Keeping Schools Safe

• Badge-based emergency alert system:
  • School-based staff are equipped with a special smart badge they can use to immediately initiate a lockdown and notify law enforcement in the event of an emergency. 
    
    
• Weapons detectors:
  • Every high school has a walk-through weapons detector that will be used to screen everyone who enters the school building. 
    
    
• Armed security at each school:
  • Every one of our schools is staffed with an armed guardian or a safe school officer. Each of these individuals has received and continually receives Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training. 
    
    
• Training for students:
  • For students and staff, we deploy two complementary training protocols: Run, Hide, Fight, from the Department of Homeland Security and what is known as the Standard Response Protocol, made available through the I Love You Guys Foundation.
    
    
• Locked school entrances:
  • Entrances to school buildings are locked and controlled with electronic access systems. All external access to schools is to remain locked during the day. All classrooms are locked during instruction. 
    
    
• Surveilance:
  • Camera surveillance is used at all schools.
    
    
• Access to law enforcement:
  • All schools have direct radio access to School Police, and School Police have direct radio access to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and Beaches area law enforcement.
    
    
• Safety drills:
  • All schools conduct regular lockdown drills in accordance with state requirements.
    
    
• Threat management teams:
  • All schools have an active behavioral threat management team that can deploy whenever a potential threat is perceived at a school.
    
    
• School hardening:
  • Through the half-penny sales tax, we are in the process of hardening every school in the district.