Heightening security measures

District adding lockdown ‘buckets,’ cameras and ‘ready access’ doors

When a cross country runner was stabbed in front of Taos High School this week, the Taos Municipal Schools District was already in the midst of following through on a pledge to raise campus security levels and taking a proactive approach to addressing potential threats to students and staff members.

Valerie Trujillo, the district’s interim superintendent since Dr. Lillian Torrez’s retirement last month, noted that, at the time of Monday’s stabbing, the district’s “cameras had been upgraded, so that allowed us to see the event, which helps the investigation. But this was an after-school event unfortunately, at the end of the day when 700 students are going home and parents are coming in to pick them up. The schools sites safety coordinators are meeting to see what we can do [to increase security] after school.”

Meanwhile, many of the items on a long list of planned security upgrades have either already been purchased or are in the process of being purchased in order to reduce the possibility that Taos schools could be targeted by an active shooter or other form of violence. “Lockdown buckets” containing emergency supplies are among the items already in place for the district.

With the uncertainty surrounding any school lockdown, which are often short due to false alarms or easily resolved threats, but which could extend for hours, the contents of a 5-gallon lockdown bucket — identical to a hardware store utility bucket — could save lives. Items stuffed into the buckets include: duct tape to seal doors and windows in case of a chemical spill on or near a school campus; first aid kits, surgical gloves and compresses to stop bleeding; safety goggles and a pry bar; flashlights, glow sticks and a whistle; rehydration pouches, a radio and blankets; biohazard bags, toilet paper and sanitary wipes. Women’s period products didn’t make it into the bucket, according to the list printed on the outside of it.

Since they come complete with a snap-on toilet seat, what students and staff would be able to deposit in the buckets during an emergency could also make classroom lockdowns significantly more bearable. The buckets are also meant to enable students and staff to shelter in place, exit school buildings and gather at family reunification centers. The family reunification center for schools in Taos, for example, is the Sagebrush Inn and Conference Center. So far, 250 of them have been distributed district wide.

Much larger “family reunification kits,” which resemble a pickup truck toolbox, contain orange safety vests, ID tags, clipboards and class rosters to aid in accounting for all students after an evacuation and to assist students and staff in reaching the reunification point safely.

“They haven’t come in yet, but also every office and classroom will have a grab-and-go backpack so a teacher could grab in a fire drill or in case they had to evacuate the building,” said Trujillo, who noted that “their lockdown bucket stays in the classroom.”

“Communication is key,” Trujillo said, noting that all district staff now carry walkie talkies.

On a related note, the district is aiming to have at least two easilyaccessible portable defibrillators in each school building, is planning to stock bullhorns around every campus, and already has Narcan, the opiate overdose-reversal drug, readily available at all of its campuses.

Other items the district is in the process of purchasing include “ready access door” systems, which will allow a school employee whose job is dedicated to campus security and surveillance to “buzz people in after they identify who the person is,” Trujillo said. “And once they’re in the building, someone like [Administrative Assistant] Linda Sanchez here in this building, for example, would then run their driver’s license through a system called Raptor.”

“It basically runs a National Crime Information Center check,” added Marcos Herrera, the district’s new safety coordinator. Herrera is also a lieutenant in the New Mexico Mounted Patrol, an all-volunteer state law enforcement agency that dates back to the territorial era.

Mark Flores, board of education president, called Herrera “a very capable individual,” during last month’s school board meeting. Trujillo told the Taos News on Tuesday (Sept. 20) that “we did have our safety officer on the scene right away, and we did have Marcos there — he was phenomenal.”

Herrera said there are 19 new surveillance cameras slated to be added to district campuses. Currently, there are 50 cameras installed at Ranchos Elementary School; 63 cameras at Enos Garcia Elementary School; 135 cameras in and around Taos High School; and 156 cameras at Taos Middle School. Administrators like Trujillo and Herrera also have the ability to look at live feeds from cameras on their computers and mobile devices.

“I can access every camera in the district right now on my phone,” Trujillo said, adding that “the simple things,” like staying on top of basic window, door and lock maintenance are equally important.” Students and staff across the district are now encouraged to always close doors behind them and to close any open doors they happen to observe during the course of the day.

Gunshot detection systems are no longer deployed exclusively to American inner cities; schools are now installing them as well. It’s something school officials are seriously considering. The district was given a demonstration of the detection system, which was originally developed by the U.S. Department of Energy, this week.

“This amazing technology has driven the security industry to new territory by combining both indoor and outdoor gunshot detection on the same technology platform,” Trujillo reported to the Taos Municipal Schools board of eduction last month. “If it’s detected the doors immediately shut. It uses advanced algorithms to analyze firearm discharge — it can actually identify between, let’s say, .22 or a semi-automatic rifle. Another thing we’re implementing is the Rave Panic Button app.

“The app is free,” Trujillo told the board of education last month. “We’re working on training our leadership team on Sept. 26 on how to use the Rave Panic Button in the event there is a situation.”

In addition to the panic app, which actually consists of five panic buttons — one for active assailants, one for fire, one for medical emergencies, police emergencies and one for general 911 calls — Trujillo said the district will adopt the STOPit app, an anonymous reporting system that students or staff will be able to use.

“It’s basically self-reporting,” Trujillo said. “If there’s a student feeling like they need to report self-harm or any type of suicidal ideation” or to report a fellow student who is threatening to bring a weapon to school, “this is an anonymous way to report it.”

Trujillo and Herrera said that repeated risk assessments at each school campus have also included recommendations for proactive behavioral measures to prevent incidents from occurring in the first place.

“We’re a non-punitive behavioral management system at Taos Schools,” Herrera explained. “I’m trying to get kids back into the classroom by getting them what they need rather than through school suspensions.”

By lowering the intensity of interactions between “attendance success coaches,” who do their jobs within a less punitive way than did truant officers in decades past, for example, Herrera said the district wants to cultivate a culture that doesn’t provoke frustration and resentment among disciplined students.

“We’re looking at everything when it comes to risk assessment,” Herrera said. “It may be a faulty door that needs to be fixed, or anything to do with property, but also social emotional learning stuff — like trying to find ways to help kids before we get to that point where a student feels driven to commit violence or self-harm.”

Trujillo noted that the district will be holding an active shooter drill at a school campus in the coming weeks. Were there to be an actual active shooter or other threat to school safety, she said the district has partnered with Kit Carson Electric Cooperative to issue text alerts to the community.

“This last situation we had, I contacted Michael Santistevan [KCEC public relations coordinator] and he sent it out to everyone,” Trujillo said, referring to a social media post that officials interpreted as posing a “direct and indirect threat” to Taos schools, spurring them to close campuses and switch to remote learning on Aug. 19.