• 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.