<Laura> Hello, welcome to Carolina classrooms.

I'm Laura Ybarra.

As students and staff head to class school safety is a priority topic of conversation.

On this episode of Carolina Classrooms, we'll hear from school officials, educators and law enforcement about the physical, emotional and psychological factors that go into keeping South Carolina schools safe.

School districts across the state have plans in place to keep their students and staff safe in the event of an emergency.

In the Office of Security and Emergency Management our primary responsibility is to ensure that there's a comprehensive school safety plan in place and all Charleston County School District facilities.

That involves emergency planning, drills and training, physical security measures, security, staffing and school resource officers, as well as threat assessment, detection and response.

So much of the time, the school security discussion is dominated by active shooter events or armed intruders.

But really a comprehensive school security plan contemplates a variety of situations anything from severe weather threats, to flooding, to that armed intruder event.

But a plan doesn't do you much good if you don't have the proper training and drills in place as well to ensure that your staff and that our teams don't know their roles and responsibilities within that plan.

So ensuring that we provide an adequate training to our staff members, whether it's in our new hire orientation process, or through recruiting training with our staff members through staff meetings, or tabletop exercises, going to administrator meetings, or conducting our drills throughout the year with our staff and students.

We work hand in hand with our resource officer to ensure that our building is secure on a daily basis with locked doors.

And we have access points, a primary access point to the building where we are actually able to visually see who's wanting in to the building.

They ring a doorbell, we allow them in.

There's another point there, where they check in at the front, before they're ever allowed entry outside of the lobby area.

So we would have a secure system of allowing people in the building and beyond the front door.

We also work to do drills within our buildings so that students are aware of what they need to do in certain situations.

Of course, we do monthly fire drills, we do earthquake drills, we do tornado drills, we also do active intruder drills.

And those are things that we coordinate with our safety and security officer at the school district office along with the sheriff's department and our resource officer.

And we work together collaboratively to review what we do with those to make sure that we are on point with providing the safest environment for our kids, The staff here in Rock Hill Schools, we have several avenues of training.

There's a multitude of training available to all of our staff.

There's a requirement that we have them go through with our Safe Schools.

And they have some training on mandated reporting, and you know, the typical slips, trips and falls and blood born pathogens, pathogens and things like that.

But we kind of have some additional things that we do is we send all of our staff through the standard response protocol, which is our safety measures that we have, that we have posters posted throughout all the schools.

That is a live in person training.

So we go to the schools and myself or our training coordinator, we will meet with these teachers and walk them through this entire process on what to do from start to finish, depending on the level of emergency that exist.

So we walk them through each one of those to ensure that all of that is followed to fidelity.

And then we also require them to have a certain number of those drills, lockdown drill in a secure and a hold throughout the course of the school year to ensure that not only teachers are prepared, but the students are prepared as well.

I feel safe here.

We do a lot of training.

We do safe school training, we do drills all the time, it feels like so for the most part, I feel safe.

Daily at school.

Most of the time, yes, unless there's like an unprecedented fight, because sometimes people just argue and then they get into a fight and that always feels kind of dangerous.

But we don't typically have those and it's usually feels like a really safe environment.

I do feel safe at school, very safe.

Our administration, our staff really makes it comfortable here, makes the students, the community as well as the teachers very comfortable and safe feeling.

We're like a big family and we are here for one another and encourage one another and we have each other's backs if we need 'em.

If somebody, you know, gets sick or whatever, we cover each other's classes.

I feel like the students feel safe and comfortable.

They're willing to participate in class discussions and different things that we have in our classroom.

And they come to teachers or guidance counselors if they have an issue that they need help with because they know that we're going to be there for them, and we care for them.

We talk about our safety procedures that we have our school, how we do them within my room so they're comfortable when they know exactly where to go and what to do in certain circumstances.

I always ensure them that I'm there to protect them, that they are like my own children, and I love them, and I care for them, and I'm gonna do my best to keep them safe.

When Texas had the mass shooting, the students had talked a little bit more about that, and what would we do?

And how would we be?

How safe are we and I reassured them about, you know, the doors are all shut and locked the front, you know, they have to get through a lot before they even can get into the school.

So I assure them of just the safety procedures that we have at school, but then I just reassured them again, in the classroom, that, you know, we would just be as safe as possible and protect and them.

<Douglas> I don't bring it up, but if a student wants to talk about it, and I'm more than willing to talk about it.

I think one of my jobs as a teacher and a coach is to build relationships with students.

And I think I have a pretty good relationship with my students.

So if they want to talk about it, then my door's always open.

You know, we can always have a conversation about it, because it's real life.

It happens.

So it's not something that I would shy away from, but it's not, it's also not something that, you know, I would just voluntarily bring up.

<Laura> A positive school climate contributes to school safety.

Students and staff who feel welcome and safe in the learning environment will feel more comfortable speaking up, if there's a problem.

The school climate has a lot to do with how students feel safe, you know, that the climate is a positive one, if students feel seen and heard, and they feel like, you know, they have adults that they can trust, and you know, that their voice matters, and their opinions matter.

And they feel like, you know, I'm wanted here I have a sense of belonging here, that goes really hand in hand with students feeling safe.

You know, that climate.

Does the climate foster, you know, students being able to speak out or being able to, if they see something wrong, or if they see some something that's, you know, not safe or a student may do something or say something, do they feel supported enough to go to an adult and say, what they saw and without any repercussions or, you know, being bullied by other kids.

You know, there's a lot of issues that surround climate in the school.

It's not just, if there's an S.R.O.

in the building, it's every single human being that's in that building.

I like to think about the school environment as an ecosystem, and everyone has a role to play.

And those roles can be interchangeable or not, but people should know, the role that they play in that ecosystem, because it's all interconnected, and everyone has a job to do our role to play.

Even the students, you know, are a part of that.

They are the center, I will say of that ecosystem.

And all the work that's done in schools is for children and for those students.

So, it's really important to have that cohesive environment and everyone to be on the same page.

We need to have an environment where students come to school each day, they feel comfortable to be here, feel comfortable about things that will go on around them.

And, and then that way, they can settle in and do the things they need the learning wise.

<Gene> I think a lot of that comes from the top down and I have to be positive on a daily basis.

I have to work through things in a positive and professional manner.

When we interact here in the building, it's very much a family like atmosphere.

Everybody has everybody's back.

Everybody is working together towards the same goal, educating our children but also creating an environment that is welcoming, that's open, that's inviting, and an environment where kids are stimulated mentally and want to engage and interact with each other.

<Laura> School Resource Officers play a major role in keeping students and faculty safe.

Making sure the building is secure is a big part of the job.

Creating relationships with students before there's a problem builds trust in law enforcement.

Every kid in this school come here for one thing, and that's an education and my job is to protect them and make sure that you can get the education.

A role of the school resource officer is three dimensional.

We get an opportunity to be basically the role of law enforcement officer.

We enforce the laws that may, things that may happen in school.

We want to act as a mentor role model within the school.

And also we're there as a resource and teach.

As an educator, we do the law related education, vocational classes and things like that.

So that's primarily what we're doing.

We got some officers that are also in to coaching as well, too.

So we've got a number of roles that we do.

They're not just for security, and that's it.

<SRO Anderson> There's that concept of pipeline to prison.

But what my presence and any S.R.O.

presence is the, my mindset is be that pipeline to change.

Hi, scholars!

What's Up!

How can I help change these kids mind at a early age, instead of waiting till you get to middle school to try to build a rapport, build a relationship with them.

So you get eight hours, if you seen an officer that look like you, that love you that speak like you and just keeping it real with them.

But starting at the elementary level, they get to see an officer every day, that really cares.

And hopefully when they get older, you know, they have a get in any type of situation, they'll remember my face, remember my words and say, hey, that's a good police officer.

Not all officers are, are bad, but just maybe that one glimpse of that good morning will make their day or helped them through whatever situation I got going on.

Just keeping an eye out for each other.

Let's say somebody is having that emotional day to where either they're upset, or they're just overly sad.

Just make sure that they tell somebody that way we can get them the support that they need, whether that's their favorite teacher, guidance counselor, or even myself.

I'm a mentor to quite a few of our behavioral students.

So, they come in, they take their time outs.

If they're not comfortable talking right then, I'll leave them in the chair, step out in the hallway.

They can, some of them are light and auditory sensitive.

So we'll turn off the lights and just keep the door slightly closed, to where they can go in there and get that reset when they need it.

Because I walk around I talk to kids, they know my face, they know me and I'm always joking.

So when I have to talk to them like that, they understand, oh, I messed up.

So they understand the difference between when I'm Mr. Bailey in the hallway, I'm Mr. Bailey here and when Officer Bailey has to show up, there's a dynamic shift.

Because I was a teacher, I understand how important it is to have a safe learning environment.

I think that just opens up so many more things for the kids and for the teachers.

So we understand because we were in the classrooms.

We understand how important lesson plans are, how important it is for the kids to feel safe.

So we understand that if a teacher is having a rough day, maybe we can step in and help just a little bit.

And, because that's what we were, we were needing when we were in as educators.

So I think that's a, I mean, it's a major point for us to make sure that these teachers and kids feel safe.

I think today's environment, obviously, there's always that concern in the back of your head, but that's what our role is.

I mean, we trained regularly, in all types of critical incidents responses, not just that active shooter mindset, but we also just look the safety in general, the school.

I mean, we do assessments on school to help build out their security just on the physical level.

But I mean, that's our job.

That's what we're dedicated to is keeping a safe and very efficient learning environment for your kids.

<Lt.

Rhodes> It all comes down to your training.

If kids are trained to do these different types of things, hopefully they'll fall back on that.

Just like we as law enforcement officers in certain situations, we rely on our training a lot of times and the more that you, the more that you drill and do these types of things it becomes we react to what we call muscle memory.

You react to do those things that you're trained to do.

So that's what we try to do as the school resource officers, try to help implement any type of program to help them to be able to to be continued to be safe within their schools, <SRO King> As school resource officers we take every opportunity we can, teacher work days, half days to train.

And I think training is the most important part because it it puts you in a situation where you know what, you know what your next step is, if something happens.

So, and that's what we try to, when we're doing these fire drills, we kind of use that philosophy on our teachers and we really push them hard and make sure they're doing the right things during these drills.

Because training is extremely important.

Because that's, it's going to, if something bad were to happen, that's when the you really find out you know what kind of police officer you are.

I have children in Charleston County Schools myself.

I think the thing I would say is it's just, very it's very rare but like officer King said we are every chance we have training for those things that might happen.

But oftentimes we see him on the news and it kind of, it will make you think that you know something like that happening every day.

It is very rare, but we do need to do the things that You have to do to be vigilant in case something like that were to happen here.

<SRO Anderson> Oh, my biggest concern is always keeping a threat outside of the school, that nobody will come into school and cause any harm to any of the faculty, or the scholars.

That's my number one.

That's it.

Like they can come in here and do their jobs and feel safe.

If I can't help promote and protect that type of atmosphere, I'm not doing my job well.

And that's that's my number one concern, making sure that everyone that walks through these doors are safe.

♪ <Laura> The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division provides security training for law enforcement and community partners.

The purpose of the training is to prepare all first responders or anybody who could assist at an incident or post incident.

We're preparing South Carolina for any type of active violence or any type of active threats, what we do to respond, what we do while we're there responding, how we get victims and innocent people away from the location so they can be reunified with loved ones, and then how we start the process of recovery for the community.

Today, the people who attended training, we had first responders from really all over the state.

We had Anderson County, we had Greenwood Police Department, Greenwood County Sheriff's Office, we had the Lexington County Sheriff's Office, West Columbia, Cayce and many others.

Basically, these are participants in the program who either provide instructors or take the training with great consistency.

They also support the training at training locations, at their agencies and other places.

So it's a partnership with SLED and everybody you saw here today is involved in that partnership.

We have a lot of varied classes that we do.

When we first started out, it was basically active shooter type training for a classroom.

We're doing that again for teachers, administrators, students.

Now we're doing reunification training, so that, you know if there's an incident, how do we reunify the parents and children together, stop the bleed training.

So we're offering a lot of different training today that we didn't, you know, we offer training for bus drivers, and how to respond to an incident if somebody was to get on the bus.

We are in the process right now developing a class for special needs students and special needs teachers.

<Captain Freeman> As special needs teacher, we go into their classroom.

We show them more than we show the standard educator.

And we talk to them about the reality of moving their students post incident what that looks like, how they can make the process more efficient.

That type of thing.

<Chief Keel> We're looking at right now, trying to come up with what we call a Center for School Safety.

You know, we we do in all this training that we offer to schools, administrators, teachers, again, students, and we're looking at putting something in place that's more permanent, something that we would have training conducted every week.

For schools.

We've been discussing this idea for the past year, had discussions with Superintendent Spearman about it.

And so we're looking at how we can go about trying to establish that Center for School Safety to where we would have some, again a permanent location, that we would be conducting training every week for schools that people could sign up for classes, S.R.O.s, teachers, administrators, maintenance folks, everybody that works at a school needs to be involved in school safety in one way or another.

And we want to be able to try and define that center around that effort.

<Laura> About 5600 school buses transport 350,000 students to and from school.

Every day in South Carolina.

The Department of Public Safety works to ensure the trip is a safe one.

Since the 1980s, a trooper has been assigned to the Department of Education's Transportation Office.

We work very closely with them.

This is my full time job.

I deal with school buses every single day.

And it's to promote safety for students, to promote safety for our bus drivers but to also promote safety for other motorists who encountered the school buses every day on our roadways.

There's four danger zones around the bus.

That's directly in front of the bus and on either side of the bus and directly behind the bus.

These are areas where it's hard for the bus driver to see someone if they're real close up against the bus.

So what we ask, I ask a student to do is to take five giant steps which is about the equivalent of 10 feet away from the side of the bus that way the bus driver can see them with the mirrors and things of that nature.

All of the new buses here in South Carolina, there are 360 cameras that go all the way around the bus.

So when that stop sign is out up in the driver's mirror, the bus driver can actually see all the way around the bus.

That's something that's helpful for them to be able to see those danger zones.

Proper riding procedure.

We don't want to be loud on the bus.

We want to keep our voices low.

We want to make sure that we're sitting in our seat.

with our feet forward or knees forward, keeping our hands to ourselves and remaining seated the entire time of the trip.

Those seats are designed to protect a student in the event of a crash.

That's why they've got high backs.

That's why they're close together.

So it's almost like a little egg carton.

If you're sitting in that egg carton properly, you're going to be okay in a crash.

There's many emergency exits on the bus.

The bus driver's required to check each one of those emergency exits before they go out for their route in the morning, or their route in the afternoon to make sure that they're functioning properly.

There's an alarm that goes off if any of those are open.

It's also important that students know where these exits are.

Students are required and bus drivers are required to conduct bus evacuations twice a school year, once each semester.

So a student that rides on a school bus should expect to be able to do a bus evacuation drill with their bus driver, at least twice a year.

Driving a school bus is very easy.

When I first began, I was intimidated, not gonna to live because this is a big vehicle.

But once you get behind the wheel, there are so many mirrors here that it makes it very easy to be able to drive and honestly, it is just like driving your car.

You just have 50 plus students behind you that you have to look after.

Communication skills is a big part in because students especially middle schoolers, they're finding themselves trying to figure out what they're going to do with their life.

Elementary school students.

They're leaving mom and dad for the first time.

And you are as a professional school bus driver, you are the first and last face that some of those students see.

So having good communication and empathy is a huge part of being a professional school bus driver.

There are approximately 7500 bus drivers statewide.

Now, that includes people who drive a route on a regular basis, as well as substitute drivers and teachers and coaches who may drive an activity bus or may possibly drive a route on a semi regular basis.

There are approximately 500 driver vacancies statewide.

We have partnered with a company to develop a recruiting program for recruiting drivers as well as technicians.

It's stepupsc.com and going through that particular website provides a link to all of the H.R.

departments and districts around the state as well as the South Carolina workforce website where they can go and take a look at vacancies.

For technicians.

<Sgt.

Southern> There's more to bus safety than just the driver.

It's a big puzzle.

You've got folks that work in the bus shop where we're standing today that makes sure that the buses are running and functioning properly.

You've got that driver who's behind the wheel who is entrusted with getting kids to and from school and school related activities in the safest way possible.

You've got the students who have responsibilities and then you've got parents.

Parents play a role also in making sure that their students are familiar with school bus rules.

But then you've got the last part of it.

That's other motorists.

So there's a lot that goes into school bus safety.

It's not just one thing.

It's a bunch of things put all together.

<Laura> One of the newest officers at the Richland County Sheriff's Department has a wet nose and fluffy tail.

Meet therapy canine Leona.

Her job is basically going to be emotional support.

So as a therapy dog, we can use her with victims, we can take her to schools.

We can use her for our own deputies.

When they are going through some traumatic events, we can take her on scenes.

I mean, there's just no end to what we can do with her.

I named her after the sheriff.

The sheriff had actually called me and the idea was pitched to him by Chief Cowan of Cayce Police Department.

They were getting a therapy dog.

Unfortunately, it was after the death of Drew Barr.

And then the South Carolina Department of Transportation had brought down one of their dogs to kind of help the deputies go through the grieving process.

And so when the idea was pitched, and the sheriff called me and said, Hey, would you be interested in having a therapy dog 'cause I ran our crisis intervention team for about a year before moving over to investigations.

I thought it would be kind of fitting to name her Leona after him because of that.

There's a couple of reasons for choosing this breed.

Number one is their temperament.

So with Goldendoodles they have both the best traits of Poodles and Golden Retrievers.

They're very, very intelligent dogs.

They're very smart.

They're very easy to train.

She can usually pick up a new concept and just a couple of explanations that we go through with her trainer who is Robert Varney.

He owns a dog training, like an in home dog training business and he's phenomenal.

He's been working with her over the past two months.

The other reason why is because she has to go visit schools, hospitals, nursing homes.

If you have an individual who was bedridden, you want a breed that's going to be large enough to be able to walk up to the bed and be able to put their head on the bed.

That way, they're not jumping up.

They kind of meet an individual on that level.

So this breed seems to be able to do that.

As you can see <laughs> she is very, very friendly.

That's the other thing.

They're very, very friendly.

And they're very good with other animals and small kids.

But she can get on a child's level because she's, you know, about the same size or a little bigger than a kid.

But she'll come up to 'em, she'll kind of do what she's doing now.

Kind of get close to them and kind of like nudge their hands, get her to pet, get them to pet her.

And so she'll, she'll do that as well.

So kids love to interact with her just for that reason, because she'll reciprocate what they're doing.

Yeah, what she typically will do, she'll just, she'll go up to someone, and she'll just kind of put her head on 'em and they'll just start petting her and she's very engaging.

So she wants to touch people.

She wants to get close to them.

And so that's kind of what she does.

She's a presence sits there and I know a lot of people when they're stressed out, they like to pet an animal and she loves the attention.

So it's kind of a win win.

<Laura> Thank you for joining us.

We'll be back on TV November 17th.

Continuing our conversations on school safety, we'll focus on the physical and mental health of students and staff.

We'll talk about the importance of physical activity, and learn some mindfulness and deep breathing exercises to help with relaxation.

You can find more education stories from around the state on our website, carolinaclassrooms.org Like our Facebook page and let us know what you'd like to see on Carolina Classroom.

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