A comprehensive
approach to
school safety
New programs and
evolving teams can help
fill the need to protect
students.
8
Leadership
Like many districts nationwide,
Sweetwater experienced a marked increase
in the number of school threats over the
past 2017-18 school year. Round-the-clock
coordination between school administra-
tive teams, district officials and local law
enforcement investigated, managed and re-
sponded to a quadrupled number of school
threats with minimal perceived disturbance
to safe learning environments. School of-
ficials and local law enforcement assessed
and managed more than 70 school shooting
and bomb threats without resorting to any
school closures and only a small handful of
lockdowns. Moreover, very few incidents
caused any sustained community anxiety
and less than five of the incidents became
media stories.
The Sweetwater Union High School
District has developed a comprehensive
all-hazards approach to school safety. The
Security Work Group is a district-level mul-
tidisciplinary committee of stakeholders
formed in 2013. It includes district cabinet
members from Equity, Culture and Student
Services, Business Services, Facilities and
Operations, Communications, alongside
psychologists, educators and a variety of
other support staff from both district and
school sites. The group is chaired by a full-
time district administrator, the Security
Coordinator and Advisor who works closely
with all of these departments.
This evolving team has established a
common vision from campus safety that
balances climate and physical safety. The
team’s subject matter experts have synthe-
sized volumes of applicable guidance from
multiple authorities to include, but not be
limited to: U.S. Department of Education,
DHS, FEMA, FBI, National Associa-
tion of School Psychologists, and National
Association of School Resource Officers.
Members of the group are very active in
their respective professional organiza-
tions and committed members of county
level education and law enforcement work
groups. The security work group has several
subcommittees, such as Threat Assessment
By John Czajkowski, Sonia Picos and
Manny Rubio