001well thank you for being here this evening my name is Tracy lopan I'm the superintendent of the Maricopa Unified School District um um it is uh certainly encouraging to see uh the turnout that we have this evening of staff and and students and parents we appreciate you very much for carving out time for this event um I want to I want to acknowledge our board members who are here um uh we have um our our Mr Downey our board president miss coute our board vice president uh board member Carolyn Lopez um and you know we also have our principles here tonight your principles so it's important that we acknowledge them as well because they're they're the um boots on the ground who are the actual implementation of everything that we're speaking about today everything that
002you're curious about too I want to introduce uh we have a a a nice group of people a a group of experts this evening who will be um sharing their uh sharing you know the guidelines and and and wisdom that informs the steps that we take um in extreme situations and in everyday situations as well so we have Chief Mark Goodman we have Captain Jud we have uh detective Elliott and detective Clement they will all be contributing to our uh information session tonight we also have Miss Tracy Pastor administrative assistant superintendent for administrative services and Michelle Terry director of communications uh the way tonight is going to go is we have about an hour uh to um hear from you and to have you offer um ideas and and concerns and then we we're going
003to be able to um provide you with the guidelines and plans that inform our responses a couple things I want you to to keep in mind is that we requested questions in advance and with those questions we could prepare um our uh you know be concise in our delivery uh we got about 30 questions and there were some Trends and some topics and you have those questions in your packet so I'd like you to look at those questions every question you're going to see duplicates because we didn't eliminate duplicate so you'll see the questions in there after we con you consider those questions what I we'd like to do is open up for additional questions or questions that that aren't quite captured in those that were shared online and so we'll we'll dedicate some time
004to hear from you questions and comments that are not already captured in those questions so we can add to that list and then we'll hear from our officials our district and U Maricopa Police officials about um in response to those questions it was those questions that from which we created our presentations so um we know that this is a very um you know provocative topic um the the events that are occur occurring here in Maricopa with the threats and the the threats and carried out threats that are occurring Across the Nation are anxiety-provoking terrifying um horrific and so I know that's what drives you you know drives your presence here tonight and it's what motivates uh our invitation as well so we know that this can be highly emotional and we can be really we
005can be passionate about our um thoughts and concerns when we're when we're having the dialogue tonight we want to make sure that we keep it respectful um that we stay on topic and that we're thoughtful of everyone being able to participate uh in the in the conversation um and remember that you're going to you're you have a folders with guidelines we've we've printed the guidelines that that inform form our response and remember that those are guidelines that's a plan from which we can deviate because no situation occurs like it did in the textbook or like it did at the workshop teachers know that teachers know because they become experts at monitoring and adjusting same as parents it's it's not as easy as it looks right so um the guidelines are there uh for for us
006to have a plan from which to deviate if necessary as circumstances emerge and then finally our session tonight is live streamed and it's also going to be taped for um for for people to view later so I can see that you're looking in your folder um and um we'll start by again asking you to review those questions for a couple minutes and then we'll uh we'll start passing the microphones around for a few few minutes to add to that list of questions and then at the end of the night we will wrap up by answering any unanswered questions that that may have that may remain after the presentation okay let's go e it's like a two-part so the first part is like uh accountability so like when the school students or people bringing weapons to
007school are the parents or necessarily the child so that's that's the question because is the parents registered in their name are there more accountable for the leaving their gun or leaving their particular weapons in that child's and then is it ours or the schools for not necessarily checking on that child or just seeing some of the signs some things are unnoticeable as well and then um the second question is um it goes to like we talked about it already but um I guess it's more about the the growth of the community of Maricopa and so I know we all building so how do we necessarily hone in on our children and so they're not necessarily falling through the cracks okay so my my question is um kind of more of a preventative notification system so
008I'm hoping that if something happens where a child makes it a threat that they're not allowed back into the school or the district um but what's being prevented from one that got kicked out of another school another District how do we not know if they're coming into our schools so in other words like what I mean is if a child enters our school and has made a thread are we going to get notified and then if they are in our school will we also get notified if they're in a classroom with one of our children my question is what are the lockdown AC shooter drills that the schools are doing now um my student who is uh sophomore at Desert Sunrise had a lockdown drill today and their basic lockdown drill they were instructed to
009pick up their belongings sit in the corner and be quiet I'm wondering why we don't have more effective training for teachers and students such as the Alice training hello um my name is Monica roas I work at Maraca Wells Middle School I work for this District I'm a stakeholder and I'm also a grandmother um I'm passionate about this subject because I'm a retired New York City police officer and I've worked in education for 14 years and in that process I've already retrieved two guns in school so I come from a very very passionate place my question is today for students who make threats at a campus um if they withdraw from school because that's their right to do and they don't get suspended before they withdraw how does the district handle that process because if
010they withdraw and there is no offense against them they have the right to go to another school within the district so my concern is if they leave any of our schools and go to another school let's say Tempe Union or Chandler or c a grand there's no record on filed that they made a school threat so they have the ability to go to another school how can we track that effectively so that we protect students within our state I see that they have uh some behavioral and disciplinary intervention plans can there be a in school or can several districts be involved in a program where some of these kids can and go and not be disruptive with all the other students um my question is with preventative has the district thought about the clear bag
011policy um I just had a quick question um so I am a middle school teacher in casr and my student or my son is a middle school student here and we experience the same things with threats on a weekly basis um just this week we had a vape presentation um have you guys thought about maybe having an assembly for students for um like threats um because I I feel like a lot of the students don't know um what could happen they they don't really know the consequences of making those threats so just a question I feel like a lot of students would benefit from that so as Dr lman shared you have some handouts in the folder and one of the handouts that I want to draw your attention is the one with look like
012a security guard sleeve across the top there so what we've prepared for you there is a a list of some of our safety measures and features that we have um we are very intentional about uh dedicating um funding and Staffing and the necessary resources to help keep staff and students um safe some of those features include locking doors and securing perimeters um um most of our sites have well all of our sites have security cameras specifically with most of them with a very Advanced fairly new system that includes facial recognition um so that gives us the ability to um scan for and make sure that a specific person is not captured on camera and we're um keeping an eye out for that individual also we um work with with administrators students and staff to make
013sure that we're practicing our drills and our drills include um monthly fire drills which we refer to as evacuations quarterly lockdowns and training not always um something we necessarily um practice in person they can be fairly disruptive but we have tabletop exercises that prepare us for reunification and um that would mean if we ever have an emerc um say a very serious gas leak or just various emergencies that can happen that would require us to go off site um we have contingency plans for that including transportation and all of the things and work with administrators to make sure that we're prepared for that um we also conduct audits of our classrooms the classrooms have eight different uh safety features and and they vary from um um lock down door magnets emergency backpacks that include first
014aid kits um emergency lockdown kits which um provide us for contingencies if we're ever in an extended lockdown and a classroom of students cannot leave for a long period of time very few instances of needing them but this is why you have these sorts of things um classrooms have emergency call buttons and um evacuation maps of course um something that we have so these eight features that we have in every classroom and other instructional spaces such as the library um administrators um conduct audits to make sure that we have those everything's operational and um a district off my department is a part of that audit as well um also I want to highlight the close collaboration that we have with Maricopa Police Department and panal County other um the city of Maricopa emergency planning department
015um we have a district safety team that meets quarterly we look at things like tabletop exercises we have a district safety liaison um Colonel kirs is here this evening um we have a consultant that comes in and provides uh training we do training with our security guards and our sro's um we're very proud of the fact that we are a District that was very successful in getting uh four SRO funded through the school safety program and six mental health counselers um through grant funding and um we enjoy working with them very closely and learning from them and we uh practiced something uh referred to as after action reports an after action report is done after an incident and it can be an incident as small as at one of the schools we had um a
016swarm of bees that was really problematic and kept everyone inside to something more serious such as an intruder or perhaps an incident going on in the neighborhood that the police has brought to our attention that we need to keep everyone inside for so what we do is pull everyone together usually within 24 hours while everything's still fresh in our mind to have this after action report and that's our opportunity for ongoing evaluation to learn from what went well and what we can improve upon and go back to um we have a um private obviously because it contains a lot of security information District emergency response plan very thick binder and um we will go back and edit those protocols if we learned that um we we need to tweak some of the procedures related to
017an event based on those after action reports um so first and foremost keeping everyone safe is what guides the decisions that we make in all of these situations first and foremost the next layer of what guides us is State Statute and our governing board policies and then our student handbooks which are informed by governing board policy but contain some of the more details so for your reference here is um a couple of things to know about there's a state statute 13 2911 which specifically says that interference to an educational environment is a classic felony and so that may be a threat but that also may be something um that uh an adult or a student caused a major disruption and um that is crime our governing board policies that you um can look at online
018and read more about that give you uh lots of great information about uh student discipline our three uh 5305 student code of conduct um details about that are also in the handbooks which you can find online we have Elementary handbook and secondary handbook the code of conduct section is in both of those and we have uh 306 gives us guidance regarding student discipline and then um procedure 306a is about suspension and expulsion and and we do have students that have um been arrested we do have students that have gone through long-term suspension and expulsion so those are the guiding um documents and uh laws and policies that give us governance over that and at this point I'm going to hand it over to Maricopa Police Department to talk about some of the things they do
019to help keep us safe thanks Tracy for those of you who do not know me my name is Mark Goodman on the chief of police of the city of Maricopa Police Department we did receive some questions through the parents and uh these are the three that I'm happy to address right now and I'm happy to stay after the meeting if there's any specific uh questions that you'd like to ask I'll share information to the degree that I can so ongoing investigations when we conduct a criminal investigation it's sometimes very important that we keep information uh private or limited to those investigating the crime some crimes in order to investigate them effectively we need to keep information that's known owing to the suspect to ourselves so that when we actually identify a suspect or further our
020investigation that we're able to know by talking to that person that they're actually involved in the incident they have information that the general public would not have so that's one of the reasons that we limit information that's released regarding our investigations also almost all of these investigations we've handled recently involving our students while involve juveniles and so we have to be very careful about the information release uh pertaining to juveniles tracking and mitigating threats so we do track the calls that we get in reference to school violence or School threats whatever they may be we take them very seriously essentially the instruction to my leadership and to my officers is that if we get a threat like this regardless of what time it is and we've gotten them at 2 o'clock in the afternoon and
021we've also gotten them at 2 o'clock in the morning we get them from various and sunry uh sources some of them are internet sources we have other laww enforcement agencies both uh State local and federal that we work with that might advise us of a threat and it's my instruction to my Personnel essentially to make it our highest priority in order to ensure school safety and the safety of our students and so that involves uh a very lengthy and timec consuming process during which I am personally involved in notifications to the district I'm involved in notifications to our City's EX team I'm involved in notifications to my investigative team and my patrol team and we do it 24 hours a day seven days a week that's how we track and mitigate threats we do it
022very actively the third is usually utilizing our sro's so we have four SRO as Tracy mentioned we have one assigned to each high school and one assigned to each Middle School on occasion one of those SRO may be direct Ed to an elementary school it's on an as needed basis but our priority is with those middle schoolers and those high school kids so that we can build relationships with them so that they trust our officers to give them information because we ask our students not to continue to post the threats that they see but to contact law enforcement rather than posting them and then in the junior highs is actually to you know really get the roots of those relationships started so that when they go to the high schools they see a police officer
023there and they're already familiar with our sroog so uh thank you for being here today I do appreciate your time I'm going to turn it back over to Tracy and I'm happy again to stay after we have members of my staff here also answer questions and we're we're happy to hang around for a little while answer questions you may have so I'm gonna introduce uh Michelle Terry our um Communications person but before I do just want to highlight um something that um Chief Goodman said um and which kind of Segways into how we do Communications and so as he said sometimes this information comes at all hours so the process begins to determine the level of threat and then part of that is um what communication needs to take place so what um we're going
024to learn about is how communication happens I'm GNA let you hang on to that one because I I need to balance um so often after we communicate um about an incident uh we get questions about how are we deciding um what we're communicating how often we're communicating and the timing associated with it um and understanding that um we're evaluating these incidents as they're coming in in real time so these are are B basic guidelines and you have a handout in your folder that kind of outlines um what our processes right um first be before we even go into the process I I want you to know that um regardless of where it falls or it ends up on the urgency scale it every report is investigated um so it may fall under um a lower
025urgency situation at some point but initially when we get that report um it goes through all of the same scrutiny as a high level threat would additionally we have questions about um my student you know I have um a student at a middle school and they were in lockdown but my elementary student didn't get notified or parents at the elementary school didn't get notified and the reason we do that is because we try to focus our communication on the schools that it's affecting first um and we do that because number one um we don't want to create um concern amongst families who it doesn't affect immediately um but also um we we often notice sometimes when families are inundated with a lot of information and we're continuing to communicate the feedback that we've gotten is
026this is too much so we try really hard to balance between those that are lower urgency where we can kind of um communicate when um they become escalated and those who are just really high urgency that they need immediate notification because we want parents and families to pay attention when those um when those notifications come in one of the questions that we received was why don't we get text messages and the the answer is we do um we have a notification system that calls calls all of our parents or has the capability to call all of our parents um provide text messaging and also um use email so if you are not getting a text message um and it is an urgent situation we need you to contact your school because you may have inadvertently
027opted out of text messages or maybe there is something the matter with what is in our student information system and we want to make sure that you guys are getting those in a Time manner so in terms of urgency um what you can expect in a really high urgency situation that will trigger a lockdown for instance um imminent danger if there's an intruder on campus or we've received an active bomb threat you're going to get a notification and our goal is to do that within five minutes that first communication that you receive for from us is not going to have a lot of details it's going to tell you your student is in a lockdown situ situation and that more details will follow when you receive that notification you can always expect additional information to
028follow so in those really high alert situations you're always going to get a followup and we're going to do that through phone text and email there are some other situations that may not be super high alert but they're still on our radar so those moderate urgency situations like um indirect threats that we're still confirming with law enfor enforcement for instance or maybe we have a chemical spill at one of our our schools and it's causing us to evacuate a certain part um we we gauge those on a case-by Case basis so um sometimes parents will get a phone call if it's an emergency and they need to come and pick up their children and sometimes we'll communicate just with an email to let you know we're aware of the situation it's under control and kids
029aren't in any imminent danger and then there are those lower urgency situations where we are getting unverified um reports and we've looked into it and for instance it tends to be a nationwide Tick Tock Trend or something like that we will hold off on communicating those things broadly to our parents um unless the situation escalates so can escalate in a couple of ways if we're getting a lot of parents who are reporting and they're calling and saying hey we're super concerned about this we know that it's being circulated on social media and we want to make sure that you know that we know and that it it is not a a founded threat and then there are some instances where it's limited to either individual Kos for instance um a threat that is um directed
030at one student or um a a group of students um and then we'll communicate individually with those families um and typically not a schoolwide or a districtwide um communication so like I said the reason we have these levels is because we don't want to overwhelm our audience with um information we want you to continue to pay attention when it matters most um and again if you are finding that you're not receiving information that you feel like you should um your first step should be to call your school to make certain um that everything is working properly on that end and you're able to get those notifications so check your contact info um and with that I will turn it back over to Tracy so we wanted to talk a little bit about about mental health
031and the prevention side of things as I shared earlier um we've been successful in securing school safety funding um for a number of our Mental Health Counselors um but we also commit other District funds and we are able to provide we have a mental health counselor at every campus um including um additional counselors at the high school level um these counselors are um available for school-based counseling but also a great resource for referrals to communitybased mental health and we have partnered um formally through M and also for Less formal Partnerships that we have with um many different agencies and many different providers but just to highlight a few we have some of them right here uh laf frona impact and Horizon are two big ones but you have you see the other ones there and
032so if you are curious and you want to get more information about some of these communitybased uh Mental Health Providers or what we offer within the realm of school-based counseling um our counseling web page has all of the referral information a referral can come from a student a staff member or a parent um and it can be it could start at looking at school-based counseling and perhaps progress to see if um they're interested and and there's a need for communitybased I also want to highlight another couple of of aspects of prevention that we have we are just one of three districts um in the state of Arizona that have a large Federal samsa uh Affiliated grant called project aware and project aware is a five-year comprehensive grant our community uh project manager noala per is
033here this evening if you want to get more information afterwards she'd be happy to help you learn about project aware project aware specifically helps us to improve the infrastructure of systems that we have in place for U mental health support for um a students um staff as well but primarily focused on our on our students and then uh the other thing I wanted to talk about is uh what happens with uh a threat that is received and what does that look like at the school level so all administrators have received training in seag which stands for comprehensive school threat assessment guidance and it comes from a well-known school psychologist and youth violence expert um Dr Dy Cornell this is Across the Nation um in several States um and seag helps us to identify students that
034may need some early intervention and to also help us through a decision tree prioritize what level of a threat is this is it a substantive or not and be able to um make decisions based on um a research backed um system that helps us do that and um from there um it may uh develop into a safety plan um there were a couple of questions and I I can speak to some of the specific questions about what happens when a threat happens and if a student withdraws and all of those things but something that is important to put into context and kind of highlight why it's so important and we're so proud that we have this strong um partnership with uh ameropa police department is because we can't assume that if a student withdraws or
035is expelled and that we're never going to see the student in the community in the school and and and that person does not present um a safety risk of some sort so communication about what happened especially in these higher level incidents and working closely with the police is very important um and so those are some things that I wanted to highlight under mental health and prevention parent support and involvement we need your help there are many ways that you can support at your schools and be involved um as Dr lman pointed out all of our principles are here this evening so if you want to learn more about being a part of your school safety team being a part of your site Council um PTO um we have safety and discipline Task Force at the
036district level I have uh a parent representative on my district safety team but I'm always welcome to More um and so there are many opportunities to um continue to be a part of this important conversation and we just really appreciate you all being here tonight and starting here um recognizing warning s signs and fostering a safe uh School culture um we're all in this together and appreciate your support and a key part of of that is what happens on social media and so we cannot repeat enough that we need students and adults to report not repost a lot of what we're dealing with right now are viral post that in the end we find out it was never directed nor initiated in from anyone in the city of Maricopa but something that they're seeing across
037the state or sometimes even across multiple States so um the reporting is what's really helpful we do have an anonymous tip line and um that is um closely monitored and of course if anything needs to be handled in an emergency basis call 911 but if there's something that you would like to report um information about our anonymous tip line is in the folder as well and and um also wanted to highlight um so I mentioned this school safety program is part of the Arizona Department of Education we happen to have um a musd parent who is also a part of that team and he's coming out on November 19th uh along with another member from the SSP team to um have a an hour open to Administration staff parents anyone who's interested um will be
038doing an hour on situational awareness and Internet safety and so if you want to be more Vigilant and help monitor Snapchat or whatever um you allow your child to be on but you'd like to learn more come and and be a part of this um it'll be very informational they've been doing this across the state and um we're we're really lucky to have an musd parent who's a part of our of our team and be here to to help us and deliver more so with that I'm going to hand it back over to Dr lman um just one more um piece of information in your folder um before November 19th we've gathered a list of apps that parents can start using um between now and then um to get you started on helping you monitor
039your child's social media activity um there are a number of them in there um some may work better than others for your family but we encourage you to explore all of them um and that's um really just one key tool that you can start using right away 5 o'clock thank you so I'll call on my friends to help answer some of our unanswered questions in this more informal part for as long as it takes um I really appre appreciate these questions um accountability uh are parents accountable are the schools accountable um yes um you know there's a term there's a legal term liability with a with a legal definition and if it comes to liability liability is determined by a third party based on the facts that's the the legal definition where we can we
040can start to Loop in accountability but we're all accountable we all have ownership which is why we invite you in to link arms with us to talk about how we can make a difference um and influence some of these some of these just the frequency of these occurrences that are you know it's it's bone chilling so um You' seen the trend that parents are legally being accountable now you've seen that if you're watching the news you recognize that um and and that's I know that's a that's a good thing because we see what's going on you know um so we we lean heavily on training we lean heavily on communication we lean heavily on the magic that our teach teachers do in the classroom and how often kids say hey here's what I heard and
041then we're we're working with our students to report things instead of reposting things as we saw earlier so because we all feel this tremendous sense of ownership and for our how our students feel at school every day we feel a tremendous sense of own ership regarding how parents feel when they're dropping their most precious cargo off in the morning so um that is a great question and um it's what it's what brings us all here tonight um there's some questions here that talk about how we how we kind of triangulate the the information and Miss Pastor alluded to that because of our uh cooperation and relationship with law enforcement um we do track kids just because a kid withdraws doesn't mean that they're not expelled just because a kid withdraws doesn't mean that they're not
042long-term suspended our principles know that um we we go through the process um so that we so that we can do everything within our jurisdiction to um create that create that record create that um seriousness for the parent to the red flag for the parents um so when when we discuss um a preventative notification system among districts it's almost like what uh law enforcement agencies do between County City State national when they're when they're address ing issues we have to we do have to have a better interdistrict system a better interdistrict um way to communicate about kids um and that's something that you know perhaps that goes through legislatively goes through the through the Department of Education but we definitely could benefit from that because there's a box on the registration form that says has
043your child ever been long-term suspended or expelled you you saw that box parents and you checked no well not everybody does that so noted so some of those questions addressed that like this preventative notification system um and students who make threats but withdraw and um and that one okay um so how do we hone in on children who don't fall through the cracks I think Miss Pastor addressed that by talking about all of the efforts uh and Investments that we've we've invested in mental and Behavioral Health interventions and again our teachers do a great job of connecting with kids and parents and um and then we we get we want to we want to bring in other professionals as soon as possible so our teachers stay stay focused on Reading Writing and math and we
044we access supports for those kids um in in the proper with the proper professionals um we do have a clear bag policy I or a no bag policy I think at the high school uh football games is that what it is I think it's the clear bag no bag so we do have that at the high school level I don't know if we have it at the at the middle schools but it's it's definitely Something That We're um open to advancing and um I don't know if our yet if our if our principales have done a specific assembly related to threats but I know in the beginning of the year our teachers and our administrators spend uh a lot of time on what is in that uh what's in that handbook and I know that
045as students kind of rise to the top um because they become more familiar in the office there's a a lot more intense uh purposeful conversations about discipline and making sure that that kids are aware of the consequences and that that parents are aware of the consequences and as you have heard um with these threats and you the law you know says we'll expel these kids and there's some other caveats that are associated with that um but these are you know life-changing consequen es and so our Deans and our assistant principles and our principls and our counselors are very clear with parents about those um consequences and then um uh we are doing lockdown drills we haven't specifically done active shooter training um we're uh grappling with that I stand before you that to tell you
046that it's it's devastating for kids to do active shooter training and so we we're balancing that we're navigating that um and so um stay tuned uh on how we how we progress down that road um Maro police would you like to to weigh in on anything I may have left out good evening my name's uh Captain Steven Jud I'm second in command uh supporting Chief Goodman at the police department um just a little bit of background that might be relevant uh to you from from me I was a school resource officer uh for six years as part of my career it was one of the most rewarding and um enjoyable parts of my job when I was a school resource officer I'm very supportive of that program and its unique um perspective and opportunities it
047has here in the mer amopa School District um but our sro's are not just on campus to provide security although that is one of the prongs of the SRO program one of the three prongs is to provide security and enforcement at the school um the other two prongs are mentoring and um um interaction uh partner building um with students and staff and so um and we we know that types of incidence with threats or active shooters or different things like this um that uh often times those are reactive by Nature um it's very infrequent qu it's very infrequent that when somebody actually starts to engage in those types of serious criminal behaviors that we know ahead of time and we haven't had the ability to respond to that right we're reacting as bullets start to
048fly right for instance the Georgia shooting you might have heard about that happened to a week or two ago there were two sro's on that campus they engaged that person immediately were able to stop what was going on but they were not able to stop from happening just because they were on campus certainly the response was much quicker and much more profound um and I believe they saved lives because they were there um but this is the kind of world that we live in right um that it is very reactive but what I want you understand um also is that um we have police officers patrolling our community 24 hours a day 7 days a week every moment of the day and night while you're sleeping we have officers patrolling while your kids are in
049school we have officers patrolling so if just because there's not an SRO on that campus we have officers that are ready to respond and be on campuses and help assist at any time um every single one of our um sworn police officers that work for our department um are highly trained in active shooter responses that are nationally Rec recognized and our best practice for law enforcement Across the Nation um and we are ready at a moment's notice to use those skills and resources that we have to engage that type of threat if needed that we never do right um but we prepare for the worst and hope for the best and that's the best that we can hope for and engage in right then the other things that we can do is work together to
050try to prevent to try to be more aware to try to engage our children and their friends and others in the community um by by watching social media by being engage actively engaged in our student our children's lives it's not a violation of their privacy to look at their phone it's not theft if you take their phone away legally that is not the case right even if they bought it with their quote unquote own money not the case right um my wife watches my social media and I'm okay with that right my kids our six children that we raised were not okay with it but they got through it and they lived it and they are better for it I believe um so we strongly encourage that type of Engagement that you report instead of
051reposting I cannot tell you how many times in a week that we get a response from a social or from a media Outlet here in town hey did this get reported to you because people are telling us this is happening nope nobody told the police department that that was going on but they told some body else who posted it on their Facebook and you know look out for this guy that just tried to kick in my door and the police were never called right and then that media Outlet calls us and say why wasn't their police report why aren't you doing anything about why why why right so it has to go to the right resources if it involves the school call that school talk to the principal or whoever the administrator is that takes
052those things if you have an issue with what's going on at the district level there's wonderful skilled and very um uh experienced Personnel like Dr Lan and Trace pastor and and all of these people at the district that know how to handle things at the district level and if the Maricopa Police Department need to be involved get us involved it's better to over report than under report because we like nothing better than to respond to a situation and find out that it's not a big deal right and then we can help qual those things as we go along so these are the things that we want you understand our commitment our direction from Chief Goodman just as he said is that we take these things very serious everything will stop in our shop when these
053types of threats and issues come up to us and we focus very hard on it um we have a leadership team that has hundreds of years of police experience not just here in Maricopa but from other places in the state and across the nation and we utilize those resources and that experience to engage the things that happen here in our city and then we have a huge network of both um state and federal law enforcement partners that um have more resources than we do that we can tap into as well so um with that if there is any specific question that um you have for us as a police department I Happ to take a couple questions um and then certainly Like Chief Goodman said we can stay and and talk um a little bit
054afterwards as well anything pressing from anyone okay thanks for time oh I got one wck there yeah yeah I love that that um I became an SRO right after 911 um there was a big influx of federal funds to try to harden soft targets after 911 um and schools were part of that in the I worked for the city of Mesa at that time and um so this was 2002 is and um we went from having um six bike officers that were one assigned to each of our high schools to having 24 SRO in our city um and I was part of that project um and when I parked my my patrol vehicle at that middle school that I worked at for the first two or three weeks people were calling every day why are
055the police at the school oh my gosh why are the police at the school and after about a month or two they're like why isn't the police car at the school anymore right so I totally recognize that and we we encourage our officers especially those that work during school hours um to take the opportunity to engage those types of locations go and park in the parking lot if you need to write a report go stop in and go into the um office and talk to the staff let them know you're around Patrol when the kids are out playground you know even go up to the fence and talk to them through the fence or whatever and we also encourage them to we had a couple of um we had a s a lieutenant and a
056sergeant out um some elementary schools today thanking the kids for or um drawing coloring pictures for 911 celebration um so we do engage at that level it's just not as much right because the the one the needs not there the the Practical the immediate need is not there the Practical need is as you as you mentioned and as we as we develop more resources within the department like community resource um officers and community outreach teams then we can have the opportunity to do that more primarily our Patrol officers H have to answer calls for service 911 accidents and those types of things but we do encourage them and I will share that with um my patrol lieutenants to pass that down to our sergeants uh to encourage our officers especially during the daytime hours when
057school is in session go by engage with those schools just like we ask them to engage with our business owners and um um you know people that are in the park or whatever it might be so thank you for that and we'll we'll certainly do our best to to do some more of that anything else yes ma'am you said is is amazing that you're doing this um but there is a program out there that's specifically designed for K through 12 school that empowers the students to be prepared and that's Alice training um I know that Phoenix police uh Phoenix schools has instituted this as well as Queen Creek um my daughter took the training in fourth grade fourth and fifth grade um it empowers the students their their actual motto is I'm not scared I'm
058prepared unfortunately in this day and age it's not so much of if this will H an active shooter will happen it's when and I think that our students should be prepared and know what to do and she can actually speak for that um I had the training in mostly fifth grade and I was scared because I was a fifth grader but it had like it gave us each the power of knowing we're safe and we can protect ourselves not just to sit in a corner and be terrified something could happen to all of us I I'm not particularly familiar with that particular program but I will certainly look for it I can give you one of my cards and if you whatever materials or website I know Mr Jenkins at Desert Sunrise has gone through
059the training great um I think it's just another tool to add to the tool box that you already have that I mean you know if even if it wasn't in elementary even if it was just the middle school and the high school um to empower the kids that also gives them which I heard from the school that they used to go to that the students were more apt to report something because now they're prepared and they know what to do and they were more willing to call and say hey I heard this kid say this because I don't want to be in that situation I agree education does work so thank you for that and we'll certainly work on some of those issues thank you Captain Jud and thank you it's always great to have
060the voice of a student that's you're you are our why yay thank you thank you other questions other comments yes a threat like every other day I'm at work or I'm at the hospital and I'm getting a call for my kids because they're terrified um that there it's just a threat and we don't know if there's really somebody AC there they're checking it out and they make you strip down before you get into school so how they would get something in there but you never know so I was just wondering is there enough police on staff with every you know how the population is grown assist with the schools at this point yeah thank you for that it's a good question um I will let you know that um the city allocates us 82 police
061officers in the city of Maricopa um that's our budgetary uh full-time uh police officers um we are just a few of those um positions down just it's a it's a small number as we continue to recruit and and train our officers um um but we could I'll third times a charm um so to answer your question I would say yes I cover the bottom it helps or doesn't work yes it does now okay um so um to answer your question yes um and we're we're always looking for ways to be more more efficient and more effective as a police department um and we're open to people's suggestions and ideas on how we can best police the community that we serve that's what our motto is is that we police the way our community wants to
062be policed and not just be the police okay we are guardians of your community that's what our intention is and we will do everything we can to to be that yes sir yeah I see here says that the teachers are taught to recognize threats is there any training for the teachers to deescalate any of the smaller threats uh yes um there one of the numerous uh trainings that they attend is um um trauma informed uh instruction or trauma informed practices which is in large part deescalation um and uh then also we do a Sabers uh assessment some of you may be aware of that uh that asks has 14 questions about social behavior uh academic behavior and um some emotional types of behaviors um and teachers are asked to um assess or or or note
063things that are out of the norm um because they're busy with Reading Writing and math um that gives them a chance to focus on that and then um access services for students for from someone who is equipped a coun a social worker or one of those outside Partners um so yes there there is a a level of training but we recognize that they can't be all things all the time to all kids and that's why we're here because we need we need um everyone to to you know step into the uh from the sidelines to participate good question other questions or comments yes Miss Nuno so I'm back to the Alice training I was trained as a teacher in Texas my husband and I um and it is very effective and um one thing I
064want to say too it needs to be understood it needs to be in the elementary level as well um we have seen on the news where a little kid had a gun and shot his teacher you know so it's not just our secondary students we have to for don't forget about those Littles because they also have the full capability of doing it themselves and we got to stop treating our children as though we need to shelter them we need to let them know what to do and one thing as this little this young lady said here my older children who are in high school they also are fully aware of the Alice training because they started in Texas and it was that's why they tell us my their social media they let us know and
065then we let the you know Administration know what's going on and they take care of it which is great hands down thank you musd for doing that um and but a lot of parents aren't like most other parents who are paying attention to their children and making sure what they're doing and the alerts so we cannot forget it's not just secondary I'm an elementary school teacher in CA Grand and we've had a lot of threats just in elementary with fourth and fifth graders okay fourth and fifth and in second grade last year a little boy brought a gun it was a toy gun but it looked real you know so it's not just secondary it is all of our Littles from kinder to 12th grade so that we need to make sure that we're understanding
066it is important in all of our kids thank you Miss Nuno so we have some homework we're gonna look into the Alice training for sure miss roas right here lastly I want to thank you I want to thank you Dr lman Miss Pastor the district I think this is extremely important thank you for doing this I greatly appreciate it and I'm not sure if you guys know but you know she you spoke about there being a trend across the country and I've been tracking school shootings for the last three years and this year alone we have 29 school shootings we have 58 deaths and we have 12 people that have been killed on campuses we have to be prepared and I know active shootter sounds extremely scary but we got to prepare our kids so
067I am willing to help in any which way you want me I'm here to serve I'm here to help I would love to be a part of that to help train our kids not to be in fear but to be prepared and again I want to thank you for this time I greatly appreciate it absolutely thank you Mr Roos um we definitely we definitely have some homework to do um what other yes yes it's for the YouTube people are we considering metal detectors for the middle schools as well is that something we should look into we're we can uh one of the one of the bullet points up there was ongoing evaluation so we are we are always considering every advancement we're we're always considering what's going to be our next step what else can
068we do to contribute to the sense of of safety for our students and staff so I don't have a timeline for you I don't have a definite yes or a definite no we are always looking at all of these factors having forums like this is um helpful to us as well thank you great question what else so we have homework you have homework your homework is to keep doing what you're doing which is is showing up you're showing up for your kids and you're showing up for your community you're showing up for your teachers um and you're you're it it really does make a difference um we know that the overwhelming majority of our kids do what they're told the first time every time out of 9700 students like most of them like 95% do
069what they're told the first time every time and um that's because of parents like you teachers like you administrators like you so your homework is to keep doing what you're doing keep showing up and talk to your friends if they're in that 5% their kids in that 5% that doesn't do what they're told talk to your friends about how you're in your kids business and how it's improving your relationship with your kid because you're on the same page about stuff look at those apps on how you monitor soci social media please I'm I'll speak on behalf of the parent of the principles we beg you get in their business on the social media and talk to your friends about doing the same thing and in that same regard um there used to be a narrative
070that these things were not traceable and that's just not where we're at now um there are resources available and it may not be the next day but please make sure that you are sharing with other parents and with other students if they're making these threats and they're thinking that that's not going um to be traced it's just not the fact anymore um Lieutenant Elliott has done a great job job with MPD um she is um the person just who heads up that department and she can tell you they're making strides um and you've seen that in our community you've seen that across the state um it it's happening share that with your kids all right um I can't I can't thank you enough I feel like we have a good family a good partnership here
071um that is also reflected in our relationship with city of Maricopa and the Maricopa Police Department we we couldn't be more grateful and feel more supported yes we have another question it's it's for the YouTube um with that last comment that you made is having an individual meeting like this at each of the schools where the the parents and the students come together so they can hear that because a lot of kids are under the pression that if I delete it you won't see it yeah but then having their parents there to keep them accountable right as well and certainly every disciplined situation includes includes a parent conference and I know our principles are continually um you know just parting that message we were we were profoundly thankful when we learned that Federal Partners uh
072were uh surveilling things going on on Snapchat we're like what and there this is this is where this is how serious this is that um Federal partners and our certainly our local law enforcement partners are are in your kids' business so you better be too right so um as Chief Goodman said we'll stick around um I if I I'm so grateful that you came out to this um we'll stick around for more conversation if if if you if you want to thank you