School Security SOP's/Plans

Training Training and Tactics
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IMHO this isn’t a federal–nor a state–issue; it’s a local one. Every school is different, every community is different, and no two schools have the same set of available resources.

As a retired Army officer and a current high school teacher this issue has been near and dear to my heart for some time. Our SRO, our front office staff, administrators, and a few faculty and staff members have worked together to tweak our security plans over the past few years. We’ve done drills to respond to most likely threats and discussed contingencies that would cause us to shift off our base plan.

The only good to come out of this tragedy is that community members who haven’t expressed interest in this issue in the past are now getting involved. We already had under-the-table plans to get tools in the hands of those with the mindset and skills to use them, but we’re now getting enough support to make these contingency plans more official.

I’d like to applaud the OP for getting involved and for doing so in the right way. Well done.

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From one retired Army Officer to another, would it be possible for you to share any of your documents/plans/etc? Much easier to heavily plagarize than to reinvent the wheel :slight_smile:

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I’d love to, if our ability to actually write things down didn’t suck. Our written Crisis Action Plan is mostly bones, with no meat.

The most progress we’ve made is in the area of what I’d loosely call “C3I”–specifically, we have a plan to use the intercom (which is accessible from the telephone in every office and classroom) to issue instructions, and we have two separate, reasonably secure, locations where the school’s camera feeds can be viewed in real-time. Key staff members have radios, with the capability to interface with local law enforcement. We have a full-time, armed SRO (a retired state trooper, and a great guy), and there is an AR in his cruiser, which multiple trusted individuals have keys to.

We’ve also broken out of the “cower and hide” mindset. Several of our classrooms have access to the outside, and those teachers have designated rally points if they have the opportunity to get their kids out of the building. I happen to be one of those teachers, and after my kids are safe I go back in to perform other assigned functions.

Some of the situations we’ve drilled include responding to threats at times when the students aren’t in classrooms (inter-class breaks, lunch periods, etc.). As an aside, I don’t know if I’d do such drills with elementary school kids, but it works for high schoolers. We’ve also considered the possibility that an intruder might attempt to use the fire alarm to bring students out of secured classrooms or use a hostage to gain access, and we’ve briefed staff members on appropriate responses.

Finally, we’ve also tightened up our access controls. We had problems with teachers leaving exterior doors unlocked and with students opening doors for others instead of forcing them to use the single authorized entrance (which has an electronic lock and requires the receptionist to “buzz” visitors in).

Since Sandy Hook our board of education is mulling over the idea of allowing principals to be armed, and our sheriff’s office has volunteered to provide training, but whether or not that will happen remains to be seen.

That’s all I can think of at the moment, but if I come up with anything else I’ll share.

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Yep, writing it down is the difficult part for people who’d rather just do it. But, I spent enough time in Operations to be able to write it out. I’m keeping all this for future reference. Also looking forward to what the NRA puts out as stated in their press conference.

Please continue to share as it provides a resource to work from. I’d like to know more about “appropriate responses” you mentioned, if not publicly, then via PM if you wouldn’t mind. I understand for every action there is a reaction, and not everything in any plan should be publicly available.

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Update: Good news: School sent out email today with 1st meeting date of 31 January. Bad news: Looks like it was sent to almost 50 people. That’s way too many it will be like herding cats 10 would have been enough. But we’ll see.

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Okay, I went to a local college that offered the reserve academy at the County’s expense that I live in (southern lower Michigan). I then "worked’ for the county for 10 years doing everything that a regular officer did except sign tickets, (they tried real hard to keep the reserves out of the courts because we had regular jobs). If I remember right , we were required to work 20 hours a month at that time. Mostly 2nd and sometimes 3rd shift. When the dept had training, we would do the same as they did at the same time. The dept that I am with now is pro-active and allows us to do more that what the county did. We are able to patrol by ourselves, do traffic stops, and stuff like that. Some of us have shown a level of proficiency with the AR-15 and can carry them while on duty. This dept requires us to work 16 hours a month and are ‘on call’ after our regular jobs. If you do get involved in police work, it’s tough to walk away. The regulars will be kinda ‘cold’ for a while until they get to know what you will do in different situations. Cost? if the dept you are thinking of has everything, that’s good. This one did not and I bought everything including the radio. Just depends on what you want to put into it. Good luck and have fun.
PS: I’m 61yo and have’nt grown up yet. Later, Bob

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For those of you asking about “reserve officers” I can tell you how it works in Texas. In Texas you must be a fully TCLEOSE (our state POST folks) certified Basic Peace Officer. This requires a minimum of ~600 hours of training (I believe the actual number is 634), a full time academy usually works out to about 3-4 months. Night/part time academies are usually 6-8 months. No agency will accept you as a reserve without your basic, you’re not a law enforcement officer under Texas law without your TCLEOSE basic license, and having your commission carried by an agency. I would imagine most states are the same.

Even after you get your TCLEOSE basic peace officer license you still have to have an agency carry your commission. If they don’t you are NOT a law enforcement officer under the law in most cases. Carrying at a school, would be a very bad thing at that point.

I applaud you guys for being interested in helping out, and the only thing I can suggest is checking with local schools and see if they’re interested. If they are, pursue the local LE agencies and see if you can work something out.

I’d also recommend having your local schools check out the “Standard Response Protocol” as published by the I Love You Guys Foundation. I had the opportunity to hear the founder speak at an active shooter conference last year, his daughter was killed in an active shooter incident. What they have developed is a very good system, that beats anything DHS/FEMA/etc. has put together by a long margin. It’s simple, easy to train, and easy for even young children to implement. As a full time LEO, with a long time interest in active shooter response, this is one of the best things a school could implement on the software front.

On the hardware side, if your school is interested in putting some money towards school safety, target hardening is probably the biggest positive thing they can due. Hiring guards, reserve LEO’s etc, is great for the short term, but the budget will feel the pinch eventually and they will no longer be there. Adding breach resistant doors, breach resistant windows, etc. to both the exterior and interior are a one time expense. Working with local LE, FD, and other agencies will ensure that the school gains a large increase in external/interior security, while still remaining within fire code. Sandyhook occurred because the gunman was able to breach a window near the door. Something as simple as smaller, higher off the ground windows might have prevented the tragedy. Get with your local agencies and see what can be done. Federal buildings, state buildings, etc. all are required under current DHS guidelines to have these type of exterior physical security enhancements. Use them as inspiration and a guide.

Lastly don’t focus just on the active shooter. An inattentive person with a speeding SUV could probably cause a higher body count simply by plowing into a group of kids waiting for the bus. What other security features an be added to prevent this type of accident occurring?

-Jenrick

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Thanks bobn and jenrick - much appreciate the time & effort you took to respond. I suspected the answer on reserves, standards and training was going to be as you described, but I’d rather know that up front, than have a first contact and come off as a total ignoramus (or worse). I’ve got a senior contact at the local PD now, so I’m going to approach him for an initial talk next week. I’ve also got to get HH6 on board, or at least socialized to the concept.

I hear you Jenrick on the personnel cost over the long haul for armed, on-site “security” (of whatever stripe). I’ve done some research, and some of the nearby towns have full SRO positions at the middle and high schools, while others don’t seem to have them at all. I think it’s safe to assume that there is exactly zero money available (or likely to be added) at the state or local level to fund anything new; hence my thought to make this a “this won’t cost you anything” proposition for my own case (if it gets that far).

I also appreciate the other thoughts on target hardening, SOPs (the original thread topic), and other non-active shooter threats. I will definitely expend some more energy on those, although the same money issues will likely come up with regard to target hardening as well. I’ve only just gone through it quickly, but http://iloveuguys.org/srp.html looks like a great resource - many thanks.

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Update: I talked last night at a school event to our private school’s coordinator for this project (he’s retired mil). He believes the odds of an active shooter shooting up the school is way lower than a FF incident involving an accidental discharge with an armed teacher (I agree), and is more concerned about a domestic violence incident - I actually saw a parent shoot his wife’s boyfriend in my school’s parking lot in 1979 - so he’s not real big on specifically arming teachers at this moment. I also consider this the ‘nuclear’ option and want to pursue the others first.

He did share that we did get some ‘pros’ on our committees. We got a police chief, a deputy and a TBI agent, two lawyers on the legal committee, and a MD. We talked about different levels of improved security (mostly training and plans) that do not require additional expense yet improve the security posture.

Most importantly, our school is NOT designated a ‘gun free’ zone, which means cc holders are legal and accepted (as compared to ‘encouraged’ to help with liability/insurance issues) to carry on school grounds. He pointed out a few people at our event that he was pretty sure were armed, and even stated some of the teachers had permits. Which means they could CHOOSE to be armed without the school actively ‘promoting’ it. That takes care of my conundrum about carrying or leaving outside.

In my mind, that’s a pretty good first step, because that means SOMEONE is most likely armed or has gear nearby with the school ‘looking the other way’.

I’m going to go read the resource linked above thanks for posting it!

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Whomever posted the link, THANK YOU. This probably saved us about 95% of effort we would have expended otherwise.