- [Angelica] We can be persuaded- - Three minutes.

- With food.

- Three minutes to live.

- [Panelist] Or no traffic tickets.

I kinda like that one.

- [Panelist] Do we need to advertise this in a certain direction?

- [Panelist] Okay, I'm not guilty of that.

- [Panelist] You don't go with button... (panelists talking over each other) - [Panelist] Totally button up?

But just the top button.

- Just the top button.

- Did you tell- (voice muffling) - [Panelist] Three buttons are out, right?

(voices muffling) They used to.

That's 90s.

- Okay.

- [Panelist] When can we get a t-shirt?

PBS t-shirt, do you guys hand those out?

Or do we have to buy 'em?

- I don't know anything about...

I don't have one.

- [Panelist] What?

Patience.

- I don't know anything... Oh, but she has one.

- Yeah, they- That's what I was sayin', yeah, she has one.

- I don't have one.

That kind of is making me feel bad.

- Two minutes.

Two minutes to live.

- Considering- - Used to get- (voice muffling) - Quiet on set, please.

(voices muffling) Just a reminder, make sure all phones and watches are silent, thank you.

(person coughing) - Oh Lord.

- Oh, wow, oh.

- There he is.

(person laughing) There he is.

- [Panelist] He's still there.

(voices muffling) - [Producer] One minute, one minute to live.

- Y'all did that on purpose, didn't you?

He's still there.

Still there.

It's still on the screen.

- Good evening, I'm Becky Ferguson, coming to you live from Basin PBS in the Anwar Family Studio.

Thank you for joining us tonight for a special town hall that we are calling Keeping Our Kids Safe.

This is not a show about being scared, very, very scared.

This is a show about taking school safety seriously and what has been done and is being done to ensure our children are safe so they can learn and grow.

One thing we in Midland and Odessa know for sure is that when our citizens are in danger, our first responders run toward that danger.

It's what we learned from the tragic active shooter event three years ago.

That is no small comfort in view of the recent tragedy in Uvalde, in which law enforcement held back.

The Uvalde shooting, both because it was recent in time and close geographically, may be much on the minds of many as we begin another school year.

And though it may be top of mind for some, it is worth noting that school shootings, like the one in Uvalde, are exceptionally rare events.

They actually occurred more often in the 1990s than recently, according to John Tierney, author of "The Power of Bad: "How the Negativity Effect Rules Us and How We Can Rule It."

"There is not an epidemic of mass shootings," says James Allen Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University, who has been tracking these events for decades.

"What is increasing and is out of control," he says, "is the epidemic of fear."

As Fox notes, "The annual odds that an American child will die "in a mass shooting at school "are nearly 10 million to one, "about the odds of being killed by lightning "or dying in an earthquake."

Of course, odds are of little consolation to families who have lost children in these tragedies, and we don't diminish those losses.

Yet, the low odds are worthy of note, but in an abundance of caution, local school officials, in collaboration with law enforcement, have and are continuing to take steps to keep our schools safe.

Tonight we hope to offer peace of mind as we hear from superintendents, school safety officers, and local police officials, regarding school safety measures.

We will also hear from a mental health expert about how parents can reassure their children.

Tonight's event is made possible through the generous support of Diamondback Energy.

We would love to hear from you, our viewers.

If you have questions for our panel, please visit our Facebook page, and we will do our best to get them answered for you.

So, let's get started by introducing our panel.

Ector County Independent School District, Dr. Scott Muri.

Midland Independent School District Superintendent, Dr. Angelica Ramsey.

Karishma Sarfani, Licensed Professional Counselor Associate and Family Medicine Mental Health Fellow with the Texas Tech Health Science Center.

Tim Allen, Midland Independent School District Emergency Management Coordinator.

Ector County Independent School District Assistant Chief of Police, Jeff Daniels.

Captain John Sikes of the Odessa Police Department.

And Midland Police Chief, Seth Herman.

Thank you all so much for making this evening a part of your day.

We're gonna cover a number of topics this evening, including what school officials have done to make buildings secure, training school personnel have undergone, collaboration with local law enforcement, balancing school security with keeping schools feeling like schools, and we'll talk about how parents might talk to their kids, how teachers and other staff members might care for their mental health, and how we can all build resilience as opposed to fear.

So we're gonna get started with questions, and I wanna go straight to our superintendents, and I'm gonna start with you, Dr. Ramsey, if I could.

I know you all have been busy this summer.

What are some of the things that you have done to make our schools more secure?

- Definitely.

So since 2019, MISD police have been doing safety checks at schools, and that continued this summer.

In addition, all personnel received training on their emergency operation procedures.

And I think that has been really, really important.

In addition, all of our elementary schools have a single point of entry, and that is now extended to our secondary schools for our junior highs and our ninth grade centers.

And I think that's a really important addition this summer for us.

- And just tell us a little bit about what you mean by a single point of entry.

How does that work?

- Sure.

So at our elementary schools, in particular, I'll just talk about that as an example, visitors have to be buzzed into the building, and then they actually have to go through a background check, a mini background check, with their license or their state ID, so that we know that it's safe for that visitor to be on campus.

And that's really important to us, especially when we're taking into account, like the tragedy in Uvalde, that we have one single point of entry at our schools.

And while that's very difficult at the high school level, we're still doing our best even at that level to keep it down so that we can ensure that who is in the school should be in the school.

- Dr. Muri, I know that the schools in both Midland and Odessa underwent door audits over the summer.

Can you talk a little bit more about that and what that means?

- Certainly, yes.

In fact, every school in the state of Texas has undergone a door audit.

So in ECISD we actually had our police officers conduct those audits for us.

Those have been complete, and we've collected all those data.

Specifically they checked every single door on every single building, every school in ECISD, to make sure that those doors were lockable, the locks were functional, to see if there were any discrepancies, any defects that needed to be corrected on every door within our building.

And then we were able to make those repairs before students started with us, but you'll find that happening in MISD as well as every school district in our state today.

- I understand you all also have added a lot of cameras.

Is that correct?

- We do, yeah.

So a little over 1500 security cameras all over our school.

So 44 schools and over 1500 cameras.

It's a lot of security cameras that watch the to and fro movement of our students.

Those cameras all feed, not only to the administrative office of each of those schools, but also to our police force.

So our police officers are able to monitor those cameras on a daily basis.

- Thank you.

Mr. Allen, you come to us from, come to MISD from Homeland Security, so you know a little bit about security, as do most of the folks sitting at this table, but can you tell us what staff training has been like?

- Well, the staff training has gone off really well.

There's a lot of excitement for everybody to be involved in training, as you that the more we practice things, the quicker we can react.

We don't have to go through long deliberation phases.

And then we're relying on that training in order to act, and we don't have to go through all the cognitive processing.

So, in summary, the training has been eagerly accepted, and everybody's lookin' forward to it.

We actually led off the district service center last week with a fire drill before the rest of the district started participating in theirs.

And just to lead by example, so.

- And I understand that teachers have separate plans for their classroom.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

- Of course.

So, we have a district plan.

All the campuses have their individual plans, but you can't do a cookie cutter approach in order to have an effective plan.

You gotta take into consideration your environment and how things work on the campus, and the most expedient way.

If you're evacuating, how you're gonna flow, or a fire drill to stay out of the prevailing winds, and things like that.

So, each one is tailor made in order to be the most efficient, and then we practice it.

- Chief Daniels, you had talked about how important communication is in keeping a school safe, and the importance of awareness, particularly related to to locked doors.

Can you talk a little bit about the training that you all have done at ECISD?

- With our training at ECISD, especially this year, we've adopted a policy where all classroom doors are gonna be locked, seeing what the issues that came, especially like at a Uvalde, it teaches us that our kids are safer behind a locked door.

It may not be as convenient for our staff and for our students, but safety is priority.

And that's one of the big things our parents and our staff are gonna see this year, is that keepin' that door locked is that first measure of security for our students and keepin' them safe.

- Chief Herman, you have shared with me that there was some SWAT training of Midland police officers and other law enforcement entities.

Can you tell us a little bit about that, who participated and what kind of training that was?

- Yes, ma'am.

The training included 40 different agency representatives from the local, county, state, and federal level.

It was actually hosted by MPD in collaboration with the Midland Fire Department.

The purpose of it was not just for SWAT operators, but specifically for ground troops, and to collaborate and coordinate responses on active shooter events.

So, we went through a week long event that included scenario-based training, as well as some specifics that we probably don't need to get involved with, but I think it's just the ongoing process that we conduct, actually, on a yearly basis.

This was just a little more, I guess, prolific, if you would.

It really brought everything home after the Uvalde event.

- And so I take it there's collaboration between all the law enforcement agencies and also MISD.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

- That is correct.

We work very closely with MISD, as I'm sure Ector County does with OPD and Ector County Sheriff's Department, Ector County Independent School District.

All these local agencies have to devote themselves solely to the effort of protecting our children.

The only way to do that is for all us to be on the same page.

So the collaborative effort with the MISD is ongoing, but it's very strong.

Their police department does an outstanding job, and I think we've done well working with one another.

- Captain Sikes, I understand you were leading the field operation at the active shooter event three years ago, and can you talk a little bit about what was learned from that event and how you would use it going forward?

- Sure (coughing).

Yeah, I was the first commander on scene at the Cinergy, and what, the main thing that I took from it was, we've said it my whole career, Odessa, Midland, we're on a kind of an island.

We're two hours from everything, and- - Or five.

- Or five.

And what I kinda took from it, sitting back, is when I looked around, there were so many different uniforms.

There were so many different people all doing the same exact job with no, we don't work together day to day, but yet everybody was still doing.

So that really opened, I know it opened our command staff's eyes that, wow, we need to harness that, and make it better across the board.

And so that was a big lesson that we took from that event.

- I remember when we visited earlier that you talked about, and all of the law enforcement folks here have talked about, how important it is to run toward the danger.

- [John] Sure.

- And so I want you to talk a little bit about how you train folks to run toward the danger.

- Yeah, we took it from national standard training, but we walked with the mantra of, in an event like that we have two jobs.

We have the job of stopping killing, and then when the killing stops, stop dying, stop the dying from occurring.

So what that entails is our officers are all alert, trained, and we are consistently in service training on that.

And then, in addition, we have tactical medicine to where our officers are trained to stop bleeding when we get to a point where we can, so that the injured people can get to an operating room.

- And I'm gonna ask you to share the anecdote that you shared with me the other day about an officer who did exactly that.

- Oh, sure.

During our event on August 31st on Interstate 20, one of our officers was responding, doing exactly what we wanted him to do, going to find the shooter, and he came upon a scene where a citizen on I20 needed help, and he realized in that moment, it wasn't, he couldn't stop the killing.

He had to stop dying in that moment.

And he provided the training that we gave him and the training he took from the military.

He was able to get his wound packed and bandaged, get him loaded into a vehicle, and get them to the hospital.

And we have... Seth's crew had the same happening on his end, and it wasn't that isolated incident.

It's just the incident that comes to mind- - That comes to mind.

- Because it was so...

But there were several officers during that incident that applied tourniquets, applied bandage, get them to the hospital.

And yeah, I mean, the training worked.

- Really worked.

Dr. Muri, when we visited the other day, you talked about how important it is, and Dr. Ramsey, you did, too, to keep schools feeling like schools.

So talk to me a little bit about that and how we can make sure that that happens.

- Yeah, I think it's a balancing act.

We are an educational institution, and our primary purpose is the education of our community's children, and so in making decisions regarding safety, we always have to keep that peace in mind.

And right now we're balancing this incredible focus on safety, and we've seen horrific incidents in our own country, in our own state, and incidents that are close to home, and so I, even this week, reminding our teachers and principals, as we walk around and try to navigate how much is too much.

Is this enough, is this too much?

We are an educational institution that is charged with the education of children.

At the same time we're also responsible for keeping them safe.

And so I think as we navigate the next several weeks and months and even years, that we'll continue to find this fine line between safety and learning.

We do not want to be prison-like.

We need to maintain educational institutions.

At the same time, safety has got to reign supreme.

So, it's a tough balance.

- Dr. Ramsey, you're nodding.

- I think same.

(clearing throat) Excuse me.

We wanna make sure, I always think of that five year old that walks through the schoolhouse and is so excited to be at school.

And so doing things like making sure all of our doors lock, including classroom doors, making sure that, just like Ector County, we have over 1500 cameras.

We're putting in almost 350 this year.

Those are pieces that a five year old isn't going to see, and it's still going to feel like a fun place to come and learn, yet we know on the back end, there are safety pieces in place to make sure that we're maintaining the safety for all.

- You know, I would think that the parents have kind of an important role.

Ms. Sarfani, if you will talk a little bit about how parents might talk to their children, if their children are concerned about school safety.

- Absolutely.

The conversation will look very differently with, depending on the age of the child, the student, but what's key, essentially, is open communication, keeping that line of communication open with them.

We want them to feel safe.

We want them to feel comfortable talking to us, coming to us about different things.

So, starting off by just asking, "What do you know about such and such?

"What have you heard?

"What do you think?"

What that does is ensure that not only do we know where their head is at, what they're thinking, but now we can use the words that they've used back with them to ensure that they understand the conversation, they're understanding what we're talking about.

That also helps keep it age appropriate, because now we're using their words.

With a first grader, an elementary student, versus a seventh grader or a high school student, the conversations will definitely naturally look different.

So with a younger, an elementary student, reminding them of the safety measures.

Routine is key in helping our children feel stable and grounded.

That helps build resilience.

That's a skill that we can learn.

So, keeping them on a routine, reemphasizing routine.

This is what your day will look like.

At the end of the day you'll be with Ms.

So and So, and mommy and daddy are gonna come pick you up then, reminding them where and when what events are gonna occur, especially with when the parents will, will interject and be there.

- I would also think it might be important to remind kids that your teacher knows how to keep you safe.

- Absolutely.

- The police know how to keep you safe.

- Absolutely.

- So, do you agree with that?

- Absolutely.

Even making positive associations, you remember that very nice police officer, things that they remember, things that they can associate.

Even your teachers, if they are worried, well, what if something happens?

Your teacher has worked with these trainings, has these tools to work with the police officers and our first responders, and they work very, very hard to keep us safe, reminding them of that.

Now, of course, the conversation with an older student will look very different.

The conversation of you, if you see something, you need to say something, because they all have phones.

Even parents that are like, my child will not have a phone, cave and want their children to have phones, have access to communication.

So they are linked in.

They're on social media, they have excess information coming to them constantly.

So, with them, ensuring that they take that seriously.

- And one more question, how important is the parents' attitude when it comes to how the child is going to feel about things?

- Great question, Becky.

Children feed off of parents' energy.

If the parents know that these, these measures are in place for safety.

We've done our due diligence.

Our first responders, our community partners, our superintendents, our schools, everybody is working really hard to ensure this.

If the parents feel safe and confident about that, the children will also feel confident about that.

- Well, you mentioned, if you see something, say something, Mr. Allen, who is responsible for reporting something that's suspicious?

- Well, across the board, the person that actually witnesses something that would be an indicator, and we give 'em multiple venues in order to do that, whether it's anonymously or on the campus, to the campus administration, but everybody has that responsibility to report something if particular behaviors that, of people that intend to do harm.

And I think that's an important part of a lot of the training that we do, is to recognize those behaviors when they are occurring.

And I can't stress enough how important it is just to add on.

- Well, I understand that both ECISD and MISD work with Crime Stoppers.

So take us through, Chief Daniels, if you will, specifically, how somebody would report something.

Is it anonymous?

Do they have to give their name?

- Through the Crime Stoppers app they don't.

Through any Crime Stoppers program, the tipster remains anonymous.

But I think we see more on our campuses is that information goes straight to an adult.

That's really where we're getting our firsthand information, which isn't anonymous, but we do our best to maintain the identity of our tipster, and keep it as it is confidential as possible at that level.

But the important thing is is just say something.

When you see something, it doesn't matter.

If you saw it, if you heard about it, get that information to us, let us work it out, and see if there's any real threat behind it.

I think that's the most important thing we can push out to our parents and our students.

- I think both of you gentlemen have talked about a foundation called I Love U Guys.

Chief Daniels, will you tell us what that is?

- That is a foundation started from a father who lost their child in an active shooter event, and it started the Standard Response Protocol for how to deal with, how to implement drills throughout our educational system.

It was adopted on a state level through Texas, and now it's the standard for all drills and audits for safety on all of our campuses.

- Mr. Allen, I know there are a number of different kinds of drills.

Of course, I remember in school fire drills, but can you tell us the different kinds of drills that y'all do in the schools?

- Of course, that's a great question.

And a lot of this information, too, that you'll find on the I Love U Guys foundation, too, and there's references for parents on that website as well, which I think is really important for them to understand, too, if they want to learn more about that program.

But we do secure drills, where we want to ensure that we'll sweep the hallway and pull everybody into the classroom and secure that environment.

We'll lock out if perhaps there might be a threat outside the property that, maybe a bank robber across the street.

Or then of course we have our shelter in place, 'cause that's probably gonna be our most common, or highest potential for a hazard to hit us is a weather-related event.

And so we want to make sure we're prepared to find an interior corridor that's hardened and not full of glass that we can keep everybody safe.

- Dr. Ramsey, is there a way that teachers frame these drills so that they don't feel alarming to children?

- Sure (clearing throat) that's actually something that's discussed in the training, so that it's age appropriate.

Really depends on the grade level that the teacher teaches, making sure that the language is appropriate for that particular grade level, and explaining that we practice.

Much like a sport, you practice something so that it's a muscle memory.

It's not to alarm.

It's not to say that anything bad is gonna happen, but we are going to practice just to make sure we're safe if it ever does occur.

- Ms. Sarfani, we talked earlier today about that, that that's something else that parents can tell their kids, that the reason we're practicing this is it's probably not gonna happen.

- Absolutely, if you think about the old school fires, the decrease in the impact, the loss that has occurred from those kind of situations has become so unlikely.

Why is that?

It's because we're prepared.

We've done these fire drills.

We've practiced these.

We know what to do, how to act, how to respond appropriately.

So, that's the hope as we're learning and preparing is that we follow this trend of decreasing the impact of this threat.

- So there's power in that.

- Definitely.

- For the children.

Do you agree Dr. Muri?

- Oh, absolutely, yeah.

Again, making these opportunities just a part of our routine, it's just the way we live our lives, it's what we do to keep ourselves safe, to keep our family and friends safe.

And as Angelica said, the conversations that our teachers have with students are just so critical.

These shouldn't be causes for alarm.

Again, it's a normal, natural part of the work that we do every day.

- Just like you get in a car and you put on your seatbelt.

- Absolutely.

- The things that we do to keep ourselves safe.

- Correct, yep.

- Chief Herman, I wanna go back to something we talked about a little while ago, and that is, again, we're fortunate in Midland and Odessa, even though we had a very unfortunate event, to know that our law enforcement officers run toward danger.

And I know that that is not by accident.

Can you talk about the training that ensures that will continue to be the case?

- Well, I think one of the most important facets of the training is instilling the right mindset in personnel.

At the end of the day, and I think that Captain Sikes and Chief Daniels will echo this, and any other law enforcement officer, our job is to put our lives on the line for the protection of others.

And in doing so, we have to accept the fact that we may very well die in the performance of our duties.

I think that that was largely a failure in Uvalde.

I think that it was not a lack of training, as far as CQB or what we consider to be building clearing techniques, or active shooter training, or, from what John has mentioned already, emergency medical techniques.

It was a lack of the appropriate mindset.

And that, I know that we, as well as Odessa PD and all the surrounding agencies, instill that in our personnel from day one.

It starts with a selection process, selecting the right people, and then training the right people, and then monitoring their actions and continuing to instill in them the need for them to have that proper mindset.

- Captain Sikes, you talked about one of the ways that you do that is that you fatigue your officers in training.

Why would that be necessary?

Or how would that help?

- Yeah, absolutely.

We call it stress inoculation.

We can't shoot at our officers to put them under stress.

So we will physically exert them, make them run, make them do pushups, and then make them do small motor tasks, whether it's shooting or opening a door or something like that, to, not recreate a stress, but stress the body in roughly the same way as it would be if they were under true stress in real life.

- So it's teaching you to not rely on your instincts, which might make you wanna run or make you wanna panic.

- Yes, it's...

I kinda dumb it down and say it's making the little muscles tell the big muscles what to do, and it's forcing them to, and showing them, you can perform while you're stressed, while you're in...

But like Chief Herman said, there is years that go into that, months that go into that, picking the right people and ensuring that they're getting built the right way before we start instilling the stress motivators.

- Okay, well, we're gonna take a quick break, and then we will come back and have more questions for our panelists.

Welcome back to tonight's special, Keeping Our Kids Safe, coming to you live from the Anwar Family Studio here at Basin PBS.

Chief Herman, I'm gonna turn to you and ask you, what is the protocol for an officer arriving on the scene?

Does he set up a command center.

- In an active shooter event, they immediately move to the sound of gunfire to neutralize the threat, and as John's already mentioned, stop the dying.

So, from the first officer to the fifth officer, to each officer that arrives after that, that is their primary goal.

And that obviously requires immediate response.

- So the first officer there is in charge.

- The first officer's duty there is to stop the threat immediately.

After that, then command begins being set up.

Now that's once the event becomes more static than dynamic.

- Do you wanna add something to that?

- Yeah, absolutely.

- Captain.

- And that's kind of how we train in our department.

It doesn't matter if it's the Chief of Police that shows up first or the brand new guy on the road, our job is to get inside of whatever building it is.

And we have the body armor, we have the weapons, the kids don't.

And so yeah, our job is to get in the door and get moving.

- I think you indicated to me recently that you all have secured a lot of additional equipment.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

- Sure.

We've, in the past few months, of course, Uvalde opened up a lot of eyes, and not that we didn't know that these things occur in places, but that we need to evolve and go further.

So Chief Gerke, he's committed.

He's spent quite a bit of money in the past little bit to buy basic entry tools for, not just our specialized units, but all of our officers on the road, and where, when I started a ballistic shield, you would only see a ballistic shield if you were on the SWAT Team.

- And what is a ballistic shield?

Explain to people what that is.

- A ballistic shield is a bullet-resistant material that has a handle on it that you can put in front of you to add one more layer of protection between bullets coming towards you and your body.

So every officer has a vest they wear on patrol with an outer vest with rifle-rated plates.

And now we've added one more layer with that shield.

And then we've also provided each officer with, like I said, the breaching tools, and we're getting those rolled out, 'cause with that comes more training, more everything.

So we're getting 'em rolled out, and hopefully by the end of September every cop on our road will have what they need.

- Chief Herman, you had mentioned that Midland Police have, the city has made some expenditures to improve y'all's communication.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

- Yes, for quite a few years, few decades, actually, we've been on a separate radio system from Odessa, Midland County DPS, any surrounding agencies, and we're moving in the direction of joining that same radio system.

Obviously communication is paramount in these situations, when you're dealing with multiple different agencies, to be able to speak to one another is of the utmost importance.

So, that's the direction we're trying to take this.

We began this process before the active shooter, and it's been an ongoing and very expensive process.

However, there's no way that we cannot move in this direction.

- We have a couple of viewer questions.

One, do we or should we arm our teachers?

Dr. Muri?

- Sure, we, and ECISD, we have an example of that tonight.

30 armed officers that monitor and patrol our students every day.

And I think we heard already tonight about the level of training that our officers have.

It isn't a day, a week, or a month, it is really a lifetime of training.

It is their profession.

And so it is our place in ECISD that we put police officers, uniformed, weaponized police officers in our schools to keep us safe.

And the role of our teachers is to educate our children, and certainly there is a level of protection and responsibility that teachers have, but when it comes to a larger force, for us at least, we have armed officers that maintain the safety of our students and staff.

- I'm gonna echo exactly what Dr. Muri said.

Because I'm always recruiting, I will say that we have two openings right now for our police, in our police department, and we're also looking to add an additional canine officer.

And so if you are watching tonight and you would like to work for our police department, please go and apply.

- [Becky] But as for arming teachers?

- Very much the same, we are very lucky that we have a police force.

We have great collaboration with our city, our county, our fire department, and so we feel very confident with our armed peace officers out at our schools that are taking care of business.

- And then another viewer question, again, about law enforcement.

Are there law enforcement officials on all the campuses?

- So, in Midland ISD, in particular, are police chief takes care of ensuring that there is a rotation.

We do not have a police officer at every elementary school.

There are several schools that share a police officer.

But at our secondary campuses, we do have a full time police officer.

- We are similar.

So every secondary campus, middle school, high school, has a fully uniformed officer.

In fact, several schools have multiple officers on site.

And then we patrol with a team of officers our elementary campuses.

- So that's more of a spot checking.

- It is.

High visibility, and so that you'll see these officers, that is their responsibility, is to constantly be on patrol in and around these elementaries.

But I wanna bring up something Angelica mentioned, and I think it's important as we think about our officers, we also have some of those furry officers as well.

We have four canined officers.

Two of them are focused on narcotics, and then two upon weapons.

And so they give our police officers additional opportunity to keep kids safe, to keep our staff members safe.

And that's just another layer of protection that is a bit unusual, and both districts offer that additional layer of safety to our students and staff members.

- And as I recall, Dr. Ramsey, you said that MISD is also adding hall monitors at the secondary schools this year.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

- That is correct.

For the majority of our safety issues, really, aren't around large drills or having an intruder on campus.

And so we have added, at all of our secondary campuses hall monitors, that can go through, ensure that students are where they need to be, that our bathrooms are safe, and we all utilize an app for any time that there's any type of issue on our campuses.

And so we're able to use that CrisisGo app, and everyone, including me, gets an alert.

And so it's just one more layer of protection, and communication is key.

- Well, I know that there's a lot on teachers, and those hall monitors, I'm guessing, takes some weight off of teachers, but Ms. Sarfani, what are some tools that teachers and other staff members, I'm sure they're they feel under a lot of stress, coming out of COVID, with anxiety about school safety.

What are some things that teachers and staff members can do to take care of their mental health?

- It can be overlooked how much responsibility teachers have on them.

They need a lot of support from school districts, from community partners, but they also need a lot of support from their own family and friends.

So if you know a teacher... We all know a teacher, right?

A family member or a friend, reach out to them, support them.

Don't be afraid to ask them the hard questions about how they're doing.

And also holding them accountable for their own self-care.

Self-care is gonna be huge for our teachers, even outside of the schools.

Taking that time to focus on their self care.

- And when you talk about self care, I assume that would also involve setting sort of boundaries for the school day versus the not school day.

- Absolutely, Becky, you're right on target there.

Boundaries around when the work day ends, and of course the work gets overwhelming.

There's a lot, sometimes the days are longer.

Sometimes we have to work on the weekend.

Let's keep that as the exception to the rule, not our daily routine.

So, hard cutoff times of when we're working, sometimes realizing that you don't need to be a teacher at all times, Making time for the things that they really enjoy doing in their day or in their week.

- Mr. Allen, Dr. Ramsey talked a minute ago about an emergency app that they have at MISD.

Can you tell us a little bit more about that and who has it?

- Of course, it's called CrisisGo, and it is a very powerful tool.

And I was gonna add in, too, that, Chief was talking about how important communications are, and so, I mean, they can do messaging on that, too, within a campus.

And the hall monitors are doing a great job with identifying those things, but it is a great app that allows us to implement drills, communicate.

There's a lot of training available on their website that really helps us get more familiar with the buttonology so we don't fumble around, should we actually need to use it.

And I think Captain Sikes was talking about that earlier, too.

You wanna be familiar with the buttonology because when your adrenaline really gets goin', your fine motor skills are gonna degrade, and you're gonna have a hard time pushin' buttons.

But it is a great tool that does allow redundant communications, and all the way down to the classroom level.

And in our elementary classrooms have phones, but here's the second means of communication, just in case the cell phone signal's not doin' so hot or what have you.

- And I would assume that it is silent communication.

So you're looking at texts, as opposed...

So if you're in a dangerous situation, you're not getting an alarm on your phone, you're getting a silent message?

- You can go silent with it.

The messages are silent, yes.

But you can silent the alerts, too, just so you're not giving up a position should you need to quiet your classroom or as far as that goes.

- Chief Daniel, does the Ector County Independent School District have something similar?

- Yes, ma'am, we have a Hall Pass system that does the same instant alert, and to kind of complement that, as a district we've had portable radios for years, but in the past couple we've purchased over a thousand portable radios for our campuses to enhance that communication, to put a radio on someone's hands that normally wouldn't have one that might see something that can radio that information in, and they can hit that instant alert on our Hall Pass system, and that goes to all officers, and it creates an immediate response to whatever's going on in that situation.

- Can you tell me about the Raptor program?

- That's the statewide program for reporting, and it's kind of just gettin' off in our area.

We're looking into it as a district, but we have Hall Pass in place currently that does pretty much the same thing as a reporting mechanism for districts.

- Becky, I can- - Yes, do.

- Talk a little bit because- - Yeah, please do talk about it.

- In Midland ISD, we do use the Raptor system.

So all guests have to come in with a government-issued ID, and it does do a bit of a background check to make sure that we don't have any, like, for example, sex offenders, on our campus.

And it allows us just one more way of ensuring that the visitors that we have on our campuses are safe to be around our students and our staff.

- [Tim] And Becky, if I might add.

- [Becky] Yes, please do.

- Another nice feature of that is we have a specific destination where our visitors are going, and the date is clearly printed on the label.

So when we have Midland police officer maybe drop in or a DPS officer drop in, or our own MISD Police Department drop in, or just faculty on campus, they can quickly tell if Tim Allen is supposed to be going to room 101, and I'm over in the 400 wing, somebody can redirect me, or we start asking questions as to why are you here?

And let me help you get to where you wanna be, and things like that.

- Is it cumbersome to teachers and staff that the doors are locked?

Does everybody have keys?

How do people access the buildings?

- I went to my ghost ID, 'cause I usually have it on.

(panelists laughing) But it's electronic.

It's a badging system.

And so, for example, I was on campuses yesterday.

I'm able to use my badge to go in, as well as into classrooms.

So there are some inconveniences, I'm not going to shy away from the challenge.

If you have a first grader that uses the restroom, they need to knock and let someone in, but that small inconvenience supersedes any of the actual peace of mind that we have.

- I think that's part of the work that we have to do right now.

It's the balancing of security and the education of our children.

It is inconvenient, the locking piece, but at the same time we have a responsibility to keep them safe.

And so I think over the next several weeks and months, as we learn how to navigate locked doors in every area of our campus, we'll figure out educators are pretty wise, and we will figure out the best solutions to educate and make sure that kids are safe at the same time.

- Back to the Raptor system, you mentioned the other day that parents who repeatedly volunteer can register so that the process will not be quite so cumbersome.

Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

- Sure, there's kind of two systems.

So, with the Raptor system, parents can actually preregister so it goes a little bit quicker when they go onto campus, but also if you want to volunteer, and we're open for volunteers, that is a separate system, because that does go through a state and nationwide database to make sure that the volunteer is appropriate to be on one of our campuses.

- [Becky] Dr. Muri?

- Different title, but same system.

The Hall Pass system does that for us.

And parents may not know that, but as a volunteer comes in that device conducts a background check on the spot, so we know who we should allow in and who should not be around children.

Very convenient and handy for our schools.

- Has there been any in-service training for teachers?

We talked a little a bit ago about sort of the mental health challenges of being under pressure after COVID and after a school shooting, are there things that you all talk to teachers about during in-service related to that?

- We do.

So, not only teachers, but students as well.

So we've equipped our teachers with, self-care has been mentioned tonight, equipped our teachers, and all staff members, to that matter, with with some knowledge and skills about self-care and things, not only for themselves, but for their colleagues and peers.

At the same time, last year we purchased a curriculum.

We'd really hadn't had a curriculum for teachers to use with children, Pre-K through 12th grade, to help them deal with some of the stresses, certainly pandemic related, but also divorce or homelessness or the other things that our kids have been dealing with for many years.

So yes, a curriculum is in place, Pre-K through 12th grade, for our teachers to use with students, and then certainly for adults as well.

- Same with us.

Required training in what we call trauma-informed care.

Some of it is from the pandemic and the recession in the past and everything else.

In addition, in our school district, we are in year three of our implementation of multi-tiered systems of support, which means that we're really training our staff and allowing our teachers to have tools to look at behavior and academics at the same time.

And through that multi-tiered systems of support, there are a lot of tools that are for the adult.

We're also looking at infancy in a partnership to work with a partner so that we can help our staff and our children receive some mental healthcare, even if it's telehealth, because we know we're slightly kind of remotely located, and it's really difficult to get an appointment.

Right now in our area it's taking up to six months, three to six months to get an appointment for someone who really needs some help, and we want to eliminate that and turn that into days.

So there's a lot of layering of support for just health, connectedness, and safety in our schools.

- Ms. Sarfani, I wanna talk a little bit more about that, that I think it's important that we not raise a generation of fragile children.

Can you talk a little bit about resiliency and how we can teach resiliency, how teachers can, how parents can.

- Definitely.

At one point we thought either you were born resilient or you weren't, but now we know that resilience is a skill that you can build.

So you do that through routine, through...

There's a lot, a lot, a lot of, what's in research right now, a lot about gratitude.

And what the research is showing is by being grateful, consciously being grateful, every day, mindfully jotting down three or four things that you're grateful for, you can change the brain chemistry in that moment.

- To make yourself stronger, to make your children stronger.

So this is something that parents might work with their children on.

Is that- - Absolutely.

For parents, for students, for teachers, for everybody, we can all become more resilient.

This is a skill that we're building by practicing gratitude, by looking at, even visualizing forward.

Looking at the good of what has happened, being grateful for amazing experiences that we've had, but also looking at the hard times and being able to say, I learned this, or I learned that.

And now moving into the future, I look forward to being able to move on with this new information.

- Dr. Ramsey, you're nodding.

- I think that many times we wanna do everything so that our children are protected, whether we're talking about physical safety or not, but there are absolute mental models so that we can learn to be mentally stronger.

We heard earlier, we're definitely not saying we want to give them the training that our police force receives in the way of being mentally tough, but even as small children there are times where we receive emails about just small setbacks in school and the parent sometimes wants us to fix it.

And the response is, a lot of times, it's how the adult responds to that event, and then talking through that, let's find a positive in it.

Things don't always work out the way we want, but we grow from that experience, and so I think that making sure that, a few years ago we used the term grit, that we wanted to teach kids to have grit.

I think that's actually a better term, to be resilient, because it teaches you to be strong, and those are skill sets you're gonna take throughout your life.

- That you will live.

Earlier today we talked about if you see something, say something, and I think that's a really important point to emphasize.

I have read that in each of the past school shooting situations that the perpetrator has indicated to somebody that they had that plan.

So Dr. Muri, I want you to talk to parents about how they would encourage their children to report a problem.

- Absolutely, well, first I think- - Or suspicion.

- Yeah, see something say something is by far the most proactive step that we even see in our own community.

So as a parent it is giving your child the confidence to do that.

We, at the school level, we encourage our teachers to develop healthy relationships with our students so that when a kid does have a tough day or have a situation, they're comfortable.

But our officers, the same thing.

Our officers that are assigned to our schools, one of their primary purposes is to develop healthy relationships with their children so that when they do have a difficult situation to share, they're comfortable and confident enough to have that open dialogue with an officer.

So again, encouraging children, your own children, when you see something that makes you nervous or afraid, or even if it's something that you're not quite sure about, those are the times to say something to adult, any adult, teacher, counselor, secretary, cafeteria, your neighbor, your friends, but whoever that adult may happen to be, we must encourage and really continue to encourage.

'Cause I think today our kids do a pretty decent job of seeing things that make them feel uncomfortable and then sharing those with comfortable adults.

And I'll end with our responsibility as adults is to make sure that we are reaching out to our kids and continuing to develop those healthy relationships, so the door is always open.

- How do you approach a threat when you're made aware?

- So we report immediately to our police department.

Most of the, the preponderance of those come through social media.

So our police department also look at social media.

We do a great job, both our parents and our students, of reporting, and there is a full investigation that occurs to make sure that either it's credible or it's not.

Sometimes we may have to bring in other outside agencies, but we take every single threat seriously.

- One of the problems in Uvalde was, reportedly, a locked door.

So how do officers ensure that they can get into a door?

Do you wanna talk about that, Seth?

- Yes.

John's already mentioned it, but we provide all our officers with, not only the breaching tools to enter into any kind of door or structure, but also the training, and the training's paramount.

That's where the fire department really shines, is they have outstanding capabilities in that arena, and they've been more than gracious in presenting those to the law enforcement agencies.

And there's a multitude of mechanical breaching as well as explosive breaching techniques.

But obviously, our philosophy is if you can't get in there, you can't stop the aggressor.

So, that's obviously the first step.

- Captain Sikes, did you wanna add something?

- No, I mean, he said it.

We are getting into more of a proactive model at an administrative level to put it in the hands of the people that need it.

Yes, our SWAT Team is an amazing group of guys and girls that can accomplish any goal, but there's only few of 'em.

So getting that equipment out there and getting these people trained and get them confident to get through these hardships if they approach them, I mean, it's becoming paramount.

We have to do it.

- It used to be up to SWAT officers to do certain things.

Now it's up to all officers?

- Oh, it's, yes, ma'am.

I mean, there's no way around it.

We're not gonna let a door slow us from getting inside and taking care of the kids that need us in there.

- Chief Daniels, did you wanna add something?

- I think they're right on line with it, but from a school district response, it's just, we've manned our officers and our principals with keys to get in the building.

Every officer is able to enter any building and has multiple keys to give arriving officers additional keys to help defeat those.

We've also recently partnered with all surrounding agencies and given them the electronic access for the supervisors who are on scene that can get there quickly, that may get there quicker than a school district officer can get there, and then get access into our buildings to help handle the situation that's taking place.

So it's just the tools and it's the communication, it's the working together is what's gonna make this work and make our kids safer, and up our response time.

- Well, and in addition to that here recently, Dr. Muri spoke on the cameras, we've now been able to gain access to some of their camera systems so that when we go live with our command center, we have real-time intelligence of where problems are.

And so now we can start filtering it to follow on agencies, 'cause I know Seth's groups comin' to help whenever we need, and the people need actionable intel, so yeah, the breaching tools are step one, but everything else, the partnerships, that really helped.

- Chief, I think I cut you off a minute ago.

Were you gonna add something?

- No, nothing that hasn't already been touched upon.

Again, we're all working in a collaborative effort with the schools as well as the law enforcement agencies surrounding the schools, and that's the most important thing to keep our kids safe.

- Good note to end on.

- I think I was just gonna add, too, the relationship that we have as a community with law enforcement is critical and exceptional, if I may say.

These folks are, it's powerful, in really both school districts, just powerful relationships that will certainly help keep our kids safe.

- That is so good to hear.

I think it's time for us to close this evening, but by way of quick review, both Midland and Ector County School Districts have taken extraordinary measures to secure the safety of our kids in school.

Law enforcement officials of all stripes in both communities are prepared for any eventuality through acquisitions of additional special equipment and stepped up training.

We have the ability to build resilience as an antidote to fear, and it's worth repeating that we know from the tragic active shooter event three years ago that our local officers run toward danger.

I wanna thank our panelists for coming this evening.

Many thanks to our viewers for joining us, and we're particularly grateful to Diamondback Energy for generously sponsoring tonight's program.

We wanna thank the Basin PBS board and staff, along with the Elizabeth Reed Yager family and the Anwar family for their generous support of Basin PBS.

And we are especially grateful for our members and invite those of you who are not to join by going to our website at basinpbs.org.

Thank you so much for joining us this evening.

I'm Becky Ferguson, goodnight.

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