Colorado United Over School Safety and Crisis Response

A united Colorado General Assembly awaits the governor's signature on new legislation introduced by Senator Tom Wiens that aligns statewide school safety with America's vision and plan for domestic readiness and emergency management. An online collaboration center, School Safety Partners (http://www.schoolsafetypartners.org), has been launched to support the implementation of the new bill.

Denver, CO (PRWEB) April 17, 2008 -- A united Colorado General Assembly awaits the governor's signature on new legislation introduced by Senator Tom Wiens that aligns statewide school safety with America's vision and plan for domestic readiness and emergency management. An online collaboration center, School Safety Partners (http://www.schoolsafetypartners.org), has been launched to support the implementation of the new bill.

Through Senate Bill 08-181, "concerning measures to improve coordination among agencies when responding to school incidents," Colorado will lead the nation in setting forth a School Response Framework that is based on the National Response Framework established by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Senator Wiens crafted the bill with the intent to provide all schools with incident command training and community partnering guidance so that educators and school personnel can better handle any emergency and seamlessly interface with local professional responders during serious school incidents.

Colorado will also be the first state to adopt the National Incident Management System (NIMS) within all of its schools while providing substantial educational incentives to all school personnel who undergo NIMS and incident command training.

Before his colleagues in the Senate, Wiens said that Senate Bill 08-181 "creates a mechanism for educators, school districts and schools to be educated in the National Incident Management System that is a national system of best practices that allows us to interface better between our community responders and our school districts."

To explain to the public how this will redefine the way schools conduct safety drills and identify lessons learned, Wiens will participate in the second annual symposium on school safety on Friday, April 18, in Denver, hosted by the Foundation for the Prevention of School Violence. Vice President of the Foundation, Vincent Wincelowicz, said, "The fact that Senator Wiens agreed to open the symposium during the legislative session is a testament to his commitment to the safety of all of Colorado's classrooms and schools."

The new School Safety Partners (http://www.schoolsafetypartners.org) website features a virtual campus where school safety teams can complete their training, build relationships with community partners, plan joint exercises, and share lessons learned.

Origins of the Bill

The process of bringing about Senate Bill 08-181 began in Park County, part of Senator Wiens' District 4 and scene of a tragic incident in 2006 when an armed intruder entered Platte Canyon High School and held seven girls hostage for several hours, ultimately resulting in the shooting death of Emily Keyes, a junior.

According to Park County Sheriff Fred Wegener, the law enforcement rescue team followed NIMS principles during the incident and thereby minimized casualties.

Lori Hodges, Director of Emergency Management, Park County, wrote in a letter to Wiens, "What many do not know, however, is that in 2002, during Colorado's worst wildfire season, the Platte Canyon School was used as a staging area and command post for fire resources fighting fires in the Bailey area. It was because of the experience in 2002 that the school administration was well versed in Incident Command and emergency response during the shooting that occurred in 2006."

Hodges added, "I am a strong supporter of incident command, the National Incident Management System (NIMS), and the use of trainings and exercises to diminish risk and vulnerability."

Sheriff Wegener explained in writing to the Senate Chamber, "On September 27, 2006 we did use the incident command system, however those of us in law enforcement are still trying to catch up to the wildfire community who have been using this system for quite some time, and with great success. I believe that familiarity and repetition would further aid law enforcement as well as the educational community in an organized operation during a school incident."

That familiarity and repetition, according to the bill, would come from regular safety drills and exercises that go beyond the fire drills of yesterday. As often as possible, schools would conduct safety exercises in partnership with community responders. In addition, the exercises would be followed by a review and written evaluation.

Early on in drafting the bill, Wiens sought the input of many national experts in the field of school safety and campus security, including Dick Caster, head of the National Association of School Resource Officers; Andy Purdy, a former senior executive at DHS; and national speakers Stephen Sroka, Patrick Hobby, Lela Lowry, Bruce Lang, Bill Stencil, Bob Chandler and Norman Spain.

With their help and perspectives, Wiens was able to gather information on federal resources and sources of funding. Resources included free online NIMS courses, web-administered certification exams, online tools for NIMS assessment and exercise evaluation, and the Lessons Learned Information Sharing Network.

Through endless calls to Washington, DC, Wiens was able to obtain from the office of the Director of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs at DHS written confirmation of major funding opportunities intended to make schools safer. Until now, these programs had been little understood by Colorado school districts. Wiens began keeping a list of school safety funding opportunities from the Departments of Education, Justice, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security.

Building Consensus in Colorado

After his national review, Wiens brought the issue back home to Colorado and with the help of Representative Tom Massey, prime sponsor in the House, mounted a statewide consensus-building process involving a broad range of stakeholders. For weeks, Wiens and Massey reviewed copies of the bill that had been marked up by parents, teachers, emergency managers and other professional responders, as well as state agency officials.

Many had specific suggestions for the School Response Framework. For example, Daniel Huse, Director of the Office of Emergency Management, Douglas County, strongly recommended that every school be required at least every academic term to review school communications equipment and its interoperability with local professional responders. As noted in the NIMS training materials, the response to the Columbine school shooting incident was hampered by response agencies operating on radios set to different frequencies.

The Rocky Mountain District of Kiwanis International, a volunteer organization serving children, and representing more than 4,000 members in the District, contacted lawmakers across the state urging support of Senate Bill 08-181. The group announced, "We have consulted with public safety personnel who confirm that their jobs will be more effective within schools that are prepared for incidents."

On the Senate floor, Wiens gave special thanks to "the Colorado Association of School Safety and Law Enforcement Officers (CASSLEO) -- representing Douglas County, JeffCo, Adams12 -- the Colorado Association of School Boards (CASB), Colorado Association of School Executives (CASE), Colorado Department of Education, Colorado Education Association, Sheriffs Association -- who worked on the language in the bill to make implementation of this bill work even more smoothly."

Bipartisan Support

Senator John Morse, from across the aisle, rose to stand alongside Wiens before the Senate. "I appreciate all the work that Senator Wiens has done on this," Morse said, "He's gotten lots of people on board. I agree with him that it is important that everybody speak the same language. The National Incident Management System is a way that we manage critical incidents."

For any given safety team, NIMS and the Incident Command System (ICS) map out the responsibilities of key players during an incident: Incident Commander, Public Information Officer, Safety Officer, Liaison Officer, Operations Section Chief, Planning Section Chief, Logistics Section Chief, and Finance/Administration Section Chief. The foundational course recommended by Wiens, Introduction to ICS for Schools, provides trainees with a step-by-step field manual on how these team members work together, and also interface with other responders.

Morse added, "We go to this national system to figure out how to get two or more folks all working together -- police officers, the firefighters, the teachers -- everybody ought to do this."

Days later, Bruce Caughey, representing CASE and the Jefferson County Administrators Association, and who served as a crisis responder for Douglas County Schools for 16 years, expressed support before the Education Committee. "The thing that this bill really does is that it puts in place a common platform for school districts to work with emergency responders in a way that there is a true partnership," said Caughey, "This really does need to happen to be effective in a response. School safety I believe is the most basic thing that we should provide to all of our students. It is at the basic level in their hierarchy of needs. You can't get to the learning and the kind of growth that we want students to have in all of our schools unless you can provide a safe environment."

Caughey underlined two reasons why CASE supported the legislation. "The bill provides a structure for the districts to initiate important conversations with emergency responders prior to the crisis event. This is critical," he said, "And it puts in place NIMS awareness and teacher training as a priority while providing teacher certification credit for coursework."

Larry Borland, Executive Director for Safety and Transportation for Douglas County Schools, and representing CASSLEO, told the Education Committee, "Since the dark days after Columbine, and after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, schools and school administrators have faced a persistent and understandable demand from parents, public safety, and others to be prepared for any emergency. While police, fire, and emergency medical personnel are traditionally thought of as first responders, in fact, school personnel are the first responder in any school emergency. What school personnel do -- or fail to do -- in those first few crucial seconds and moments can really make the difference between life and death. This bill will be of great assistance to schools and school districts as they strive to achieve a level of preparedness that the public expects."

Other positive testimony was offered to the Education Committee by Jane Urschel, representing the Colorado Association of School Boards (CASB), and Dale McCall, representing the Colorado Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) Association, and who spoke from a rural school district perspective.

Peg Ackerman, representing County Sheriffs of Colorado, reiterated the need for interoperability among responders. "It's very important that we operate from the same system," she said.

On April 8, 2008, Representative Massey, who was a former member of the Salida R-32-J School District School Board, addressed the House. "This comes as a part of a very comprehensive package that we're working on to make our kids, our 800,000 students in Colorado safe and secure," he said, "Given the fact that parents who may send their kids to school are under the assumption that their kids do go to school in a safe and secure environment, we as citizen legislators, as parents, as taxpayers are responsible to make sure that that is exactly what happens in Colorado."

"The National Incident Management System standardizes methods for responding to all hazards," Massey explained to his fellow representatives, "It enables community organizations to coordinate management of incidents with emergency responders at all levels, using a standardized set of concepts, principles, and terminology. So that's what we're really trying to get to with this, is set up a framework that works statewide, across the board, that enables us all to be on the same page, talking the same language, at the same time."

Representative Nancy Todd, a former teacher and now a national speaker on student issues such as cyberbullying, had earlier remarked to her Education Committee colleagues that for some school personnel NIMS would provide "a way to stay calm while inside you're falling apart." In the House she rose in support of the bill. "This is a really important, forward-thinking piece of legislation," she said, "It's a good thing for Colorado. It's a good thing for schools -- to have that plan and to make sure that those first responders as teachers, as teacher aides, as secretaries, are skilled and ready to respond in an immediate reaction and in a well-prepared manner."

That afternoon, Senator Tom Wiens called his wife Diana and said, "I think a lot of lives were saved today."

In its journey through the State Capitol, the Senate Bill 08-181 was unanimously approved by the Local Government Committee, the Senate, and the Education Committee. In the House, the measure was overwhelmingly approved 64-1.

The lone "nay" vote was from a representative who opposed the bill's inclusion of a Safety Clause.

However, to the rest of the General Assembly there was no doubt about the profound urgency of Colorado's bipartisan call to action.

Section 7 of Senate Bill 08-181 reads: "The general assembly hereby finds, determines, and declares that this act is necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, and safety."

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