Ep 33 | How Do We Keep Our Kids Safe At School?

SPEAKER_02 0:00

If I'm a parent, I don't care. You know, if if my kids don't come home, and what I what I tell people routinely is if my kids don't come, come home. Nothing else matters. I don't care that you did it 99% of the time, you have to do it all the time.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Welcome to the Voices United in Education podcast. Each week we showcase the teachers, administrators, and community members who go the extra mile to contribute to the success of every student in Escambie County. You'll meet the real people behind the titles and learn about the amazing resources to support every student's success. If you were in high school after the 1990s, you're not a stranger to the need for campus security. In between our dial-up internet and Pepsi commercials, we saw frequent news coverage of the latest shooting. Fast forward to today, and school safety feels just as urgent as it did then. In February of 2021, the Florida Department of Education recommended the synthetics crisis alert solution for school districts to comply with Alyssa's law. The law, named after Parkland shooting victim Alyssa Elideff, mandates Florida public and charter schools install a panic alarm system activated by a mobile device. My next guest makes it his business to not only know the technology, but to also find ways to prepare and unite students, staff, and community members for the safety of kids in Escambia County public schools. Today he's going to share why this tech is different, how it works, and what you can do to help keep your kids safe. Florida Grown, UWF graduate, director of protection services, Kyle Kinzer. Thanks for being here. Hey, you're welcome. I uh I think student safety is something that every parent thinks about, worries about, and it never fails after a shooting incident. It's always something that we see simple something that if it had been done differently, it the situation would have had a better outcome. And it just kind of cuts us deep. I'm curious from your perspective, you know, what are some examples that come to mind when you think of simple things that could have been different from the right.

SPEAKER_02 2:20

So, you know, what I talk about daily is doing the little things. Because if you don't do the little things, you can't you can't get the big things right. And so little things in Escambia County, the state of Florida, the nation, things like no different than our house, locking our door. How many of us when we grew up, we never locked our front door? Well, you have to lock your doors now. We know that. Um, out of school, it's things like locking gates, making sure that we know who's coming in through the campus. So, you know, these basic concepts, you know, how they apply to everywhere you go. They're just not unique at schools. But, you know, unfortunately, you know, when we start talking to kids, you know, we look back at what we could have done. How can you tell a parent that that that we're wrong? And if I'm a parent, I don't care. You know, if if my kids don't come home, and what I what I tell people routinely is if my kids don't come, come home. Nothing else matters. I don't care that you did it 99% of the time, you have to do it all the time. And so we we have to practice what we preach, we have to make sure that we're locking doors, we're doing those basic steps every day. And so when you look at, you know, situation like Parkland, you know, they invested millions of dollars in Broward County for fencing. But if folks aren't locking the gates, that money is is no good. Um so we we focus on things like that. And you know, we have a lot of parents that you know, when we started putting in fencing, uh they complained because it, you know, it lost the feel of a community. And you know, folks wanted to be able to just walk to a classroom until something happens. And then, you know, we all start to understand why we can't do those things anymore. So, you know, it's a balancing act because it is a public school and you know, we need to be open to the public, but we also have to keep our students and our staff safe. So, you know, the little things like making sure we have classroom telephones, you know, things that you know when you look at Parkland in the building 12, there were no telephones in any of the classrooms. Um in an intercom system, there was no intercoms. So there's no intercom? No intercoms in building 12. So when you think about what we do here in Escambia County, things that you know we all know are basics, they're not necessarily basics to the entire state or the entire nation. So um, if you go back a few years ago, so uh the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas Commission was impaneled, and Sheriff Gualtieri, uh, I believe from Pinellas County leads that commission. So something that I know for Ascambia County Public Schools that I'm very proud of is if you go and watch the Senate hearings with Sheriff Gualtier, he was asked, hey, there's a lot of counties in South Florida that don't do it right. Can you tell us one county out of 67 that does it right? He mentioned Escambia County. We're the only county mentioned, you know, by name. And he says that we get it. And and and I think we do. And don't get me wrong, we're not perfect. We know that, but we work every day, we do what we we're supposed to. We have the right policies, the right procedures, the right uh partnerships. You know, we have a great partnership with the Escambia County Sheriff's Office, Pensacola Police Department, our emergency operations center, 911 center. So we talk to those folks daily and make sure that the campus is safe. And, you know, a lot of parents they get those, you know, phone calls and saying, you know, you your student is in a lockdown or an elevated security um state at your school. And a lot of folks get upset and they start calling. Well, what are you guys doing? What are you doing? And what I tell every parent I talk to is that should be a reminder that there are processes and procedures in place, that when we see things, you see something, you say something, and then you do something. You put that school into lockdown until you can figure out what actually is going on and then it's safe to return to normal operations.

SPEAKER_01 6:00

Yeah, I think it's tough to be excited about fences and security operations because we all wish for a time that those weren't necessary. Right. But in preparation for our discussion, I got on, you know, university Google and tried to find out when was the very first mass school shooting. And it was back in like the 1700s. So unfortunately, this seems to be a human problem, you know. Um, it's still a tragedy, but it's not necessarily unique to, you know, our time.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

Right.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

It's more frequent.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 6:37

But the it's not unique to our time, which is even more depressing. But I think that's why it's hard to get excited about, you know, oh, we have a fence, and you know, because it just reminds us that these things are reality and it makes us sad. But they're important things to think about.

SPEAKER_02 6:53

Well, and and too, it's not unique to schools. You know, you know, in Scambi County, we know Naval Air Station Pensacola a few years back. Um, it's a reality. This can happen anywhere. But I think it gets more of a highlight, you know, it gets a lot more, you know, news, a lot more time on the air. Because when you start talking about kids, everybody cares. You know, adults, we are all in, you know, car accidents, things happen all the time. But if a bus full of students is an accident, that's a serious issue. And you know, we we have to know as a society that, you know, anything can happen anywhere. We just have to be prepared. And so for me, it's see something, you say something, and then you have to respond and do something. We can't assume that someone else is going to take care of us. We have to be responsible for our safety.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

When I was in high school, um, I the Littleton, Colorado shootings happened and I went to high school in Nebraska, and that had a big impact on us because, you know, that was like our neighboring state. And even with all of that, um, there weren't a ton of robust security measures on campus. We had people visiting all the time. And honestly, you could just walk in during lunch. And if you looked kind of student-ish, you could just go to any table and sit down and start conversating with, you know, a student. Um and so it it wasn't there weren't good systems in place then. And and now we have this synthetic system. But what was in between that? And you know, the time where I was not present to see what was going on, what's what was in place that isn't working that makes the synthetic system needed and an upgrade?

SPEAKER_02 8:34

Well, and and really what it is is that you know, I I think you have to look at the process is that when you dial 911, what happens after that? What is how much time does it take? A typical response time is about 10 minutes. So if you think about how how many times, okay, I hear something. Do I call? Do I not call? What the synthetic system does is it says here at your fingertips is an immediate way to say, hey, I have a problem. So now I've said I've had a problem by clicking that button, we already know where you're at at that point. We know that we need to send folks because the only reason you'd be clicking it is because it's a serious incident. But a lot of folks are hesitant to call 911. There's there's this reluctance. And so what we want folks to know is that hey, we're gonna have mistakes. There's gonna be accidental, you know, hey, I thought I saw something, you know, ended up being nothing. You know, we had a school event that you know was in the news a couple of years ago. Turned out the person thought it was a rifle. Turns out it was actually an umbrella. Guess what? I'm glad somebody called. And so, you know, we have to, you know, we have to praise people. And we can't also get upset with folks when they see something that, you know, maybe maybe they weren't quite a hundred percent accurate. But for me, I'd rather call them. That's what they're there for. Call the police, have them come. You know, they can't can't do anything if you don't call them.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

That's true. So before the synthetics, before, you know, what did I say, 2021, before that state, Florida state law went into place, what was this, what was the procedure? What was the standard operating procedure for uh an event?

SPEAKER_02 10:16

So a typical event, you know, if you're a teacher on a campus, if you see something, what do you immediately do on campus? You buzz the intercom system, you let the front office know. The front office inherently, I'm gonna tell you, they're gonna want to go investigate before they say, hey, I'm gonna call 911. So if you think about those lapses in time by the time you hit the intercom, by the time that an administrator or resource officer goes and you know investigates what's actually happening, this delay in time is crucial. When you look at an active shooter event, a lot of these events are done in five to eight minutes. If it's taking you three to four minutes to investigate something, these events are long over by the time that law enforcement gets there. And so any type of notification system that can instantly get that message to law enforcement that, hey, we need you on campus, that's important. So, you know, I think we've recognized with Alyssa's law that there is a need for that immediate notification. Um, you know, that gap, that lag, that couple of minutes, those are those are people's lives. And you know, if you go back to Uvaldi, Uvaldi that that was a challenge. And even that's something that's happened after Alyssa's law. Um Uvaldi, you know, that that event started at a at a personal house. And you know, we knew now that if an alert went out to the community, that maybe the school could have gone into lockdown. There was there was a lack of communication. So there's a recurring theme of communication is getting the folks and the resources where they need to be. And that's what the system does is it tries to consolidate that communication. It tries to get it directly to where it needs to, and to get that communication to as many folks that can receive it. What's great about Syntjecs is that as soon as you hit that button, the school resource officer, the school guardian, and the principal will know who activated the system and where they are currently at on campus. So if they're in room 105, they'll know that it was Ms. Jones in room 105. That same notification then goes to the 911 Center and also to the Sheriff's Office and Pensacola Police Department.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

All at once.

SPEAKER_02 12:20

All at once. And then a map will actually pop up on the screen at the 911 Center and the Sheriff's Office and PPD dispatch to let those folks know. So whoever's responding, hey, it's Miss Jones, she's in room 105. So as they're doing that, also the folks on campus will get an alert to their cell phone. So those pre-identified folks, the administrator, the guardian, the resource officer, they'll also get that alert, hey, Miss Jones in 105, I need to head that way. So it's everyone getting that communication at once. And if you think about prior to this, that communication would have taken time. If you think about what happened at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas, by the time that they had the school in lockdown, the shooter was already outside of the building and leaving. So we know communication is important. And that's not just for these types of events. The communication is important in your day-to-day lives. So the quicker you can get that information, the quicker you can respond. You can take preventative measures, locking doors, making sure doors are closed, making sure the fences are locked, everything that you should be doing, but you have to know what's going on.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

And you say push a button, where is the button?

SPEAKER_02 13:24

So we have this button that is, it's basically a separate badge. And what we do is we've put it behind our already identifiable school district, you know, badge that you have. So a lot of folks may or may not know this. Those badges provide access throughout the school. So they're not a physical key. This is a key that'll get you in anywhere you go. So that front side that's helping identify that, hey, I'm a I'm a person that should be here. And hey, I can get throughout the school while keeping the school safe and secure. So on the back side, there's a button that you can press. So you continuously press that button until you start seeing strobes go off throughout the building.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

So you can't accidentally hit it.

SPEAKER_02 14:02

No, it's not something you would accidentally, it's intentional. Um you have to hit it several times before it goes off. Um and then what it does is actually you'll see the strobes visually, and then you also get buzzes from the actual badge to let you have that feedback to know that it's working.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

So Okay. So that is very different than you know, you have to run and hit the, you know, we've all seen that scene in the movie where you run to try to hit the button that's underneath the desk at the bank, for example. So it's it's with them all the time. And that's what's GPS tracked so that emergency services know exactly where that person is.

SPEAKER_02 14:36

So it actually uses a separate network that's on the school. So if you look throughout our schools, there's different um systems that we've had to install um along with the strobes that kind of give you that that that exact location of where this person is. So there's there's struggles with GPS. And you know, anybody that's pulled up GPS on their phone and kind of sees where that dot is, it moves around a lot. Um and it's getting better. But one of the challenges, we need to know specifically where you're at. Um and and the other challenge is there's privacy concerns.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

Right.

SPEAKER_02 15:05

And do we need to know where you're at at all times? No, absolutely not. Um, if I told you that this badge could tell where I'm at every single second of the day, how many of our staff members say, you know what, I really don't want to wear that? But what I can tell you, it only knows where you're at when you activate it. And that's something we've shared with all of our staff members, with our administrators.

SPEAKER_01 15:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 15:26

It's just just when just when you're on our campus and you've activated.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

So when you're wearing it or say it's in your center console, it's your car because you're a teacher and you're driving home, it is not activated.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

Correct.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

It's only when there is an emergency event, correct. The strobe, the vibrator, whatever, it's all going off. Okay. That is really interesting.

SPEAKER_02 15:47

It is. And the other challenge is we have a lot of folks that are transient. And you know, you know, there's probably a better word, but transient, where they may work at, you know, one school today, another school tomorrow, or they may work in a department that services a lot of schools. Think of transportation, maintenance. Those folks, wherever the whatever school they go to, it will work on that campus. So that that's an awesome tool for them. So you may not be, you might be cutting the grass at the PE field, and you see somebody, you can activate it.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

So that brings up a question because our 911 territories are a little interesting here, right? Um, one side of my street is city and the other side is county. We had the house across the street burned down one Christmas. And that was a very interesting uh situation for the firemen because um they they asked us, the people standing outside watching the house burn down. Hey, are you city or county? We're like, well, this side of the road's this, and that side of the road's that. And I have found that when I've called 911, it can be a little confusing even for the operator. Uh, you know, we've got, I think I called the ones within a national park. And, you know, if I'm on one side of the street, it's one 911 protocol on the other, it's another. And so you have these uh teachers, especially like uh music teachers who travel around and they they're not in one building all the time. How does that work with this system and our confusing invisible lines that are driven drawn all over the county?

SPEAKER_02 17:14

That that's a great question. So I will tell you, I've learned more about the ins and outs uh being a part of this implementation that we've been working on this for close to two years. Um so we've tested this at every single location to make sure it's good. Um something that I didn't know until I moved to Escambia County, look for the trash cans. The blue trash cans are the city, the green trash cans are the county. Um and as you said, it it's a maze. Um but what's unique is that we have, you know, really the county 911 center, the PPD, the sheriff's office, we have them working together to make sure that that that it's seamless. And you know, we we have experienced personally no challenges with that. Um it's it's easy because we know that that school is either in the city or it's in the county. Um, but all of these partners are getting the notifications. So, you know, if you think back to the um the active shooters situation on NAS Pensacola, we didn't just say the Navy's gonna respond. We all came.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

Oh, they I was outside. I was on Davis Highway. I was driving a student to school, and I was on Davis Highway, and I saw more cop cars than I'd ever seen in my life. I think at we drained every single police officer in the whole county, not just the city, but I think everyone went there. It was incredible. It gives me goose when I'm thinking about it.

SPEAKER_02 18:33

It was. I was I remember that day I was at Warrington Elementary, which is, you know, not too far off of the front gate. And, you know, for hours, cars just kept coming. And that that makes you feel good to know that we all support each other. And what makes me feel good is, you know, and I know we're gonna talk about our Guardian program, but you know, you see these other shooting events where folks don't go in. You know, you wonder sometimes in some communities, okay, are they going to respond? How are they going to respond? We don't have to wonder here. We know how the sheriff's office is going to respond. They go in, they take out the bad guy. That's what they did. So that feels good.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:09

And, you know, and you know, I can't wait till we talk about our Guardian program because I'm I'm so proud of what we have here in Escambia County.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

Yeah, well, let's talk about it. Let's do it. What's the Guardian program?

SPEAKER_02 19:21

So, you know, we we talked about Marjorie Stoneman Douglas earlier today. And at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas, they had a school resource officer. And I think that made a lot of people feel safe because they saw the cop car and they said, Hey, there's there's a good guy with a gun, and that should make you feel safe. But when those shots started, you know, firing cop was kind of MIA. And we all know that's not a a typical response by law enforcement. But unfortunately, that's how people felt that day. And then you see another incident like Ubaldi where the kids are dying, they're being shot. And so that day, February 14, 2018, there was a coach, Coach Aaron Feiss. So Coach Feiss is going into building 12 because he heard shots were being fired. He didn't hide behind a building, he went in. And when he goes in, he's almost immediately shot by the shooter. So he wanted to help. He wanted to respond, he wanted to stop this person. But what were his tools? He didn't have any. Um at that time we didn't have guardian programs in the state of Florida. But after that, the legislature created the co-chair and vice guardian program, which allowed school staff members to be trained by their local sheriff's office and they can carry a a concealed weapon or they can open carry. There's a lot of different ways that you can institute the program, but basically you're trained that this is someone who is proficient. So to pass the training, you have to shoot at an 85%.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

Oh, that's that's a that's good. Yeah, that is good. I think most people who own a gun cannot pass that.

SPEAKER_02 21:03

Well, and it's and it's not just doing it, because we all talk about it. You know, if you if you're a hunter, I can sit there for two minutes and I can, you know, put one shot and do it exactly what I need to.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

Do a nice inhale, slowly exhale, and then shut your shot. That's not what happens. No, it's not.

SPEAKER_02 21:17

So we're talking from 25 yards. That that's a that's a pretty good distance. And you have to do it accurately because guess what? You're working in a school. And when you miss, you hit kids, you hit staff members. So we need folks that are accurate. And that's what we have is we have folks that shoot well. And not they just don't have to do it once, they have to continually to re-qualify every year.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

Aaron Powell That's really good. Does that training involve like how to handle the adrenaline dump? Because I feel like that's an important aspect of an emergency situation.

SPEAKER_02 21:49

Aaron Powell Absolutely. So what the legislator did is they said 144 hours of training. So they took certain pieces out of a law enforcement curriculum and said, okay, you've passed this 144. 44 hours of training, you're good to go. And what I'm extremely proud of is when you look at Escambia County, you know, if you think about a lot of trainings, you go in, you show up, and they're like, okay, they already have the certificate printed.

SPEAKER_01 22:12

Yeah, totally. Yeah. It's a little theater. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:15

Not not here. So if we have 20 people start a class, we're probably going to graduate eight to ten.

SPEAKER_01 22:22

Really? So that's actually very reassuring.

SPEAKER_02 22:25

And it should be.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

Because I hear all the time, you know, my own parents about like, oh, you should have a gun. And I'm like, I'm not against having a gun, but I'm not also not committed to the training to continually be proficient at having that gun. Just the ownership and carrying it doesn't mean that you're going to immediately have a built-in solution to an emergency high stress problem.

SPEAKER_02 22:50

It's it's a challenge. But I will tell you for our Guardian program, and this is not unique for us, it's it's a part of the curriculum. So 80 hours, the same 80 hours that a law enforcement officer would have to go to through to be to be certified, is the same training that we do. It's the same trainers, it's the same range. We actually carry the same weapon as the sheriff's office. A lot of our folks are retired military. A lot of them are retired law enforcement. And, you know, with those professions, you it's a high stress position, you know, profession. So a lot of them they can retire a little bit earlier than you know some traditional other professions. But a lot of them have a lot of useful years left and they don't want to sit at home. They want to go do another career. And, you know, this is a seamless transition where they're still serving their communities and it's a great schedule.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

And they have a background check, I'm assuming.

SPEAKER_02 23:35

Oh, they have a background check. So we do polygraphs for every single person. We do a psychological evaluation. So they're sitting down with a doctor and saying, okay, you're okay. You're gonna do a complete background check. Law enforcement's gonna go knock on the doors of your neighbors to check on who you are.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

There you go.

SPEAKER_02 23:51

And so, you know, we we we proudly say 40 to 50 percent that we graduate. But if you really look, out of the 20 people that apply, we only we may only take two or three of those folks. So it's very hard to come into our program. Um, but it's very rewarding. When you're walking around a school all day and you're doing those fifths bumps, high fives, they appreciate you being there.

SPEAKER_01 24:13

So yeah, that makes a big difference. And how many of these folks do we have in Assambi County?

SPEAKER_02 24:19

So we currently have close to 40. And so if if you're ever at an elementary school, most of our elementary schools have school guardians. Um, you know, our middle schools and high schools, we have resource officers. And and that's the way we're gonna stay, is that we've always had resource officers in our middle and high schools for years. And um, but the school guardians, especially at the elementary level, they do a great job. You know, with resource officers, there's definitely some issues where you run into crime, things where you really need a sworn law enforcement officer on a campus. But a lot of times in elementary school, we just need someone that's there to protect the students and the staff.

SPEAKER_01 24:51

And the high schools and the middle schools all have the synthetics program now?

SPEAKER_02 24:56

So our synthetics program is everywhere throughout the school district. So whether it's an administrative building, a school, a charter school, it is throughout the school district.

SPEAKER_01 25:05

That's very reassuring. And then you also have the guardians in the elementary.

SPEAKER_02 25:10

Yep, guardians in the elementary. But you know, that's another, you know, from Marjorie Stoneman Douglas, we as a school district, we have to have what's called a safe school officer at that campus from bell to bell. So once we allow students to come on until they're gone for the day, we have to have someone there. So that's something that we do in my office to make sure that, hey, there is a good person on that campus with a gun ready to step in when needed.

SPEAKER_01 25:32

I find your position really interesting because it's uh an a unique intersection between technology and human behavior, right? So the best of human behavior, the military retired folks that want to still be in the elementary schools, literally guarding the children and the worst of human behavior, which we all know what that looks like. But the technology is I like that your approach is not to lean 100% on that technology, that it's also to equip, you know, staff on how to respond. Can you speak to how you train um staff members on an emergency situation?

SPEAKER_02 26:15

So we have a couple different ways that we do that. So we we do a lot of train the trainer type type situations where we meet with our administrators, we review what the expectations are. Um we also have some, you know, no different than any other training that's kind of standard you go over. Um but also on top of that, you know, you can tell somebody this is what you should do, but we test it and we test it monthly. So if you think back, you know, I I I told the story one time where, you know, I was in my 20s and I was at a hotel and the fire alarm went off. Well, how do you know what to do? Well, I had to think back to when I was in school when the fire alarm went off. Well, I left the building. That's what you did. And, you know, how many times, you know, do our kids tell us, hey, this is what you're supposed to do? Well, how did they know how to do it? Well, because they learned it at school. And so it's no different right now that, you know, we grew up with fire drills. We do lockdown drills. And so we do that monthly because we want to test different, hey, this is a scenario that could happen here. What if it happens when we're at lunch? What if it happens when we're transitioning? What if it happens when we're in the library? How do we respond? How are we prepared? Because if we test it, and then it actually does happen, we've done it before. We think back, hey, this is what we were supposed to do, and we do it. So it's unique. But I can tell you that we also work with the sheriff's office. We visit sites, we participate in drills to make sure that, hey, we want all eyes on this. How can we do better next time? And we've been doing those drills monthly now for years.

SPEAKER_01 27:43

And that was with the students?

SPEAKER_02 27:44

That's with the students.

SPEAKER_01 27:45

Oh wow, that makes sense when you said, okay, we did fire drills as kids, and then our you know, parents did uh, you know, uh atomic bomb. Right, right. And now these kids are doing these active shooter situation drills.

SPEAKER_02 27:58

Aaron Powell So if you're a parent, and this is something that's unique. I talk to a lot of parents, and you know, they get concerned because they see something that happens on the news or they see something on social media, and I said, This is what I want you to do. I said, Don't take my word for it. Ask your child. And you know, what we do is I do tours of schools, and I I don't listen, I don't trust people. That's just my nature. Uh but if you go ask a student, hey, where what are you supposed to do? They'll tell you. They don't know that somebody's coming to audit, somebody's coming to look in to see what you're doing. What do you do? So as a parent, ask your child, what is it that you do when you go into lockdown at a school? And I guarantee you they'll tell you what you do. And so we have to have those conversations. And you know, I I think about it at the house. We do that monthly in a school. Have you ever had that conversation with your child at the house? What do you do? How how do you just act when somebody knocks on the door? You know, so you know, we have we have expectations, and you know, we have to just constantly live those expectations where every day that we're prepared. And you know, and I know some people say, hey, that's sad, you know, that we shouldn't have to live like that. I want to keep living.

SPEAKER_00 29:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:09

Life is good.

SPEAKER_00 29:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:10

And and I I gotta tell you, I love my kids, and you know, I I get excited that that a kid knows now what to do because we told him how to do it. That when they're now at work, when they're 25 years old and they hear something going on, they can think back to when I was in middle school and this is what we did.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

I like that. Yeah, that's true. You um you mentioned about parents talking with parents. Do you have any tips for parents on how they can even take it to the next level and help keep their kids safe while they're at school or just in a, you know, at a movie theater at a mall?

SPEAKER_02 29:47

Well, I can tell you there's two things, you know, and and I I talk to parents daily. Taking it to the next level is important. But sometimes we got to go down to that basic level. Are we having those conversations? Are we talking to our kids and just saying, hey, what's going on? Tell me about your day. You know, we we want to come up with some secret recipe. We want to read a book by somebody we saw on TV. Do we just talk to our kids and say, Tell me about your day? How'd it go? And oh yeah, by the way, they're on their iPad, they're on their phone. What are they doing? Do we even know how to look at what they're doing? That's important. Because guess what? They know what they know what they're doing. They know more about their iPad, their computer, their phone. They're doing things that I learn every day because we live it every day at a school system, but most parents don't know what they can or cannot do. And it's scary. And when you try to explain explain to them, hey, this is what happened. No, not my kid. Well, it's it's not what I saw with my eyes, it's what I can show you. And yeah, you have to have those conversations, and it's and it's hard, but you know, being a parent is hard, it's not easy work. But you know, I I can tell you for us in the school district, we're with your kids sometimes more than you are. And that's not because, you know, you don't want to. We all have lives, you know, some of us have varying work schedules, but we care. And you know, you have to remember you have thousands of folks that care about your kids. And I love working here for the school district, but I promise you, not a one of us does it for the pay. Not a one of us does. And you think about most jobs, what's rewarding for me is you're punching that clock. I'm I'm not driven by time frames. This is a 24-7, you know, job. It doesn't stop. And it's so rewarding, so rewarding because you see the impact every day that you're doing, and knowing that our kids are safe, that that's pretty exciting.

SPEAKER_01 31:49

I would agree. Thank you so much for coming and sharing about this. I think it will give parents a lot of reassurance. And I love your tip of talking with your child, not just at them, but listening to what they have to say. Yes. They have kids have great intuition to you know, see, well, how do you feel at school? Tell me about, you know, your classmates, tell me about what's going on on your tablet, on your phone. Those are all wonderful. Thank you so much for doing this.

SPEAKER_02 32:18

Well, and one more thing. Just don't do it when there's a problem. When there's good things happening, just don't wait till there's a problem, but talk about things you know, positives. There's so much in the world that that we have to be thankful for. And there's so many positive things that are happening, and we sometimes wait until there's a problem. You know, if we can get to those when it's a small problem, it's a lot easier to deal with.

SPEAKER_01 32:38

Well said. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 32:40

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 32:42

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