every 

room, but school administrators have come to realize they can use such photos 

as inventories. As far as the mapping requirement goes, schools can enter all 

of their own information at no cost, or at a very minimal cost a Virtual Alabama 

team will come to the school for several days to do a thorough mapping and 

hold a meeting with school administrators and local first responders.

“Sometimes it’s the first time public safety and the school administration have 

met,” says Henderson. “At one school, the headmaster said their plan was for 

all students to evacuate to the flagpole in front of the school, because it’s a 

landmark that everyone knows, and the fire chief pointed out that the only fire 

hydrant is next to the flagpole. Getting people to the table together helps them 

make good decisions. The administrators know their children and are concerned 

about safety, but they’re not trained as first responders. When you put them 

together, it benefits everyone.”
Corporal Pamela Revels, supervising school resource officer for the Lee County 

Sheriff’s Office, agrees about all of those benefits, saying that VAS3 has made 

school safety plans much more comprehensive. 

“It’s outside the box, it’s current and it’s relevant. VAS3 has replaced the six-inch 

binder paper copy safety plan that just sits on a shelf with a fluid, living accessible plan that can provide first responders with the information needed to give 

the best possible help in the shortest amount of time,” Revels says. “Visuals 

make the whole plan come alive. Before, the paper plan might have said ‘evacuate to the front of the building,’ and now you can attach a picture of the exact 

spot. It helps all of us be on the same page.”

Revels has a “home base” in a K-12 school with 300 students, but she also 

moves around the county in her role as SRO supervisor: “I know all of my 

schools very very well, but how well do people who are not there on a regular 

basis know them? With VAS3, there’s a color code and numbering system that 

aids in a more concise response and includes mutual aid agencies.” 

Lee County has 14 schools with more than 10,000 total students. Schools range 

in size up to the 2,000-student high school in Smith Station that is among the 

largest in the state.

16 • SHARING IDEAS & RESOURCES TO KEEP OUR NATION’S SCHOOLS SAFE! VOLUME 3
CH. 5: ALABAMA SCHOOLS LEAVE DIGITAL FOOTPRINT • 17

“When it comes to developing plans for your school, size really makes a difference. Having a program that can aid you with this is tremendous. Also, most 

people are visual learners, and this makes it easier for them to understand,” 

Revels says.

“I think the fact that it is so user friendly is the biggest thing. You don’t have 

to understand everything about a computer. When I say to people ‘It uses that 

Google thing,’ they relax,” Henderson says. And Revels notes its versatility, 

pointing that whether it’s a barricade situation (criminal), a gas leak (accident) 

or damage from a tornado (natural disaster), knowing the location of the gas 

shutoff valve could prove invaluable.

“I’ve been an SRO for 10 years and I’ve loved every minute of it,” Revels says. 

“Critical incident planning has always been at the forefront, and I feel we’ve 

done a good job, but it’s never good to be satisfied. We want to keep improving 

our practices, and this is one of the best tools out there to help us do that.”

“We’re working with counties and other state agencies to get better data all 

the time. It’s not like we did it, we’re done, next project. It’s an ongoing effort. 

We’re housed by ALEA and they’re always suggesting things to add, and we’re 

committed to keeping the improvements coming,” Henderson says. 

Jones says that one of those law enforcement-requested improvements is the 

addition of sex offender data on individuals living near schools and along bus 

routes, specifically near bus stops: “Schools can make bus drivers aware, and in 

some jurisdictions they even patrol those areas while the buses are running.”

“This system just helps keep our kids safer. It’s all about having pertinent conversations, information sharing and communication,” Revels adds.

You can watch an overview of Virtual Alabama at http://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=WCpfOuP4AUU and you can visit the website at www.virtualalabama.

gov. For more information, contact Pamela Revels (334 -319-4173 or email 

prevels@leecountysheriff.org; Phillip Henderson at (334) 517-2561, email Phillip.

henderson@alea.gov; or Sarah Jones at (334) 517-2539, email sarah.jones@

alea.gov. 
CHAPTER 6

MICHIGAN STUDENTS 

LEARN IT’S “OK2SAY”

By Becky Lewis

January 2015

Teens send dozens, hundreds, thousands of texts every 

month. 

Since September 2014, many of the ones sent in 

Michigan have gone to the OK2SAY tipline.

Launched at the start of the 2014-2015 academic year, 

OK2SAY accepts tips via phone call, website, email, 

text messaging and smartphone app. By the end of the 

first semester, more than 400 tips had come in through 

those various routes, and an additional 191 came in during January. 

Matt Bolger, assistant division commander for the Special Operations Division 

of the Michigan State Police, says the number of tips has far exceeded his 

18 • SHARING IDEAS & RESOURCES TO KEEP OUR NATION’S SCHOOLS SAFE! VOLUME 3
agency’s expectations. Implemented in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook tragedy 

at the suggestion of Cadillac School District Superintendent and former Colorado school administrator Joann Spry, OK2SAY is based on Colorado’s Safe2Tell 

tipline. Colorado started Safe2Tell after the 1999 Columbine shooting, and 

student use increased gradually over time; however, OK2SAY jumped out to a 

much faster start, possibly due to the many means of access offered in today’s 

digital world.

“The majority of the tips relate 

to bullying or suicide. We refer 

those to the schools and to 

mental health personnel, rather 

than local law enforcement,” 

Bolger says. “The kids have adopted this program as their 411 

for anything dealing with their 

safety, which I think is great. We 

get reports on drug dealing, on 

gang activity, on cyberbullying.”

And those tips have led to a 

number of success stories: “We 

had a tip about one student 

who planned to stab his brother, 

and tips on a number of possible suicides. One that comes to 

mind is a student who sent in a text and said he needed someone to talk to. Our 

staff member started a text conversation and found out the student had planned 

how he would kill himself and had even written a note. The tech reached to his 

school’s SRO, who reached his parents and they got him help,” Bolger says. “All 

in all, the students are embracing it and I can say with confidence that we’ve 

saved lives through suicide prevention.” 

OK2SAY received a total of 54 tips related to threats of suicide in the first semester, along with 163 tips on bullying and cyberbullying, and 13 on child abuse. 

Tips also addressed assaults, sexual misconduct, sexting, fighting, domestic 

violence, dating violence, employee misconduct and theft.

“The 410 tips we received in the first semester did exceed our expectations,” 

says Sydney Allen, spokesperson for Attorney General Bill Schuette. The Attorney General’s office launched OK2SAY with a rollout campaign that included 

personal visits by Schuette to eight schools, and “we believe that the Attorney 

General speaking directly to students was a very effective way to get the word 

out. Although the initial rollout has ended, schools may still request a trained 

presenter to teach students and parents what the program is all about.”

OK2SAY operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, supported by staff in the 

State Police Fusion Center. Michigan used an existing school violence hotline 

as the basis for OK2SAY, but added an enhanced telephone system, computer 

software and staff to support the new service, which is open and accessible to 

everyone in the state with no enrollment or registration required. In addition 

to all of its various avenues for submitting a tip, OK2SAY includes an extensive 

CH. 6: MICHIGAN STUDENTS LEARN IT’S “OK2SAY” • 19
website with links to resources for students and parents on alcohol, anger, bullying, cutting, cybersafety, drugs, eating disorders and suicide, and access to an 

interactive map that will lead users to mental health resources in their communities. In addition, Tom Izzo, men’s basketball coach at Michigan State University, 

has contributed his time for a promotional video. 

“Bullying isn’t limited to schools that have chosen to enroll in a program, and 

it doesn’t discriminate between charter schools, public schools and private 

schools. Every student across the state should have access to confidentially 

report a tip about something that threatens their safety or the safety of others. 

That’s why it’s important to get the word out about OK2SAY to students, parents, 

teachers and administrators,” Allen says. “The goal is to change the culture of 

silence that is often found in schools. It’s really to give students the confidence 

and the freedom to know that it is ‘okay to say’ something to a trusted adult if 

something doesn’t feel quite right. As the Attorney General says, ‘if even one 

child’s life is saved by OK2SAY, then it’s been a success.’”

You can learn more about OK2SAY at http://www.michigan.gov/ok2say

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CH. 6: MICHIGAN STUDENTS LEARN IT’S “OK2SAY” • 21
CHAPTER 7

ILLINOIS SCHOOLS SHARE

IPAD APP, INFORMATION

By Becky Lewis

August 2014

With the launch of a shared iPad app in summer 2014, 

all Illinois schools can be on the same “page” when 

it comes to their safety inspections...a page that no 

longer exists on printed paper.

The app originated with Director of Technology Phil 

Morris and Health & Life Safety Inspector Mark Bozik 

from the Kane County Regional Office of Education, 

where the tool has been in use since 2011. Kane County Regional Superintendent and President of the Illinois Association of Regional 

Superintendents of Schools, Pat Dal Santo, offered the app to IARSS as a shared 

resource earlier in 2014. After a pilot phase, Morris conducted several statewide 

trainings in preparation for Illinois’ launch coinciding with the start of the 2014-

2015 school year.

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CH. 7: ILLINOIS SCHOOLS SHARE IPAD APP, INFORMATION • 23

Inspectors can enter data as they conduct their inspections, rather than writing 

down information on forms attached to a clipboard, then later inputting data 

into several different systems. Because the app includes all required state forms, 

using it will allow schools across the state to pool their data, analyze it for trends 

and come up with shared solutions to common problems. Inspectors input the 

data directly via a web interface, and the iPad app populates data at the county 

and state levels as well as for individual schools. 

Morris says that is a huge plus in dealing 

with a 200-plus point checklist developed 

with input from the public safety community. 

“It covers everything from extension cords to 

perimeter security. It’s an interesting balance 

that makes sure the buildings are safe for 

students to be in every day.”

“My personal belief about technology is 

that too often, we just substitute keying 

data into a computer for writing the same 

information down on a piece of paper,” he 

adds. “This does more than just substitute 

a keyboard for a piece of paper. It enhances 

the data and provides us with history, so we 

can actually transform the information into 

something useful. Technology should help us 

become more efficient. Simple substitution does not do that.”

Morris started Kane County on the path to greater efficiency in the early 2000s, 

developing a program that used Palm Pilots to record data from the annual 

safety inspections. As years went by, he explains that Palm Pilots became harder 

to find as technology advanced: “I was getting tired of trying to buy Palm Pilots 

on E-bay, and the regional superintendent asked whether the program could be 

adapted to an iPad.” 

Using FileMaker Pro to program the software, Morris also interviewed inspectors to gain complete understanding of their processes and worked to ensure 

compatibility with the remainder of Kane County’s systems. With the launch of 

Version 1.0 in 2011, inspectors in Kane County could perform an inspection 

complete with photos, then plug the iPad in to download the report at their 

offices. Use of this initial online version enabled them to use email to contact 

school administrators in any of Kane County’s more than 200 buildings about 

violations that needed to be corrected. With the statewide launch of Version 2.0, 

the process takes another step forward with implementation of the web-based 

interface.

“It’s a tool that could easily be replicated and adapted to meet the needs of 

schools in other states,” says Morris. Kane County used grant money to fund initial development, and the state’s remaining 45 regional offices contributed small 

amounts of money toward developing Version 2.0. “Everybody is really happy 

with how well the app works and how easy it is to use.”

For more information on the project, contact Phil Morris via email at pmorris@

kaneroe.org.
CHAPTER 8

NEW NATIONAL CENTER

FOR CAMPUS PUBLIC SAFETY 

SETS IMMEDIATE AND 

LONG-TERM GOALS

By Becky Lewis

August 2014

Campus police chiefs and other public safety 

administrators working toward keeping the nation’s 

colleges and universities safe have a new resource for 

technical assistance, training, research, networking...

and many other potentially useful resources.

Funded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), a 

component of the U.S. Department of Justice, the 

National Center for Campus Public Safety opened in 

May 2014 with immediate goals of identifying and prioritizing needs, helping 

constituents connect with existing federal and non-federal resources, promoting 

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CH. 8: NEW NATIONAL CENTER FOR CAMPUS PUBLIC SAFETY SETS IMMEDIATE AND LONG-TERM GOALS • 25

best practices, and delivering training and technical assistance. That technical 

assistance is already under way, as Director Kim Vansell reports that specific inquiries have already begun coming in via the Center’s toll-free number (866-817-

5817) and email box (info@nccpsafety.org), and training is under development 

and coming soon.

“The first thing our training and 

technical assistance coordinator is 

working on is developing a TraumaInformed Sexual Assault Investigation 

and Adjudication training curriculum 

for campus officials involved in the investigation and adjudication process,” 

Vansell says. “Our plan is to start with 

pilot training sessions and then expand with train-the-trainer sessions in 

each of the six International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators [IACLEA] regions. This will 

enable campuses all over the country 

to reach out to a nearby resource to 

obtain the training.”

Vansell says that at least a portion of that training should eventually be available 

online at no cost, and the in-person version will be either no-cost or low-cost. 

Long-term training plans call for creation of a certificate in advanced educational 

studies in areas that include Title IX and the Clery Act, which may also involve 

both online and in-person components: “Many campus police chiefs come from 

municipal police departments and they may not have the background to help 

them with issues specific to campus policing. We want to help them understand 

what compliance looks like and how to implement it.” 

With trainings evolving and research into identified needs underway, the Center 

is preparing to launch a full version of its website, http://nccpsafety.org/, in 

late September. The expanded site will offer information on Center projects 

and training, a calendar of events and relevant news headlines. Vansell advises 

members of her target audience to check the site often for updates, and to sign 

up to receive email updates, including The Weekly Snapshot, a newsletter listing 

resources and new information.

“We’re working with our partners and our constituents to determine the key 

areas where we should focus. Sexual assault is of course a major area, and mental health and threat assessment should be a primary focus for everyone. And 

underage drinking, suicide and drug abuse have been key for some time, along 

with issues such as civil disobedience and special event security,” Vansell says. 

“We’re working to identify where we should put our resources and efforts first.”

One area already identified as a priority is the need for an online national 

directory of campus police chiefs and emergency managers, which would then 

facilitate networking and sharing of best practices and lessons learned. (This directory would be available only to vetted law enforcement officials). Other projects in the works include cooperating with the University of Vermont (both the 

university and the Center are located in Burlington) to expand, and eventually 
become the sole host of, the university’s legal issues conference. At present, the 

conference targets legal counsel and student affairs professionals; the expanded 

audience would include more campus safety professionals. 

Another partner, the VTV [Virginia Tech] Family Outreach Foundation, has been 

developing a multi-disciplinary, standards-based program to “improve campus 

safety and empower officials to make informed decisions, and to help campuses 

conduct self-assessments and learn about best practices, and we will support 

them in their work. We’ll also be working with various university faculty members 

and hiring research fellows.”

And to pave the way for the more formal, long-term projects, Vansell and her 

staff are fielding requests for resources and using them as an informal needs assessment: “You can Google a question and get 20,000 hits, and that just leaves 

you confused. Our goal is to bring together all those resources, weed through 

them and point folks to the right ones in a user-friendly way. We also want to 

help them work together to share their experiences so they’re not all out there 

alone.”

You can visit the National Center for Campus Public Safety website at http://

nccpsafety.org/site/contact.

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CH. 8: NEW NATIONAL CENTER FOR CAMPUS PUBLIC SAFETY SETS IMMEDIATE AND LONG-TERM GOALS • 27
CHAPTER 9

NW3C HELPS SROS FIND A 

PLACE IN “COMMUNITIES”

By Becky Lewis

There was a time when two preteen girls spending 

the evening together in a bedroom could fill a whole 

house with chatter and giggling. Nowadays, the clicks 

and beeps of smartphones make those evenings much 

quieter as texts and instant messages fly back and 

forth between the two girls sitting together in the same 

room and others not physically present. Others who 

may include their school resource officer. 

Mixed in with the messages to friends, the visiting girl 

reaches out to tell the SRO that when she passed the next-door bedroom, she 

saw her friend’s brother hastily shoving a gun under his bed. And ammunition. 

A lot of it. 

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CH. 9: NW3C HELPS SROS FIND A PLACE IN “COMMUNITIES” • 29

“In order to make students feel comfortable coming to you, you’ve got to make 

yourself available and accessible through the social media communities they use 

and the ways they feel most comfortable communicating,” says Lt. Chuck Cohen 

of the Indiana State Police. Cohen, a veteran of 20-plus years in law enforcement (primarily in the areas of electronic and cybercrime), serves as the narrator 

of “Social Media and School Violence,” a new six-session, self-paced training 

made available through the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C). “We’re 

not talking about being there in a covert manner, we’re talking about a known 

presence so that students constantly interact with SROs and feel comfortable 

communicating with them.” 

Cohen points out the “communities” 

in which young people spend time 

have evolved from shopping malls and 

24-hour restaurants to virtual ones. 

And in recent years, those virtual communities have become increasingly 

based on apps using mobile devices 

rather than on the World Wide Web 

accessed via a browser on a laptop 

or desktop computer. Technology 

constantly changes and evolves, and 

social media that is “in” now may 

be replaced in a matter of months, 

even weeks. Also, the popular online 

social network at one school may be 

completely unused at another in the 

same town.

In addition to being aware of the “app of choice” of students in a particular 

school, SROs need to know how to work with social media providers to obtain 

evidence and understand the various legal processes impacted by social media. 

It’s also important to have team or supervisory involvement in an SRO’s participation in social media, to protect both students and the SRO from allegations of 

misconduct.

“Social Media and School Violence” covers all of those aspects and more, 

according to NW3C’s Jeff Lybarger. Law enforcement leaders from across the 

United States share their perspectives on social media and school violence, and 

the training includes a case study and an historical perspective on the evolution 

of social networks. 

Also, as an online-only training, NW3C staff can update it on an ongoing basis. 

Lybarger explains that initially, NW3C offered the training via DVD, and after distributing approximately 1,000 copies in the first month, the center decided the 

online format seemed much more practical. Following its July 1 launch, “Social 

Media and School Violence” drew 343 views in its first 30 days online. (NW3C 

vets all requests to sign up for the training to ensure that only law enforcement 

professionals can access the modules.)

“We want SROs and other law enforcement professionals to know this training is 

available and it’s free. It takes about two hours total to watch it all, but you can 

break it up so that it works for you,” Lybarger says. 
“We developed it because social media has become a huge part of kids’ lives, 

and SROs need to understand what these sites do, how they work, and who to 

contact if they have an incident they need to investigate,” he adds.

And for the SRO (or any other law enforcement officer) who needs to start with 

the basics, NW3C also offers “Social Media 101: What Law Enforcement Needs 

to Know,” a 45- to 60-minute online training that provides general information 

on the most popular social networks, issues to consider and the related legal 

process. Lybarger says officers may want to start with this self-paced class, which 

includes a pre-test and a post-test, and a certificate of completion. 

“Social media changes so quickly that we try to go back and evaluate the content every month. We get a lot of calls from officers who want to know “What 

does this site do?’ ‘What’s the legal process?’ and so on. It’s a big need for law 

enforcement, and that’s why we took this on,” he adds.

NW3C also offers one-day, in-person training on a limited basis (18 sessions for 

1,000 officers from November 2013 to June 2014), and recently added a twoday, hands-on class on cyber-investigation. (Those cyber-investigation techniques can also be found in an online training on the NW3C website.) Cohen 

helped NW3C develop and implement in-person trainings on cybercrime and 

social media for several years before being tapped to narrate the online social 

media training.

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CH. 9: NW3C HELPS SROS FIND A PLACE IN “COMMUNITIES” • 31

“The bottom line is to always take it 

seriously, whether it’s an individual 

posting about violent acts or a tip 

you get from another student. You 

don’t want to overreact, but you may 

never know what you’ve prevented,” 

he says. “Often, officers and agencies 

plan and train a lot from the tactical 

perspective of how to contain an 

active shooter, and that is important. 

However, it’s just as important to try to 

plan and train how to stop an incident 

before it starts.”

The National White Collar Crime 

Center, working primarily with Bureau 

of Justice Assistance funding, has 

supported law enforcement’s efforts to 

prevent, investigate and prosecute economic and high-tech crime for more than 

30 years. To register for “Social Media and School Violence,” visit http://www.

nw3c.org/training/specialty-training/social-media-and-school-violence. For more 

information on other trainings, visit http://www.nw3c.org/
CHAPTER 10

MCGRUFF TURNS TO 

TECHNOLOGY 

By Becky Lewis

August 2014

McGruff the Crime Dog® celebrated his 34th birthday 

on July 1 not by getting a gift, but by giving one: 

McGruff Mobile, a free app that provides alerts and 

crime tracking information and promotes school, 

campus and community safety.

Launched on July 1, 2014, by the National Crime 

Prevention Council (NCPC), and available for download from the Android Market and iTunes, McGruff 

Mobile displays recent crime activity and the names of 

registered sex offenders around a registered address. Users can enter as many 

addresses as they want to track, so they can keep tabs on activity around their 

own home, their younger child’s school, their older child’s college campus three 

states away, their elderly parents’ home across the country: anywhere they have 

a special concern.

32 • SHARING IDEAS & RESOURCES TO KEEP OUR NATION’S SCHOOLS SAFE! VOLUME 3
CH.10: MCGRUFF TURNS TO TECHNOLOGY • 33

Features include:

• An interactive map displaying crimes and sex offenders in a neighborhood. 

• Alerts and information sent via email to mobile devices in real time. Alerts 

include those focusing on law enforcement emergencies, crime and sex offender information, severe weather, hazardous materials and more.

• Crime prevention tips.

• A virtual Neighborhood Watch where users can share photos and information 

about suspicious activity with law enforcement and with other users.

“This is a natural outgrowth of the information we’ve already been providing on our website. It’s an opportunity 

for McGruff to embrace new technology,” says Michelle Boykins, NCPC 

senior director of communications.

“It really focuses on prevention. It 

gives our users critical information 

about what’s going on in a neighborhood, along with information on how 

to get involved in crime prevention in 

that area through programs such as 

Neighborhood Watch. It gives tips on 

concrete things they can do, like not 

walking alone at night or not walking 

with your headphones in and not paying attention to your surroundings,” 

she adds. 

And using McGruff Mobile will give parents the opportunity to keep an eye out 

for their children even when the parents themselves cannot be nearby.

“College campuses are really their own mini-communities. Another community 

surrounds them, but they live within their own world. It’s important to recognize 

that although campuses are made to feel very safe, crime happens there just as 

it does in other communities,” Boykins says. “It’s important to be able to keep a 

virtual eye on your children and on your elderly parents. You can’t be everywhere 

and law enforcement can’t be everywhere. If you recognize a potential hot spot 

or see activity increasing, McGruff Mobile gives you tools to address it and help 

prevent future incidents.”

Because “taking a bite out of crime” through crime prevention is always NCPC’s 

goal, the council has partnered with AlertID to offer McGruff Mobile free of 

charge: “We have a wide network of law enforcement practitioners, parents and 

teachers, and we’ve tried to get the word out that this is available, and that it’s 

free. We want it to be a useful public safety tool, and we want to use technology 

in an engaging way so that we continue to do everything we can to help keep 

children, parents and their communities safe.”

For more information on this and on other programs and services offered by the 

National Crime Prevention Council, visit www.ncpc.org
CHAPTER 11

COOPERATION IS THE KEY IN 

SCHOOL SAFETY PLANNING

By Becky Lewis

January 2015

Over the slam-slam-slam of locker doors, over the 

chatter of students who haven’t seen each other since 

Friday, come the chilling words across the intercom: 

“This is not a drill. We are in lockdown.” Students 

stare, bewildered. Lockdown? That’s when the teacher 

closes the door and they all move to the back of the 

classroom. But they’re not in a classroom. They’re in 

the hall. What do they do?

Don Alwes, chairman of the Patrol Tactics section for 

the National Tactical Officers Association (NTOA), says that because schools are 

perceived to be relatively safe, school districts have developed plans to stop 

theft and deal with natural disasters, but they don’t plan thoroughly on how to 

keep “bad things” out.

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CH.11: COOPERATION IS THE KEY IN SCHOOL SAFETY PLANNING • 35

“Most schools jump directly into planning on how to deal with emergencies, but 

you don’t put those plans into effect until your security plan has failed,” Alwes 

says. “Also, schools tend to have emergency plans that are not realistic or helpful. I’ve never encountered a school with a realistic plan on how to lock down 

a cafeteria or a gym full of kids, but a substantial number of shootings occur 

outside classrooms.”

Because schools don’t necessarily have experience in dealing with 

interpersonal violence, they fail to 

involve law enforcement in developing 

security and emergency plans: “For 

instance, when it comes to building a 

new school or remodeling an old one, 

how often do school districts involve 

local law enforcement in the design? 

Quite often, I hear law enforcement 

isn’t called in at all until the building 

has been built. That’s where cooperation ought to begin, followed by longterm continuous interaction between 

groups.”

Although cooperation between school 

districts and law enforcement is key, 

joint efforts need to involve other agencies as well. When it comes to developing security and emergency plans, all stakeholders need to be invited to the 

discussion, including the local sheriff’s office, state and federal agencies, local 

EMS and fire departments, and neighboring jurisdictions.

“The first thing I tell agencies is they need to put their differences aside and 

get past the administrative hurdles. They need to work together to figure out 

what’s best for their community, and that always involves cooperation with other 

agencies,” Alwes says. 

“And of course it’s important to work with the schools. Law enforcement can 

save lives by preparing the potential targets in our communities to protect themselves, because often, the shooting is over before law enforcement arrives,” he 

adds. “Schools are important because that’s where our most precious commodity is, but businesses, churches and hospitals also need to sit down ahead of time 

and plan.”

That planning covers three areas, starting with threat assessment and management, then moving on to security plans, and finally to emergency plans. Law 

enforcement should work with schools and other organizations to identify threats 

and determine when to contact law enforcement, and to develop robust and 

comprehensive security and emergency plans. Additionally, the various law enforcement jurisdictions need to work with each other to plan and to train, which 

Alwes says is important for several reasons.

“If they pool their resources, they can get higher-quality training, both by 

having more funds to pay for it and by having more people actively involved 

in the training. Beyond the financial savings stemming from sharing the costs, 
you learn how to operate with a different agency that has different policies and 

equipment, and you learn how to mesh the two together. In the event of an incident, you’re going to have officers from a number of agencies responding. Why 

not start by sharing the cost of training and letting the officers train together? 

When you share the costs and share the training, great things come out of that.”

To make those great things happen, Alwes says it is necessary to start with getting school districts and local law enforcement alike to acknowledge the need 

for training and cooperation, because they still believe “it can’t happen here.” 

“My team was doing training at a school that had a major incident some years 

ago. I was checking a classroom that was probably no more than 20 yards 

down the hallway from the lobby where it happened, and discovered the door 

wouldn’t lock. I asked the teacher if she had been there during the shooting, 

and she said ‘yes, but it will never happen again, so we don’t worry about the 

doors’ not locking.’ I hope she’s right, but that’s not the attitude we need to 

have,” he says. 

Don Alwes is a lead instructor for the National Tactical Officers Association 

(NTOA) with 24 years of law enforcement experience, specializing in the areas of 

school and workplace violence and active shooter response. NTOA provides law 

enforcement with a training resource as well as a forum for the development of 

tactics and information exchange. To learn more about NTOA training on school 

and workplace violence, visit www.ntoa.org.

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CH.11: COOPERATION IS THE KEY IN SCHOOL SAFETY PLANNING • 37
CHAPTER 12

PROMOTING PARENTAL 

INVOLVEMENT TO REDUCE 

RISKY BEHAVIORS

By Becky Lewis

January 2015

Don’t cross the street without looking both ways. Don’t 

go in the swimming pool unless someone is with you. 

Don’t talk to strangers.

Including strangers you encounter on the Internet and 

social media.

The first three statements are such parenting staples 

that they’ve become clichés, but the fourth, and 

other parenting advice related to it, has not become 

ingrained in our culture. According to Dr. Stacey Kite, professor of Research in 

Johnson & Wales University’s Educational Leadership Doctoral Program, the 

problems created by this lack are not going to go away.

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CH.12: PROMOTING PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT TO REDUCE RISKY BEHAVIORS • 39

“Our youth have grown up on the Internet and on their cell phones, and they 

learn to navigate faster and better than we do. We’ve given them virtually unlimited access and they’re not mature enough to determine what is right, and we’ve 

never really taught them what they should be doing and how they should react,” 

Kite says, adding that in her 10 years of research in this area, the numbers have 

either remained stable or gotten worse. 

Research performed by Kite and 

her colleagues in Rhode Island and 

Massachusetts confirms nationwide 

studies that indicate 90 percent of 

students would not go to their parents 

if they encountered a problem during 

Internet or social media use, because 

“they feel like they need to handle 

this on their own, or they’re afraid 

their parents would not understand 

and would take their technology away. 

Parents need to understand that just 

saying ‘No, you can’t use it’ is not the 

answer.”

“Parents need to be more involved 

in what their children are doing, but 

the solution is not to deny them access. They need to monitor their children’s 

Internet and social media usage, and if parents find out their children have engaged in risky behavior, they need to use it as a learning experience rather than 

punishing them,” Kite adds.

For example, she says, bullying is a learned behavior, and parents need to teach 

children that it is unacceptable behavior. Kite adds that Dr. William E. Copeland, 

associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University, 

conducted a study about five years ago that found the precursors for bullying 

are the exact same precursors for committing domestic violence or becoming a 

sexual predator.

“Parents need to understand it’s their job to monitor their children and teach 

them acceptable Internet and social media behavior, and the evidence suggests 

they don’t. My own children know I’m going to monitor their online behavior, 

and we work on it together,” she says. “Parents are not looking to find the 

resources that will help them teach these lessons, because they’re out there. 

We’ve done several seminars in schools in Rhode Island, and the problem is 

the parents don’t come. We may make more of an impact after there’s a school 

shooting or a bullying-related suicide, but once the media coverage ends, people stop thinking about it.”

The seminars are an outgrowth of ongoing research by Kite and her team, in 

which they have offered a survey instrument to high schools and middle schools 

throughout New England. Through 2014, they have surveyed approximately 

10,000 Rhode Island and Massachusetts students, and are developing relationships with schools in Connecticut. Kite says results from individual schools can 

show educators where they have vulnerabilities and help inform their program 
development. And those results have led to a number of success stories, including a program at Birchwood Middle School in North Providence, R.I., where the 

principal not only convinced students to stop bullying behaviors, he got them 

involved in a bullying prevention program. Birchwood’s success was profiled on 

an episode of CBS News’ 48 Hours titled “Bullying: Words Can Kill.” (http://

www.cbsnews.com/news/48-hours-shares-what-a-bullied-life-looks-like/) 

Kite’s team also has developed a tip sheet for parents with links to online 

resources, so that schools can provide information to parents who don’t attend 

the seminars. And while her team is based in the New England area surrounding 

the Johnson and Wales campus in Providence, Kite says she has shared, and 

will continue to share, the survey instrument with schools in other parts of the 

country.

“My long-term goal is to bring awareness of the long-term risks of cyberbullying 

and Internet misuse. I also want society to be more empathetic and understanding. In many cases, victims are told ‘Deal with it yourself’ or ‘You should be a 

bigger person,’ ”Kite says. “It’s not a sign of weakness that you’ve been 

bullied.”

For more information on the ongoing research at Johnson & Wales University, 

contact Dr. Stacey Kite at (401) 714-6056 or by email at Stacey.Kite@jwu.edu.

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CH.12: PROMOTING PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT TO REDUCE RISKY BEHAVIORS • 41
CHAPTER 13

SAFETY SAVVY PROVIDES 

THE ANSWERS TO YOUR 

QUESTIONS

By Becky Lewis

January 2015

Got a question about helping your children deal with 

bullying? Safety Savvy can help. Need information 

on Internet safety? Safety Savvy can help. Looking 

for ideas about working with your child’s school to 

promote a safer environment? Safety Savvy can help.

Available as a free app in both Apple and Android 

versions, Safety Savvy offers school safety-related 

information in areas including safe travel to and from 

school, classroom safety, bullying awareness, peer relations and extracurricular activities, as well as online safety information on developing family rules, 

42 • SHARING IDEAS & RESOURCES TO KEEP OUR NATION’S SCHOOLS SAFE! VOLUME 3
CH.13: SAFETY SAVVY PROVIDES THE ANSWERS TO YOUR QUESTIONS • 43

protecting passwords and usernames, setting limits, preventing cyberbullying 

and more. Although it is a product of the Texas Center for the Missing (TCM), a 

Houston-based missing persons organization, Safety Savvy has universal appeal.

“It’s a lot of information, but we wanted to cover a multitude of areas that might 

have an impact on keeping somebody safe,” says Beth Alberts, chief executive 

officer of TCM. “Most of the content is not specific to Texas, although there is a 

form that can be used to report a missing person to us. If someone outside the 

state uses that form, we’re on call 24/7 and we will help them in whatever way 

we can, including referring them to a partner agency or the National Center for 

Missing and Exploited Children.”

In addition to the reporting form, the 

app includes a function to call 911 

as well as information on preventing 

child abuse and abduction, travel 

safety and safety for seniors. 

“I kept looking at it and wondering 

if there was anything we could cut, 

but it’s all such good information. 

I’ve been in the missing persons field 

for almost 14 years and I’ve seen 

what helps,” Alberts says. TCM staff 

pulled from educational materials and 

their experience in working with law 

enforcement, families and victims to 

develop the content for Safety Savvy, 

which was funded through a substantial donation made at a local fundraising event in 2013. A staff member suggested that developing an app would be 

a good use of the money, and in addition to spending the next year developing 

the content from training materials and staff experience, TCM also found a partner in a local development team that agreed to produce the app at a reasonable 

cost. Launch took place just before the holidays in 2014.

That staff experience also has led to a change in recent years in how TCM addresses the subject of abduction prevention in its trainings and materials: “We 

used to teach parents to watch their children on the street, because the majority 

of children were snatched going to and from school. In recent years, however, 

the trend has been more that they are lured online, so we’ve switched from a 

primary emphasis on street safety to online safety,” Alberts says. That switch in 

emphasis in abduction prevention training also led to an increased emphasis on 

cyberbullying prevention and Internet safety in general, because “cyberbullying 

is so pervasive and so difficult to fight and prevent.” 

Toward that end, TCM staff members reach out to schools in the local geographic area to schedule safety training sessions, and staff work to develop ongoing 

partnerships with schools and with law enforcement. Alberts says TCM staff 

“like to think that our prevention and education efforts will decrease the law 

enforcement caseload. We take our relationship with law enforcement seriously 

and we want to prevent harm from coming to victims and families from being 

traumatized.” 
Texas Center for the Missing was formed in March 2000 after the disappearance 

of 17-year-old Gabriel Lester, who was reported missing from his private high 

school. After his remains were located four months later, his mother, Doreen 

Wise, founded TCM. You can download the Safety Savvy app through TCM 

website at http://centerforthemissing.org/

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CH.13: SAFETY SAVVY PROVIDES THE ANSWERS TO YOUR QUESTIONS • 45
CHAPTER 14

APP USES “PEER POWER” TO 

HELP STOP CYBERBULLYING 

By Becky Lewis

March 2015

After every presentation on cyberbullying, there are 

always students with comments or questions, most 

of them routine. But not all of them. One comment 

recently offered to Sgt. Tom Rich of the Summit (N.J.) 

Police Department by an eighth-grade girl certainly 

didn’t qualify as routine: “I’m glad I go to a school 

that offers an app that helps students in trouble. If the 

school where I went to sixth grade had had it, I might 

not have tried to kill myself.”

Understandably, that student stands out for Rich, who has been making presentations on cyberbullying in various schools, including David Brearley Middle-High 

School in Kenilworth, N.J, for a number of years. In February 2014, Brearley 

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CH.14: APP USES “PEER POWER” TO HELP STOP CYBERBULLYING • 47

participated in a pilot program to test a new smartphone/tablet application 

program that has proved a powerful tool to help students help themselves and 

their fellow students. 

“Social media like Instagram, SnapChat, that’s where students are at now. 

They want to take instant pictures and 

videos and send them, and this new 

app lets them do that,” Rich says. 

With this mobile reporting tool, students can send screen shots to trusted 

adults or report anonymously, and it 

also offers 24/7 access to counseling 

services. Schools receive reports in 

real time and can immediately take 

steps to remediate situations, and all 

reports are time and date stamped 

and stored in the Cloud, allowing 

law enforcement to collect them as 

court-admissible evidence. 

“Students can use it to make reports to help themselves, their friends and even 

other students they may not know well,” Rich says. “One of the best success 

stories we’ve heard was about a 14-year-old boy with Asperger’s who was being 

bullied. An anonymous report via this app brought the issue to the attention of 

school officials, and they put an end to the situation.”

Brian Luciani, principal of David Brearley, says after his school participated in the 

pilot program using this online reporting tool, the school decided it worked so 

well that the tool has replaced paper forms from which administrators had to try 

to piece together investigations from scant, anonymous information. 

“It’s really a powerful tool that enables kids to take care of things themselves,” 

Luciani says. “We’re very very pleased with what it provides to students, parents, 

local law enforcement and the school.”

The school has made the app available to its 660 students, and having it available has made those students generally more aware that they are responsible for 

what they see and say online: “There are still kids that do things that make you 

shake your head, but now you see other students photographing and filming 

all the time. In fact, the number of reports we receive has steadily dropped, because as students become more aware that other students are watching, they’re 

monitoring their own behavior.”

And because those reports include photos, videos and other details not possible with paper reports, Luciani and his staff have been able to take a proactive, 

rather than reactive, approach to incidents. For example, the Wednesday before 

Thanksgiving, which is a scheduled half-day, is usually a low-key day given over 

to activities rather than classes. In 2014, reports via the app brought a planned 

fight to Luciani’s attention, and school administrators stopped trouble before it 

began.
“This tool has provided a great opportunity for our kids to understand that 

they’re responsible and that you don’t have to be the target to make a report. 

Sometimes a bystander is the most powerful person at an incident, and can have 

a positive impact on what’s going on,” he says.

For more information on the success of David Brearley Middle-High School’s 

switch from paper reporting forms to use of this app, contact Brian Luciani at 

Brian_Luciani@kenilworthschools.com

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CH.14: APP USES “PEER POWER” TO HELP STOP CYBERBULLYING • 49
CHAPTER 15

PANIC BUTTON APP ALLOWS 

SILENT COMMUNICATION

By Becky Lewis

July 2014

Whether the intruder smiled and talked his way past 

the front office staff, or somehow got in undetected 

through a side door, he didn’t know. What he did know 

when he heard the shots from the classroom across 

the hall, was that he needed to get the small children 

under his care into a closet and quietly out of sight. 

However, while maintaining complete silence, he 

pulled his smartphone from his pocket and activated 

the panic button app downloaded just last month at 

the school system’s direction. Just activating it instantly 

let 911 dispatch know that the second-grade teacher in Room A17 had sent an 

emergency alert. In seconds, officers raced toward the school, accessing a map 

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CH.15: PANIC BUTTON APP ALLOWS SILENT COMMUNICATION • 51

in route that showed them the nearest entrance to the classroom and other 

physical details that shaved important seconds off their response time. 

The mobile panic button app implemented by the town of Milford, Mass., 

earlier in 2014 can provide all that information and more. Based on “Smart911” 

technology, it routes cellular calls to the Milford Police Department while also instantly delivering critical information that can be used to facilitate a faster, more 

effective response. The mobile panic button directly integrates into the 911 call 

taking process, a best practice as highlighted by the National Emergency Number Association. By using the mobile panic button, the school system has the 

ability to upload a detailed profile that can include details such as class rosters, 

emergency contact details and the most direct route to a specific classroom. It 

allows for two-way communication if the caller can speak, but even when silence 

is essential, it still provides dispatch and first responders with a wealth of critical 

information via the detailed uploaded profile and the ability to communicate via 

text messaging.

“I like the idea that our teachers have 

access to emergency services without 

needing to use their voices,” says Milford 

Superintendent Bob Tremblay. “You hope 

that you never need to call 911, but if, 

God forbid, we ever have a lockdown, the 

fact that we will have the ability to share 

information about the caller and the school 

without saying a word could save precious 

time. We learned from Newtown that 

getting detailed information to the right 

people in the shortest amount of time may 

not avoid a tragedy, but it can minimize response time and that is vitally important.”

The school system has partnered with the 

police department to ensure that teachers in all of the town’s seven schools have downloaded the app, and plans to 

incorporate its use into training and drills planned for the system’s 500-plus 

faculty and staff members during the 2014-2015 school year. (Milford, located in 

Worcester County, has a population of approximately 28,000 residents, including 

4,300 students.) 

“We did some testing in the buildings to verify cellphone coverage,” Police 

Chief Tom O’Loughlin says. “Some communities are using panic buttons that 

connect to a security alarm system, but they can be susceptible to abuse if 

they’re fixed-mounted, and if they’re on a fob that people carry with them, they 

can be misplaced or lost. Consider the cost for having an electrician wire an 

entire school system, and it can become prohibitive. With this, costs are minimal 

and the calls go directly to 911.”

Tremblay says that he thinks the effort required to keep the information current 

also will be minimal since the system automatically reminds school officials to 

update the information every six months to ensure information accuracy. 
“When you’re under stress, you may forget the obvious things, such as the room 

number or the nearest entrance. In addition to the information uploaded into 

the profile, we have a red dot in every classroom that includes the name of the 

school, the room number and the nearest exterior door. This could be critical, 

especially for roving instructors or substitute teachers,” Tremblay says. In another school safety measure, the Milford Police Department has also placed older, 

unused portable radio units throughout the schools. Administrators and teachers 

who take students outside can use them to talk to the police department and to 

each other. 

“Bob Tremblay and our school system are very progressive, and school security 

is at the top of my department’s list,” O’Loughlin says. “There is nothing more 

important than protecting our schools.”

For more information on Milford’s use of the mobile panic button, contact Chief 

Tom O’Loughlin at Chief@milfordpolice.org or Superintendent Bob Tremblay at 

rtremblay@milfordma.com

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CH.15: PANIC BUTTON APP ALLOWS SILENT COMMUNICATION • 53
CHAPTER 16

BEST PRACTICE SOLUTION 

CLOSES SCHOOL SAFETY GAPS

By Becky Lewis

September 2014

Even as she hears the gunshots echoing down the 

hall, the teacher presses the key fob she wears – a key 

fob that does much more than just activate an alarm. 

While she starts lockdown in her room by closing the 

door and moving her students to their secure area, the 

local dispatch center simultaneously begins searching 

for the intruder using the school’s camera system, 

law enforcement officers speeding toward the scene 

receive up-to-the-second intelligence and the building 

itself launches into countermeasures that distract the 

intruder and disrupt his plans. 

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CH.16: BEST PRACTICE SOLUTION CLOSES SCHOOL SAFETY GAPS • 55

In mid-September, Southwestern High School in rural Shelby County, Ind., became the pilot site for what the Indiana Sheriffs’ Association hopes will become 

a nationwide Best Practice Solution for school safety. The pilot system networks 

the school directly with the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office (under Sheriff Mike 

Bowlby) and provides real-time notification to law enforcement; updates on 

the status of all classrooms; the ability to locate and track intruders, and launch 

immediate countermeasures; and added protection for teachers and students 

through an innovative hardened door system. 

“This is immediate notification, 

whereas in most situations, it’s 

typically three minutes until 

emergency services receives a 

phone call,” says Stephen Luce, 

executive director of the Indiana 

Sheriffs Association. “Dispatch 

can actually track the shooter, 

providing a description and determining the type of weapon. 

They’re in constant contact with 

the school. This gives responding law enforcement a place 

to start making a plan prior to 

arrival.” 

Details about the school’s 

capability to launch countermeasures are being kept confidential, but Luce did say the school becomes, in a 

sense, a “smart building” that can distract an intruder and possibly cause him to 

move away from the students or even leave the building.

Dr. Paula Maurer, Southwestern Consolidated School District Superintendent, 

says several area SWAT teams have come to Southwestern High for training and 

“they have just been amazed at how this is going to change school safety. Our 

kids will all be in safe rooms and we won’t have to figure out ‘fight or flight?’ 

We train the teachers that they are the shepherd of their safe room. They get 

students out of the hallway if it’s between classes, and they get everyone behind 

the hardened door and behind a red line where an intruder cannot see them 

through the glass.”

The red line serves as a visual aid to let students and teachers know when they 

have reached the area where they are out of an intruder’s sight. Once behind it, 

a teacher can use a signaling station located there to report whether students 

are safe or under attack. In addition, teachers also have access to first aid materials and can use the station to report medical emergencies, which will help with 

EMS triage when first responders enter the building.

“The reaction of our teachers has been very positive. At Virginia Tech, students 

tried to hold doors closed, and at Sandy Hook, teachers used their bodies to 

protect their kids. We believe a teacher shouldn’t have to make those difficult 

decisions. With this system, all they need to do is be the shepherd in the classroom and get their kids behind the red lines,” Maurer says. “My administrators 
don’t have to walk into the hallway to see what it is going on; they can use the 

cameras. And the sheriff is immediately in control of the situation, thus turning 

the decision-making process over to those who trained to do it.”

The use of this innovative system in the pilot project at Southwestern High is the 

result of the efforts of Mike Kersey, a deputy sheriff and SWAT team leader in 

Montgomery County, to close what he perceived as a gap in law enforcement 

and school preparation. Kersey, a 22-year law enforcement veteran, became 

involved in active shooter response after Columbine. He has seen an evolution 

in law enforcement tactics during that time period, but still concluded approximately four years ago that law enforcement and schools weren’t working 

together well.

“When this happens, it’s a community event, not just a law enforcement event or 

a school event. I was working with schools to train on the solutions available at 

that time, and I realized there were certain hurdles we still had to face. I wanted 

to find a way to clear those hurdles and make our response more effective,” 

Kersey says. “I knew the timeframe was critical and there was a lack of immediate notification, not only notification to law enforcement but also notification 

to others inside the event. We also were not adequately protecting the physical 

space. Locking doors is an option, but as we’ve all learned, you get into a confined space and you can have a massacre. We needed to prevent the attacker 

56 • SHARING IDEAS & RESOURCES TO KEEP OUR NATION’S SCHOOLS SAFE! VOLUME 3
from getting access to potential victims and mitigate that danger as well, 

and if we can also interrupt his plans 

before law enforcement gets there, we 

can gain a tactical edge.” 

Working on his own time, Kersey 

found a piece here, another there of 

what he was looking for, but not until 

he located the vendor that provides 

the system used in this pilot project 

did he find technology that addressed 

all of his concerns. He then cultivated relationships with his sheriff, the 

ISA and the state Department of 

Homeland Security that facilitated the 

creation of the Best Practice System 

project. 

“All along the way, the timing just seemed right. We all shared the same goal: 

we want schools to be a safe place for our students and teachers to go again. 

Schools should be a safe haven, but the reality is they are not and we need to 

change that,” Kersey says. “We’re not under the misapprehension that we can 

use this to stop every attack, but we think it can help mitigate an active threat 

situation and we hope it can serve as a template for other states to follow.”

“I keep hearing this involves a lot of effort and expense, but how could you talk 

to a parent who lost a child at Sandy Hook and tell them the effort is not worth 

it?” he adds.

And Maurer concurs: “I want to adamantly say we have to do this for our kids. 

We now have a better way to protect them and we need to use this in every 

school.”

You can watch a video about the ISA Best Practice Solution at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4JYOhBQ9fA. For more information, contact Jessica Cirulli 

at bpspresscontact@gmail.com.

CH.16: BEST PRACTICE SOLUTION CLOSES SCHOOL SAFETY GAPS • 57
CHAPTER 17

GUNSHOT DETECTION SYSTEM 

PROVIDES EARLY WARNING

By Becky Lewis

November 2014

Nothing disturbs the quiet as the students work on 

their test papers, heads bent, No. 2 pencils scratching. 

Nothing, that is, but the beep of a text message on 

their teacher’s cell phone. A text message that tells 

her that just seconds ago, sensors recorded a gunshot 

in the lobby, two floors away at the other end of the 

building. And only seconds more will pass before a 

hurried line of students, tests forgotten, heads for the 

stairs and evacuation to safety.

Chief Joseph Solomon of the Methuen (Mass.) Police Department and Methuen 

School Superintendent Judith Scannell share a fervent hope that a scenario like 

the one just described never becomes reality in their town. But in the event that 

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CH.17: GUNSHOT DETECTION SYSTEM PROVIDES EARLY WARNING • 59

it does, a pilot gunshot detection system recently installed in one of the town’s 

four grammar schools can provide the early warning that will lead teachers and 

students to safe evacuations or necessary lockdowns, as well as lead law enforcement officers directly to the site of the gunshots.

“The system gives you enough information to determine whether to lock down 

or evacuate. If you’re on the second floor of the west wing, and shots are fired 

on the first floor of the east wing, it gives teachers time to make an educated 

decision. And for law enforcement, it reduces the time to target,” Solomon says. 

“When they did the demo on November 

11, they fired shots on the opposite end 

of the building. I absolutely could not hear 

the shots or any commotion, but I got the 

text that said ‘Shot Fired’ and gave the 

exact location. This speaks to the minutes that are lost when something tragic 

is going on in a building...the minutes 

where lives are lost,” Scanlon says. “I think 

I speak for all superintendents everywhere 

when I say that the safety of our students 

is our number one priority. I’m not saying 

that I can 100 percent guarantee the safety 

of our students, because of course I can’t, 

but this adds another layer of security.”

The well-publicized drill that Scanlon referenced showed an audience of area 

police chiefs, school resource officers, school superintendents and elected officials just how effective the gunshot detection technology can be. A role-playing 

officer entered the building and fired a total of four shots, the first well out of 

earshot of the audience, the second from nearby and the third and fourth from 

yet another location. The school resource officer started a search immediately 

on receipt of the first text, and other officers joined in after an appropriate response time. Just over three minutes later, the demonstration ended, leaving an 

impressed audience to ply Solomon with questions for another 90 minutes. The 

group also heard from Democratic Congresswoman Niki Tsongas, who spoke 

about how technology originally developed for military use has been leveraged 

into a system that also has potential for public buildings, hospitals and office 

complexes.

The detection system uses not only acoustic sensors (as do other gunshot detection systems), it also uses infrared capability to detect the flash that accompanies 

gunfire, thus eliminating the possibility of false alarms generated by banging 

lockers and dropping books. For each confirmed shot, it provides a precise 

location coordinate and a time stamp, and generates an automatic call to public 

safety dispatch along with the text message to all teachers and staff. Developers have included an option to add cameras and/or a sound system that would 

provide an opportunity for direct communication. 

“The system reduces the need to analyze the situation before you can react,” 

Solomon says. “For example, with a traffic accident, by the time a bystander 

processes what is going on and calls 911 to relay the information, four to five 
minutes have passed. The system takes care of all of that in approximately two 

seconds. None of our officers believed it could actually do what the developers 

claimed until they experienced it firsthand.”

And the public has embraced the technology as well, so much so that there is 

a movement to have detection systems placed in the town’s three remaining 

grammar schools and high school. That expansion, however, will require that 

Methuen locate funding to offset the costs. The developer provided the pilot 

system free of charge in return for beta testing feedback, which led to the nocost permanent installation of a Version 1.0 system in August 2014. Solomon 

says the school selected as the pilot site is the largest in square footage of the 

town’s schools, and its three-story building was selected purely because of its 

size.

“We were fortunate to realize the free demonstration for one of our schools, and 

I hope to eventually see it installed in all of them,” Solomon says. “I think in the 

future, it should be mandated like smoke detectors.”

For more information on the pilot gunshot detection system in use in Methuen, 

contact Chief Joseph Solomon at JSolomon@ci.methuen.ma.us.

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CH.17: GUNSHOT DETECTION SYSTEM PROVIDES EARLY WARNING • 61
CHAPTER 18

ROANOKE CITY USES SOCIAL 

MEDIA TO BUILD TRUST

By Becky Lewis

July 2014

Hey, Suze, I just drove past the high school, there’s a 

bunch of emergency equipment outside. I didn’t see 

any smoke, you think it’s a bomb? A shooter? I’m on 

my way to an appointment, but I wonder if I should go 

back, try to find out what’s going on?

No worries, Carol, I’m looking at the Facebook page 

now. It’s broken water pipes near the gym. Part of the 

school is closed down, they’re shuffling the kids to other 

classrooms. Just go on to your appointment, talk to you 

later, okay?

With a Facebook following that has doubled and redoubled in the past two 

years (increasing from 1,500 likes to more than 6,500), Virginia’s Roanoke City 

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CH.18: ROANOKE CITY USES SOCIAL MEDIA TO BUILD TRUST • 63

Public Schools, under the direction of Community Relations Coordinator Justin 

McLeod, have established the system’s social media outlets as the trusted, “go 

to” source for information. By building the community’s trust with open, daily 

communication, McLeod hopes that if Roanoke City ever does face a major crisis 

event, parents and the community know they can obtain the most accurate, current information from the school system, and thus won’t tie up bandwidth and 

air time searching for news (or rumors).

Using material McLeod gathers from 

daily visits to schools, Roanoke City 

posts lot of photos and “sneaks in 

a little information” to build a daily 

following for positive news. To date 

the district – which includes 17 elementary schools, five middle schools, 

four specialty schools and two high 

schools – has experienced only minor 

emergencies related to weather and 

non-serious school bus accidents. 

When those happen, it’s not surprising 

that a community with 13,313 students 

enrolled in the public school system 

generates intense social media traffic. 

“We post our weather closings in English and in Spanish, via Twitter and Facebook, before we even call the local television stations. One of our weatherrelated postings drew 25,000 views. Sharing this information through social 

media has just taken off, and we’ve tried to use it to educate people about how 

we decide whether to close or delay school. We’ve given them sort of a behind 

the scenes look at things,” McLeod says. “As the winter went on – and it was a 

bad one – we started to see a shift in the comments. People were saying things 

like “that makes sense” and “thanks for explaining that.” It was a great way to 

use social media to educate parents. They now know we are the source for 

information and they go the Facebook page every day.”

McLeod learned about the importance of laying that foundation of trust through 

Roanoke City’s working with national school security experts, and through attendance at various educational conferences (including the summer 2014 National 

School Public Relations Association meeting, where Roanoke City won a publications and electronic media award). At that same conference, he also remembers hearing an example of what not to do in the event of a crisis: “There was 

a school that went into lockdown because of a serious bomb threat, and they 

sent a communication home saying it was because of a water main break. Once 

you’ve broken trust like that, you can never get it back. Superintendent Dr. Rita 

Bishop wants us to be as upfront as we can be with the parents, with the caveat 

that we’re sure it’s correct before we post it.”

The intense social media efforts have come about as a result of the district’s 

newly created crisis communications plan. Roanoke City developed the plan 

with input from the consultant team, as were other measures that Roanoke City 

has put into place to help make its schools more secure: “We have taken what 

we were advised to do and we’ve actually done it. A lot of school systems ask 
for reports and then they sit on the shelf. When we got calls from the local news 

media after Newtown asking what we were going to do differently, we were able 

to tell them we already had security measures in place. At the same time, we 

began to hear a lot fewer complaints from visitors and greater appreciation for 

those security measures. At the end of the day, I don’t like having to plan for this 

kind of event, but it’s something we have to do.”

McLeod involved his counterparts from local public safety agencies in the school 

district’s planning efforts, and is grateful for Roanoke City’s strong relationships 

with local public safety and with local media. In addition to involving public safety agencies in communications planning, the school district held press conferences during consultant visits, and brought the media in to write about training 

for faculty and staff as it took place. Also, Dr. Bishop and Police Chief Chris Perkins have a strong working relationship, and a total of 14 school resource officers 

help patrol the district’s campuses. 

And in the end, McLeod, like so many other school and law enforcement administrators across the country, hopes that none of these plans ever have to be 

implemented, but “if they do, my hope is that the community will know to come 

to us for information. We will be as open as we can, with the hope that people 

understand they may have to have patience. We won’t be trying to keep information from them, we’ll be gathering accurate information to post.”

For more information about Roanoke City’s communications efforts, contact 

Justin McLeod at jmcleod@rcps.info

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CH.18: ROANOKE CITY USES SOCIAL MEDIA TO BUILD TRUST • 65
CHAPTER 19

ONLINE PROGRAM BRINGS 

COST-EFFECTIVE, JOB-SPECIFIC 

TRAINING TO FLORIDA 

SCHOOLS

By Becky Lewis

August 2014

After racing from her classroom to pick up her son 

at soccer practice, she pulls into the parking lot to 

discover that the coach needs “15 more minutes.” How 

to pass the time...it’s not long enough to be worth 

pulling out today’s exams to start grading them. Wait, 

there’s that mandatory training on bullying prevention 

she has to finish this week...and all she has to get out is 

her smartphone. 

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CH.19: ONLINE PROGRAM BRINGS COST-EFFECTIVE, JOB-SPECIFIC TRAINING TO FLORIDA SCHOOLS • 67

With the start of the 2014-2015 

school year, all nine member 

school districts of the Florida 

School Boards Insurance Trust 

(FSBIT) have free, unlimited 

online access to a suite of more 

than 300 online school safety 

trainings that can be accessed 

anytime, anywhere. School 

districts can pick and choose 

courses best suited to their 

school’s needs, and further 

customize learning plans so that 

teachers, accountants, custodians and bus drivers all take the 

courses best suited to their own 

job descriptions. 

“We used to create our own web-based trainings in-house, but we found the 

offerings with this program to be so much broader than anything we could do 

ourselves,” says David Stephens, FSBIT director of risk management. “For the 

quality versus the price, it’s much better than what we were doing. We would 

pick a subject, ask a specific school district to provide personnel for taping, and 

hire someone to do the video and narration. This is much more cost-effective in 

general, especially if you’re doing it for a number of districts.” 

The system allows administrators to track training, monitor staff progress, download compliance reports and more. Written by national experts on school safety, 

the courses are school-specific rather than designed for general workplace 

training, and cover topics such as identifying and addressing causes of potential 

school violence, preventing crimes through enhanced physical security, bullying 

(including cyberbullying), and suicide awareness and prevention. 

“It ranges from general safety information to very specific topics such as sexual 

harassment. The breadth of it is so wide there are courses that apply to all types 

of jobs. Florida has some of the largest school districts in the nation and they 

really are mini-municipalities,” Stephens says. 

FSBIT provides the member school districts with several training templates to 

use as a starting point; the districts then use the training program’s flexibility 

to design curricula that meets their specific needs. Schools can elect to have 

groups take some trainings together and allow individuals to take others at their 

own convenience. Two member districts, Santa Rosa and Suwannee counties, 

ran pilot projects during the 2013-2014 school year and FSBIT received only 

positive feedback.

The system allows administrators to set up assignments and training plans for 

specific staff members, who can then take the 20- to 30-minute trainings on any 

Web-enabled device (they can even start a course on one device and finish it on 

another). Courses include interactive components that keep users engaged, and 

pre- and post-tests to help ensure staff retain what they’ve learned. (Each school 
district can set its own criteria for the pass/fail rates needed to earn a certificate 

of completion.) And not only do staff members find the training is more convenient and engaging, it’s far less expensive than bringing in a consultant to do an 

in-service training on a specific topic that might not apply to all staff. 

“We always try to keep the need to increase the safety factor in the front of our 

minds. With this training, we can do it easily. We can be alert for teachable moments; for example, if there is a bus accident, we can send out an email pointing 

to an applicable training,” Stephens says. “The Florida School Boards Association is very aware that when students and staff feel safe, they perform at a much 

higher level.”

The Florida School Boards Association established the Florida School Boards 

Insurance Trust (FSBIT) in 1981 to self-insure property, casualty and worker’s 

compensation as a direct response to the difficulties and expense school districts face in acquiring insurance protection at a reasonable and affordable cost. 

FSBIT also assists school districts in reducing risk management costs by providing training and services. For more information on FSBIT’s school safety training 

program, email David Stephens at dstephens@fsbit.net

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CH.19: ONLINE PROGRAM BRINGS COST-EFFECTIVE, JOB-SPECIFIC TRAINING TO FLORIDA SCHOOLS • 69
CHAPTER 20

VIDEO ENCOURAGES VIEWERS 

TO PLAN FOR SURVIVAL 

By Becky Lewis

February 2015

What would you do if the sound of gunfire disrupted 

your classroom? 

Would you know how to immediately and safely get 

away? Would you know how to secure the classroom if 

your exit was cut off? If forced to confront an attacker, 

would you have a plan for success?

What would you do?

A new video produced by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, Surviving an 

Active Shooter, not only asks those questions, it also provides answers. Using 

graphic imagery to depict simulated attacks on a college campus, in a mall and 

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CH.20: VIDEO ENCOURAGES VIEWERS TO PLAN FOR SURVIVAL • 71

in a workplace, the free video (available for viewing at http://www.activeshooter.

lasd.org/) emphasizes the most important steps to take are to stay calm, think 

clearly and plan your actions in advance. 

Sgt. Harry Drucker says the agency’s video production department began 

planning Surviving an Active Shooter after the Aurora, Colo., theater shooting 

in 2012: “We talked about how emotional impact causes people to remember 

what they see and used that as our guiding light. We used graphic imagery and 

staged our scenarios in locales where younger people tend to spend time. We 

would have preferred not to need to make the video, but these things are happening not just in the United States, but worldwide.”

Surviving an Active Shooter points out that 

on average, there are 20 active shooter 

attacks with four or more casualties in the 

United States each year. Although chances 

of being involved in an incident are still 

slight, it says “in the middle of a senseless 

attack, the why doesn’t matter. What matters is surviving.”

Drucker says after exploring various financial options, the department used special 

training funding to create Surviving an 

Active Shooter. A companion video for 

law enforcement, which will be available to 

vetted agencies on request, was filmed at 

the same time using the same locations: a 

mall food court after closing, a college campus during break and a warehouse 

after business hours. LASD used a mainly volunteer cast, although some Screen 

Actors Guild members were paid small amounts for speaking roles. The agency 

also received donations of food from local businesses to feed the nearly 400 

volunteers during the on-location shoots. Members of the film industry donated 

time for post-production work as well.

In addition to being able to access Surviving an Active Shooter on the LASD 

website, law enforcement agencies and school administrators interested in using 

it as part of a training program can request a copy via digital download, download the transcript and find links to resources from agencies such as the American Red Cross, the FBI, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The law enforcement tactics video 

will replace another training video created by LASD shortly after the Columbine 

shooting in 1999, because tactics have changed greatly since then, moving from 

waiting for reinforcements to the first officer on the scene going in to search for 

and confront the shooter. Drucker says LASD used experts in the field of tactics 

to develop the strategies used in the law enforcement video and to inform the 

script for Surviving an Active Shooter, which cautions viewers to be careful about 

running toward and reaching out to law enforcement, even if it is to thank them 

for being there.

“When law enforcement officers first arrive on a scene, their first goal is to 

neutralize the threat, not care for the wounded. If there is still shooting going on, 

their mission is to stop it,” Drucker says. 
“We’re a law enforcement agency, but part of our job is to keep people safe, 

and part of that comes back to education. We try to educate the public in 

various ways, for instance reminding them around the holidays not to leave their 

packages from the mall in plain sight in their vehicles,” he adds. “With something like this, it’s like going back to fire drills. You hope it never happens, but if 

it does, you need to know what to do.”

For more information on Surviving an Active Shooter, or to inquire about the 

new LASD law enforcement training video, contact Sgt. Harry Drucker at 

(562) 946-7984, email HJDrucke@lasd.org.

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CHAPTER 21

KNOXVILLE “TAKES A STAND” 

AGAINST BULLYING

By Becky Lewis

March 2015

You are such a disappointment.

You have no friends.

You will never be good enough.

Statements that far too many young people hear every 

day, from their peers and from their families. 

Statements that make up the cornerstone of an awardwinning series of public service announcements jointly 

produced by the Knoxville (Tenn.) Police Department 

and that city’s Hardin Valley Academy.

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CH.21: KNOXVILLE “TAKES A STAND” AGAINST BULLYING • 75

Separate anti-bullying campaigns by the two partners intersected in spring 2012, 

when students in Hardin Valley’s Leadership class saw Knoxville PD’s “Take a 

Stand Against Bullying” billboard campaign and came up with the idea of asking 

the local law enforcement agency to partner with them on the PSA initiative. 

The police department already had a number of other projects underway (see 

sidebar, “School Safety Advocacy Council Honors Knoxville Police Department 

With National Anti-Bullying Recognition Award ”) through a U.S. Department 

of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance grant administered by the state Office 

of Criminal Justice Programs, and teaming up with the students on the PSAs 

seemed like another piece that fit into the project. 

According to Ramona Dew, Knox 

County Coordinated School Health 

Supervisor and then-teacher at Hardin 

Valley, she challenged her Leadership 

class to come up with an initiative to 

change the culture of the school in fall 

2012: “They came back and said we 

needed to do an anti-bullying campaign before someone in Knox County 

kills themselves. That is, in other places, initiatives seem to start after something happens, after someone dies in 

a car accident or commits suicide.”

The group first set out to address the 

issue with a series of 30-second sound 

bites filmed in the school’s hallways and shown during morning video announcements. Then, in spring 2013, the group came back to Dew with the idea to reach 

out to Knoxville PD. Dew contacted the department, and the Safety Education 

Unit agreed to partner with the students, telling them to “write the scripts and 

we’ll bring them to the screen.” The students did just that, writing scripts that 

touch on cyberbullying, mocking students’ academic struggles, shunning their 

company and more. In addition to writing all of the dialog, Leadership class 

students – not drama club members – do all of the acting as well. 

“We worked with them to create 10 wonderful public service announcements, 

with the students doing all of the writing and acting while we provided technical 

assistance and filming support,” says Knoxville PD Capt. Bob Wooldridge, who 

heads the Safety Education Unit. Training Specialist Aubrey Maples provided 

logistical support, and technical support personnel Julie Small and Eric Miller 

took care of the videography and post-production editing.

“When the filming started in spring 2014, our project U anti-bullying campaign 

had already been going on for two years, but this opened up a new conversation: What’s going on? What are they doing? It had an impact on our school, 

and the students who were involved have gone to speak at other schools in 

Knox County as well,” Dew says. “We show the PSAs in our city’s middle schools 

as part of our projectU campaign and ask students if they have seen similar 

incidents happening in their school, and to think about how they can have an 

impact. The idea is that everybody has a choice to make and ‘U’ can make a 
difference. Our Leadership class efforts didn’t end with the PSAs, because it’s 

about living this every day in school and impacting those around you.”

“At the National Bullying Conference (where Knoxville PD received an award; 

see sidebar), I was asked what was the best thing about our campaign. I would 

definitely say the partnerships with, and commitment from, the community, 

parents, teachers, principals and students. That’s one of true keys to recognizing bullying: heightening awareness and being able to deal with it. Having the 

student involvement in designing and writing these PSAs helps the community 

make a difference when it comes to bullying,” Wooldridge says. “We’ve put the 

videos out on our website for everyone to see, and I hope they go viral, because 

they’re a tool that law enforcement agencies and schools across the country can 

use. I’d like to see it help students across the country see that bullying is everywhere and they can “Take a Stand.’ ” 

“ProjectU isn’t a specific curriculum, because the needs and culture of every 

school is different. It’s about getting students involved in responding to needs 

and making a change,” Dew says. “I would love to be able to help other schools 

do something like this. Teaming up with KPD has helped my students learn that 

it takes a collaborative effort, and many different entities need to be involved in 

order for a project like this to succeed. ” 

You can view the PSAs on the Safety Education Unit’s YouTube channel at 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuAyjRuIcNhHi6Gcib3Chdw. For more 

information on the project and how you can do something similar in your community, contact Capt. Bob Wooldridge at (865) 215-1514, email bwooldridge@

cityofknoxville.org or Ramona Dew at (865) 594-3735, email Ramona.dew@

knoxschools.org. 

76 • SHARING IDEAS & RESOURCES TO KEEP OUR NATION’S SCHOOLS SAFE! VOLUME 3
CH.21: KNOXVILLE “TAKES A STAND” AGAINST BULLYING • 77

School Safety Advocacy Council Honors Knoxville 

Police Department With National Anti-Bullying 

Recognition Award

On Feb. 25, 2015, the Knoxville 

Police Department Safety Education 

Unit received a national award from 

the School Safety Advocacy Council 

for its anti-bullying campaign. In 

addition to working with Hardin 

Valley Academy students on the PSA 

initiative, other parts of the project 

included the following.

Anti-Bullying Town Hall Meeting.

This free event on April 17, 2014, 

featured Kirk Smalley, a nationally 

known speaker whose 11-year-old 

son committed suicide because of 

bullying, and an anti-bullying panel 

discussion moderated by local news 

anchors. More than 150 people 

attended the event; an estimated 20,000 watched on television 

and another 1,000 viewed via live 

streaming.

Anti-Bullying Summit. This free 

event for Tennessee law enforcement and educators on July 30, 

2013, provided lectures and 

information on signs and symptoms of bullying, cyberbullying and 

social media, and adult bullying in 

the workplace. Some 468 persons 

attended. 

Billboard campaign. Lamar Advertising, which developed the logo 

and campaign materials, donated 

display space on local billboards. 

Social media and anti-bullying 

curriculum. Trained officers and 

training staff from the unit developed an eighth-grade lesson 

plan presented at the invitation 

of local schools. This one-day, 

one-classroom presentation focuses 

on topics such as the abuse of drugs 

and alcohol, self-esteem and recognizing bullying. Officers also use a 

pre- and post-training survey developed by the University of Tennessee. 

It will continue beyond the life of the 

Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) 

grant.

“Boo at the Zoo” and summertime 

booths at Knoxville Zoo. Officers 

and staff greet visitors and hand out 

anti-bullying literature and giveaway 

items, including the popular “Take a 

Stand Against Bullying” wristbands. 

This project will continue beyond 

the life of the BJA grant.

Other giveaway items and community presentations. This effort 

included miniature “Take a Stand 

Against Bullying” footballs tossed 

into local high school crowds by 

cheerleaders and booths at various community events, including 

National Night Out. These efforts 

will continue beyond the life of the 

BJA grant. 

“I’m just so proud of our officers and 

our training staff. Our partnership 

with Knox County schools has been 

wonderful,” says Capt. Bob Wooldridge. In addition to receiving the 

SSAC award, the Safety Education 

Unit received an internal unit commendation for its efforts. 

“None of this would have been 

possible to achieve at this level 

without our community partnerships. 

We always say we can’t do it alone,” 

Wooldridge says.
CHAPTER 22

SCHOOL SAFETY TRACKER 

OFFERS “FOUR IN ONE” VALUE

By Becky Lewis

April 2015

Look, on your smartphone! It’s an anonymous reporting 

tool. It’s an emergency operations planner. It’s a school 

safety audit program. It’s a drill tracking program.

It’s School Safety Tracker, a program developed by the 

Texas Region 20 Service Center in San Antonio and 

offered free to schools throughout the state. 

Aubrey Independent School District, under the leadership of Superintendent Debby Sanders and Police 

Chief Scott Collins, recently started using the system that Collins dubs “a 

four-in-one value” for the school district located in a town of less than 3,000 

residents. 

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CH.22: SCHOOL SAFETY TRACKER OFFERS “FOUR IN ONE” VALUE • 79

“We look at it as a way for students to report incidents in a timely manner. In today’s world, students use their smartphones all the time. And this is an app they 

can put on their phones and actually use,” Sanders says. “By using School Safety 

Tracker, we hope that we can avoid incidents on campus, whether it be drugs, 

bullying or something else.” 

“Students don’t want to call 800 numbers anymore. They want to use their technology,” Collins says. “And overall, it’s very thorough and it’s very practical. It’s 

just an easy way to keep track of everything in one place, and there’s a tremendous savings on paper costs as well.”

Collins explains that students or parents 

can download the app to their smartphones or tablets and use it to submit tips 

anonymously. The tips come to his office, 

and he reviews them and distributes them 

to the district’s high school, middle school 

and two elementary schools as appropriate. 

“All tips come to the chief, who then sends 

it to the principal of the appropriate campus. If the tip is a concern about a serious 

emotional issue, it will go to the counselor 

who can start an intervention. If a small 

child says a fifth-grader is bullying him on 

the bus, it will go the principal and the bus 

driver,” Sanders says. “Obviously – and 

we hope we don’t have this – if somebody is selling drugs, we will involve the 

police. If the report happens to be an emergency situation, we won’t just send 

an email and hope somebody sees it, we’ll follow up with a phone call.”

Communication with users of the app works both ways; the school district can 

use it to send push notifications to all registered users about weather-related 

school closures or planned fire drills. (Texas school districts must perform fire 

drills every month, along with tornado drills and other safety-related drills.) 

School Safety Tracker keeps tabs on all of them, allowing for easy review by the 

fire marshal and administrators. It also keeps track of medical information for the 

district’s approximately 2,200 students, bus routes and other aspects of Aubrey’s 

emergency operations plan. 

“We can take our tablets out in the event of an emergency rather than lugging 

a big book around. Administrators and teachers can pull the plans up on their 

phones or tablets wherever they are, and that’s a huge safety deal when you’re 

evacuating kids,” Collins says.

Using School Safety Tracker to do required school safety audits is another “huge 

deal” in savings of time and paper: “You’re required to do a school safety audit 

every three years using an extensive set of forms from the Texas School Safety 

Center. With this app, we can do these audits on a tablet and it keeps track of 

everything for us. Before, we had to fill out 17 sheets of paper per school, so it’s 

a huge savings in paper as well as time,” Collins says. 
And Sanders adds that in addition to the required tri-annual full report, the safety audit function allows school districts to input ongoing timely safety updates: 

“If you’re walking around and see something that looks unsafe, you can put it in 

the system at that moment. You don’t have to wait for the three-year audit.” 

But even with all of School Safety Tracker’s other useful aspects, in the end it’s 

the reporting function that proved its biggest attraction to Aubrey ISD. 

“The obvious first draw in signing up for the app is the students are always on 

their smartphones, and with the app, we can get kids more involved in keeping 

themselves safe,” Sanders says. And Collins adds, “This makes my job easier 

because I can’t be everywhere at once. This gives me lots of eyes and ears in 

the community.” 

For more information on Aubrey’s use of School Safety Tracker, contact Chief 

Scott Collins at (940) 668-3900 X1201, email scollins@aubreyisd.net. To learn 

more about the app, visit http://www.schoolsafetytracker.com/index.php.

80 • SHARING IDEAS & RESOURCES TO KEEP OUR NATION’S SCHOOLS SAFE! VOLUME 3
CONTACT 

INFORMATION

Michael O’Shea, Senior Law Enforcement Program Manager

National Institute of Justice

U.S. Department of Justice

810 Seventh St., NW., Rm.7204

Washington, DC 20531

(202) 305-7954 

michael.oshea@usdoj.gov

Lance Miller, Director

National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center-National

700 N. Frederick Ave.

Bldg. 181, Rm. 1L30

Gaithersburg, MD 20879

(800) 248-2742

(301) 240-6731

lmiller@justnet.org

Visit http://www.schoolsafetyinfo.org for access to up-to-date 

publication and website resources. New success stories similar to the ones in this publication are added on an ongoing 

basis. To suggest a success story topic, contact Senior Writer 

Becky Lewis at rebecca.l.lewis@lmco.com