Graham ISD provides new school year safety, security update

To keep up to date on safety measures within Graham ISD, the GISD Safety and Security Committee meets before the beginning of the new school year. The group met last week and discussed ongoing safety initiatives and procedures from the district.

The committee met Thursday, Aug. 8 and were provided an update on safety initiatives such as an interior electronic door locking system. In April 2023, the GISD Board of Trustees approved fund balance purchases for safety window film at a cost of $115,000 and a keyless, wireless interior door locking system at a cost of $196,000.

“That (installation) is still ongoing. It’s been a long, arduous process. ...I know they’re still putting in some hardware and stuff at the high school. ...Hopefully that’ll all be done before the first day of school. If not, it’ll be shortly thereafter,” Superintendent Sonny Cruse said. “...Those new badges that we print pictures on are the entrance key, and then as soon as they’re fully functioning we’ll get all those to all the officers and you’ll have full access to every classroom door, which will be really handy.”

In June 2022, Gov. Greg Abbott charged the Texas School Safety Center (TxSSC) and Texas Education Agency (TEA) with directives to support the safety and security of public schools. The TEA released guidance in July 2022 for required actions for districts with TEA and TxSSC planning actions to improve public school safety.

Two of the actions from the agencies were to conduct a Summer Targeted Partial Safety Audit and an Exterior Door Safety Audit. The safety audit is designed as a self-assessment of a school system’s safety and security, according to TxSSC. 

As a part of the audit, districts must inspect every exterior door of each instructional facility. Random testing of exterior entryways is also completed from the Region 9 Education Service Center for GISD.

“They will randomly come to the district and pick a campus and between the beginning of the year and the end of the year, every campus will be audited at least one time, if not more. ...They’re going to come in and they’re going to try to breach the system from the exterior,” Cruse said. “If they can’t breach it, then they come in and they’re going to ask to see the weekly door sweeps. We’re still required to do weekly door sweeps and door monitoring and those sorts of things.”

During the GISD Board of Trustees meeting Wednesday, May 15 the board approved a recommendation for replacement of interior cameras at Graham High School and Graham Junior High School for $196,000, which was partially funded by a grant. Cruse said the installation of those cameras was completed over the summer.

The campuses have been utilizing the CrisisGo safety application as a silent panic alarm system for drills to get used to the application in case of an actual emergency. That application can also be used for locking down the campuses.

“Everybody gets a (notification) to lock down. It immediately notifies emergency first responders that we’re locked down and also it gives a geocode. …We’re going to see a geocode so we can see where that person is. ...It just reminds (teachers) to follow the Avoid, Deny, Defend protocol that we already have in place,” Cruse said. “...Should we get into a reunification situation, ...the teacher is going to see the class roster there so they can… click every kid’s name... so we can locate every kid.”

GISD completed district-wide Civilian Response to Active Shooter Events (CRASE) training last year and this year incorporated new educators. Part of that training is developing a plan on how to act in an emergency situation.

“We went back over the CRASE training with all our brand new staff. Remember, annually all staff recreates their CRASE plan, because you might have a new environment. You may have changed classrooms, you may have changed physical spaces in the building,” Cruse said. “...That (training) just asks every staff member to look at the environments they’re normally in. ...They’re going to think about, in case of a situation where they need to go into the ADD protocols–Avoid, Deny, Defend–they’re going to think about, ‘What am I going to move in front of the door? What am I going to block that door with?’”

The teachers create a written CRASE plan and use grade-appropriate language to share that plan with students at the beginning of the school year.

“We go over it with our kids. So at the secondary level, they’re going over it multiple times. They’re going over it multiple periods,” Cruse said. “At the Pioneer level they’re just going to tell their kids... ‘Hey, if a bad guy were to come into this room, here’s what we’re going to do.’ The teacher and or the instructional aides are going to act as the air traffic controller (and say,) ‘Hey guys, we’re going to move these set of desks here, these chairs here, these cabinets here in front of that door.’”

The superintendent said everyone should have a badge on a campus whether that be an employee badge or visitor’s badge.

“We should all be asking for where the badge is,” he said. “If you see a visitor without a badge, we should stop them and we should not direct them to the office, we should escort them. ...All visitors, even if they’re a vendor, should have a badge or a visitor pass at all times.”

One of the biggest safety challenges for the district at the beginning of the school year is traffic control around each campus.

“Anytime anybody goes to a new campus, or if they’ve moved in, even if they’ve been here before, they act like they forgot all the rules,” Cruse said. “That’s the biggest challenge we have on campus is just following the rules. ...We’re tight at every campus. ...Pioneer is the best situation because we have a lot of room to stack, ...but at Woodland and Crestview, there’s no place to put people.”

The two biggest rules for the district are to always keep doors locked and when you see something to say something.

“If we do those two big things, I would venture to say 99% of all things are going to be taken care of,” Cruse said. “We’ve not had a bad situation, and we pray that we don’t, but I think we’re as prepared as we can be and we’ve got great first responders.”