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f ox c hapel a r ea s chool d is tr ict | s tat e of t he s chools
Major
Security
Upgrades
Take Effect
The Fox Chapel Area School District empha-
sized the safety and security of students
and staff during the 2018-2019 school year.
Several new safety initiatives were launched,
the most important being the creation of a
school district police force.
Joseph Kozarian, a 15-year veteran of law
enforcement, assumed the newly created
role of Fox Chapel Area’s safety and security
coordinator in October 2018. Mr. Kozarian
oversees the school police force, which has an armed officer in each
of the district’s six buildings. All officers are retired federal agents;
state, municipal, or military police; or sheriffs.
According to Mr. Kozarian, keeping students and staff safe is the
officers’ main priority. But, another big part of the role is develop-
ing relationships and building trust with the students, which he
says is one of the main deterrents of crime.
“Our school resource officers have worked really hard to get to
know the students in each of their schools,” he said. “They have
exceeded my expectations, because it normally takes two to four
years to build a relationship with students, and our officers did
it in less than a year. They are getting a great response out of the
students, and the officers are bridging the gap between youths
and law enforcement.”
Mr. Kozarian and the officers also helped facilitate safety drills at the
district’s schools and worked throughout the year to develop relation-
ships with local law enforcement, fire departments, and emergency
medical services personnel. Mr. Kozarian is the only Basic and
Advanced National Association of School Resource Officers instructor
in Pennsylvania and is an ALICE instructor. He’s also a Certified Physi-
cal Security Specialist through the Department of Homeland Security
and is just one of a few people in the state qualified by the Pennsyl-
vania Commission on Crime and Delinquency to perform security
assessments on schools.
Also during the 2018-2019 school year, the district implemented
the Ruvna crisis communication tool. Ruvna, a replacement for
paper and clipboard rosters, works in conjunction with Fox Chapel
Area’s student information system to enable staff members to
account for each and every student. Ruvna keeps track of students
in the event of a drill or actual emergency, facilitates faculty interac-
tion, and dispatches help immediately to students or staff members
who require assistance. It also provides messaging capability and
access to resources such as the district’s safety plan and building
floor plans. The implementation of Ruvna was made possible
through a $25,000 grant from the Pennsylvania Commission on
Crime and Delinquency.
The Raptor Visitor Management system was also implemented
throughout the district. In addition to offering instant sex offender
screenings, checking school visitors against databases for custody
alerts and banned visitors, and keeping accurate records for every visi-
tor who enters a school, the district’s clearances for volunteers are run
through the Raptor system. More than 2,300 visitors were screened
from January-June 2019.
FOX CHAPEL AREA
❘
FALL 2019
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