Safety measures at Broward schools discussed ahead of new school year
MIAMI - The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission, which was formed in 2018 to investigate failures that led to the Parkland school shooting tragedy, met for a second day to discuss the new measures that have been implemented to make sure all students and staff are safer at all Broward schools.
"Today, and every day we are laser-focused on ensuring that our schools are safe and secure and prepared in the case of an emergency, and that's to ensure that no family has to go through the horrific tragedy that the families went through on that horrific day at MSD," said Superintendent Dr. Howard Hepburn BCPS.
Broward Schools Superintendent Dr. Howard Hepburn took to the podium to address the commission on the actions the district has taken to make schools safer.
"Since we last met two years ago, we made significant progress on school safety and security initiatives and we continue to develop innovative solutions to the challenges that we face every day," said Hepburn.
Some of that progress he says includes tackling mental health.
"Our mental health services have been re-organized to include a new mental health department and expand it to ensure that all students are supported in every step in the academic journey," said Hepburn.
The policy regarding students who bring a weapon on campus has also changed.
"Beginning this upcoming school year, students who are in possession of a firearm or other weapon, who make threats to commit a mass shooting or bomb threat, will be expelled with continuing services reported appropriately to the Florida Department of Education," added Hepburn.
They now have safety and security-trained staff and administrators.
"Since we last met with the commission, BCPS has built a powerful behavioral threat assessment department that works directly with both public and charter schools to train administrators and staff about school safety and supports behavioral assessment to help identify issues and concerns related to student actions," said Hepburn.
Broward County Sheriff Gregory Tony was also there and discussed prioritizing communication and technology.
"We have made a lot of progress, but we still have a long way to go. Some of the things we were able to tackle early on were this concern of our ability to answer the calls for services, much more rapidly, the type of technologies are integrated to help us, redo some of the problems that we've seen in parkland and term of communication" said BSO Sheriff Gregory Tony.
There was a lot more that was discussed such as the metal detectors. The superintendent said that beginning this new school year, every high school in Broward County will have them and mentioned that as of January 1st, more than 4,000 staff members have been fully trained.