Today’s events at Platte Canyon High School near Bailey, Colorado remind us of the importance safety and security play in the role of a school district.

 

This is something we in Littleton Public Schools take very seriously. While it is impossible to guarantee that dangerous situations will never happen in and around our schools, we take far-reaching preventive measures.

 

School employees take care to know who is in the building by requiring visitors to check in at the main office and receive a visitor’s badge. Employees keep non-essential doors locked and stop individuals they do not know. They remain attentive and report anything unusual.   Parents and neighbors are also attentive and report unusual incidents. 

 

 

Our community supported, through the 2002 Bond Program, $1 million of security upgrades to our schools district wide.

 

This new system’s tracking, reporting, and camera monitoring features give the district the ability to know and see at any time—24 hours a day, seven days a week—what is happening around our schools. This provides constant security awareness. In fact, local law enforcement accesses our schools’ security video footage to help them solve crimes that happen in the neighborhoods immediately surrounding our schools.

 

The system in place in our schools is currently one of the most advanced systems used in any school district in the nation.  These measures were put in place in an effort to help us be ever vigilant of the world around us and to make our schools safer places in which to learn.

 

In 1998, LPS security developed a system that gives local law enforcement the capability to access aerial maps, building blueprints, locations of hazardous materials, lists of key personnel on site, and photos and videos of the rooms inside for all LPS schools. Emergency response teams can access this information with laptop computers or handheld electronic devices while they approach the scene.

 

Every LPS school has an emergency command system in place. These teams train and drill with emergency scenarios at least twice a year. Building lockdowns and evacuations are also practiced with students and staff.

 

All schools are equipped with communications systems and have direct radio communication with law enforcement through the statewide radio system.

 

Our schools have relationships with School Resource Officers from either the Littleton Police Department or the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s office. These officers develop relationships with students and employees that enhance the learning environment and promote safety and security.  Arapahoe, Heritage, and Littleton high schools have School Resources Officers on campus full time.

 

The LPS Security and Emergency Planning committee meets monthly to plan for and discuss appropriate responses to a wide variety of emergency situations. Littleton Fire, Littleton Police, Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office, Tri County Health, the City of Littleton Emergency Planning Department, and LPS representatives from all school levels and all departments meet on this committee and have forged close working relationships that are critical in times of an emergency.

 

LPS Security provides news, information, and materials to all schools on a regular basis. LPS focuses on different types of potential safety situations ranging from weather to situations involving law enforcement in an effort to be ever vigilant and proactive in our safety measures.

 

LPS employs trained personnel and calls in professionals from local agencies that can help children and adults deal emotionally with those rare situations they may find traumatic.

 

A heightened sense of awareness of our surroundings and attention to vigilance from employees, parents, students, and our neighbors is the most valuable way in which we keep our schools safe and protect our taxpayers’ property.