Santa Cruz County Grand Jury • 2017-2018 • Agency Response

Santa Cruz Police Department's response to Grand Jury findings*

Published: August 24, 2017 8 pages
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Note: Missing finding numbers detected: F6, F7, F8, F9

Findings 2 findings

F5
Seven of the ten districts have a specific threat assessment plan; those districts without a plan are less able to respond effectively to threats. All of these reported that local law enforcement was aware of their plan. X AGREE PARTIALLY DISAGREE – explain the disputed portion DISAGREE – explain why Response explanation (required for a response other than Agree): Santa Cruz City Schools has a threat assessment plan that was developed and implemented with assistance from the Santa Cruz Police Department and Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office. The threat assessment plan and response guidelines follow Safe Schools and FERPA recommendations or requirements. All Law Enforcement and Fire agencies have trained for a multitude of threat scenarios that can occur at our schools. The response plan for Public Safety is sound, however; command and control roles and unified command issues still need continued development and improvement. County law enforcement also has an Active Shooter Response Protocol in place and have trained on operations covered by this protocol. Schools have also received training regarding Code Red (school lock down procedures) and active shooter response. However, those districts that do not have a clear threat assessment plan and have not trained on the plan may hinder public safety response during a critical incident. The school staff and faculty can greatly enhance or hinder public safety response. Clear protocols and guidelines in a threat assessment plan will help teachers, administrators, and all school staff know in advance what their role is in one of these situations. In addition, the threat assessment plan must be trained to all school faculty so that everyone knows in advanced what steps they can take to mitigate safety risks. Not having a plan and not training on the plan will hinder the school's ability to effectively recognize a threat or respond during a critical incident. The Santa Cruz Police Department's SRO is currently working with the Sheriff's Office and the County Office of Education on developing a county-wide threat assessment and response guideline. This county-wide threat assessment plan will assist in ensuring that all school districts and public safety entities are able to communicate effectively and share information and intelligence efficiently within legal limits. The plan will also assist in establishing a unified response to threat incidents. FERPA and student rights will be clearly outlined and identified in this threat assessment so that student privacy and confidentiality is respected and adhered to. A county-wide threat assessment will ultimately ensure that there is consistency throughout all school campuses and each jurisdiction is trained and proficient in implementing the plan regardless of where a threat occurs in the county. Respond by August 14, 2017 Assessing the Threat of Violence in our Public Schools Santa Cruz Chief of Police
F10
Not all local law enforcement agencies have personnel trained in assessing threats of school violence, leaving them less able to assist schools. X AGREE PARTIALLY DISAGREE – explain the disputed portion DISAGREE – explain why Response explanation (required for a response other than Agree): All law enforcement has trained their personnel on how to respond to school violence. Each agency has a team of officers who are trained and have "expertise" regarding assessing threats of school violence. These in-house experts are tasked with teaching school staff and their departments on threat assessment plans and the response actions needed to handle school violence. However, not every officer or deputy is trained in assessing school violence, nor does every front line officer have the expertise to train school staff on assessing school safety threats. Every agency does have "experts" who need to continually train staff and new officers in assessing threats to schools and school safety. The command staff needs to ensure that this training occurs and is continual and updated. Police departments need to also prioritize working with the schools in developing threat assessment guidelines and protocols. These guidelines and protocols need to be in line with current training standards that will then need to be taught to all law enforcement and school personnel. The threat assessments and school safety plans are only valuable if all public safety and school staff have been educated and trained about the plans, procedures, and protocols. A further improvement that needs to occur is the amount of information sharing that occurs to public safety from school staff and administrators. There are clear guidelines and legal limits regarding what student information and other school records can be shared with law enforcement pursuant to FERPA. The threat assessment plans can help establish when and how this information sharing can occur. It will also guide school personnel as to when they shall, versus should, contact law enforcement due to a perceived or real threat. The SRO's should be tasked with working with the schools at developing this information sharing. In addition, there should be clear Memorandum's of Understanding between the school districts and law enforcement regarding the sharing of confidential information. Respond by August 14, 2017 Santa Cruz Chief of Police Assessing the Threat of Violence in our Public Schools

Recommendations 5

* This report's PDF did not contain easily extractable text and required Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for analysis. There may be minor errors in the extracted findings and recommendations due to OCR limitations with scanned documents.