A retired FBI agent has been identified by his family as the man killed in a police shooting at Franklin High School during a confrontation with an El Paso Independent School District police officer.
Julio Cordero, 56, was a father of four and a decorated federal agent struggling with deteriorating mental health after retiring from the FBI, Cordero's brother Marco Cordero told Channel 9-KTSM.
An EPISD police officer fatally shot Julio Cordero during a confrontation before 6 a.m. Thursday when Cordero was reportedly breaking windows before the start of classes at Franklin High School, where his family said his son is a senior.
Man armed with guns, knives, bear spray arrested for threatening school bus driver
By Elizabeth Vowell, Aug. 23, 2024
BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - Baton Rouge Police arrested a man accused of carrying multiple weapons and threatening a school bus driver in front of students in the Melrose Place neighborhood.
According to arrest reports, Duane Landry was outfitted with body armor with three rifle magazines, a smaller revolver in his front waistband, another firearm strapped to his thigh with the hammer cocked back, a knife, a machete style blade, a can of bear spray, and flex cuffs.
Investigators say on two mornings, Aug. 19 and 20, Landry was harassing a bus driver and parents dropping off their kids at the bus. The bus driver also reportedly told police Landry threatened to shoot her and tried to board the bus.
Charlotte students asked to not bring certain 3-ring binders to school
Metal items could set off weapon detection systems
By WBTV Web Staff, Aug. 19, 2024
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) - Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools students are being asked not to bring metal 3-ring binders and metal frame backpacks this year. The request was stated in the 2024-2025 Parent-Student Handbook issued by the district, writing:
“In order to maintain efficient entry into school and reduce the number of searches, please ensure that items such as metal 3-ring binders and metal frame backpacks are not purchased as supplies for student use.”
6 Reasons Why Title IX Rules Make K-12 Threat Assessment Teams a Must-Have
Schools that don’t already have threat assessment teams must implement them now so they are able to comply with Title IX’s new sexual misconduct rules and, most importantly, improve student safety.
By Elliot Cox, Aug. 14, 2024
With August being the start of the academic year for many school districts, this is an important reminder that K-12 schools and school districts must have well-qualified threat assessment teams that can quickly assess evolving threats and concerning behaviors of students, staff members and the community at large.
Although the federal government goes back and forth with its Title IX rules and how they are implemented, regardless of what comes out in the wash, threat assessment and threat management teams are a must when schools are facing problematic behavior related to sexual violence. This article from 2020 explains why.
Having a threat assessment team has long been a suggested practice for K-12 schools. However, K-12 safety managers are often overtasked and under resourced, making it a challenge to start new safety programs. Because of this, many schools have not implemented a threat assessment team.
Wisconsin principal charged with felony after reportedly concealing gun incident at school
by Kristina Watrobski, Aug. 22, 2024
MILWAUKEE (CITC) — A Wisconsin school principal is facing a felony charge for allegedly failing to alert authorities that an 11-year-old student brought a gun to school.
Dennis Daniels was the principal of Thurston Woods School in Milwaukee at the time of the February incident, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The criminal complaint obtained by the publication says the 11-year-old student asked a classmate on a school stairway if he was afraid of guns before pulling one out and aiming it at the second student's head.
In New York, the Supreme Court, Appellate Division, refused to dismiss a case bought by parents of the child who “was sexually abused by a principal while a student.” The pattern of abuse involved the administrator “repeatedly meeting alone with (student) behind closed doors for no articulated reason.” The court ruled that “without actual or constructive notice of an individual's criminal propensity, a school district may be held liable for an injury that is the reasonably foreseeable consequence of circumstances it created by its inaction.” On this basis liability for negligent supervision, training, and negligent retention could be established upon the evidence that “the principal continued to call (the student) into his private office in the same manner at least 50 times over the next two years, without providing an explanation to plaintiff's teachers and despite the fact that (the student) was not misbehaving in class, and sexually abused him there.”Blanchard v. Moravia Central School District
In Kentucky, the United States District Court dismissed the case of a teacher in a case involving a gun that was found in her possession. Applying the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the court characterized the case this way: “What happens, then, when two school employees suspect that their colleague is under the influence of prescription medication, search her bag without permission, and find a firearm inside? And what happens when school board officials find out and want to question the perpetrator? Has the Fourth Amendment been transgressed? The court held that the conduct of the employees (a registrar and a guidance counselor) was “conduct taken under color or pretense of state law” to which the constraints of the Fourth Amendment would apply. The court held that the teacher had right to privacy in her purse – a reasonable expectation of privacy – because her “bag is not part of the workplace context” and there was no school “policy that could have provided (the teacher) with any notice that her personal effects could be subjected to a search.” However, the court dismissed the lawsuit against the two school employees, applying qualified immunity to their conduct because “there exists no readily apparent precedent governing these facts… that an examination of a coworker’s bag under these circumstances would be held unconstitutional.” Therefore, “(b)ecause (the teacher) has failed to prove that her right to be free from a search in this specific context by two collegial peers is clearly established, (the school employees) are entitled to qualified immunity.” Lawson v. Creely
In New Mexico, officials in the Albuquerque Public Schools are implementing a Reunification Card Program to help “ease the wait in the unlikely event a school has to reunify students with parents/guardians in a non-typical end of the school day... The cards are unique to each student, with a name, bar code and instructions on the back for families to utilize if they have to pick up their student or students during a reunification process. Each family will receive two cards per student.”
In Alabama, the Governor Kay signed HB 290 -- the John Wesley Foster Act, “legislation that requires public schools to have a cardiac emergency response plan (CERP) in place that instructs people to dial 911, start CPR, and use an AED on campus and at school-sponsored athletic events in the case of a cardiac emergency.”
Registration Now Open: 2024 National Summit on K-12 School Safety and Security
Sept. 25-26, 2024, noon-3 p.m. daily | Virtual
You are invited to join the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Sept. 25 and 26 for the 2024 National Summit on K-12 School Safety and Security. This virtual event brings together K-12 school leaders and practitioners to discuss and share actionable recommendations that enhance safe and supportive learning environments.
Registration is now open for the 2024 Summit. This year’s event will feature panel discussions, sessions and keynote speakers covering violence prevention, emergency planning, youth online safety, student mental wellness, K-12 cybersecurity, and student interventions and support. These sessions are designed to foster a nationwide dialogue on some of the most critical school safety issues, as well as equip school stakeholders and personnel with resources, training and best practices to apply in their local K-12 communities.
Registration is required and there is no cost to attend.
This symposium goes beyond a typical conference; it's an immersive learning experience that brings together individuals from across the country who are passionate about keeping their schools and communities safe.
Don't miss two days of inspiring keynotes, training on the Standard Response Protocol (SRP) and Standard Reunification Method (SRM), and ample opportunities for networking with foundation staff and peers in the school and community safety space. This is an amazing chance to gain actionable insights into enhancing the safety of your organization and those in it.
One of the strengths of the Comprehensive School Threat Assessment Guidelines (CSTAG) is the use of a practical, step-by -step manual to help teams conduct assessments, resolve simple cases easily and develop safety plans for more serious cases. The second edition of the CSTAG manual has grown from 156 to 184 pages. This manual was based on substantial research, field-testing, and input from CSTAG users as well as experts in violence prevention. Now with 13 chapters, this manual explains the rationale for threat assessment, how the team functions, and what steps to follow in conducting an assessment. A key feature of the manual is a 5-step decision tree that allows teams to resolve most non-serious, transient threats in two steps and then reserves more extensive assessment and intervention for more serious, substantive threats.
The second edition adds a new chapter on student rights and explains how school threat assessment can be conducted as a safe, effective and equitable practice. There is extensive coverage of student confidentiality, special education, liability and the role of law enforcement. There are chapters on interviewing students about a threat of violence and the development of a comprehensive safety plan in very serious substantive cases. There are updated chapters on the main pathways to violence, the assessment of adults, and intervention strategies to help students and prevent their concerns from escalating into violence. There is new guidance on fidelity of implementation and evaluating the effectiveness of your threat assessment program. A new chapter gives a non-technical summary of the extensive research on CSTAG and new evidence from more than 23,000 cases.
The manual includes helpful forms for carrying out and documenting a threat assessment and initiating behavior support plans. All forms are freely available for copying and can be downloaded from this website.
Across the country minority communities feel under attack by police officers. "The Politics of Crisis" explores how to change public policy decisions to reform the role of law enforcement. Centered around the harrowing events of the Freddie Gray riots that gripped Baltimore in 2015, "The Politics of Crisis" is a powerful examination of how everything can go wrong when police no longer serve their communities.
Eric Kowalczyk, director of media relations for the Baltimore Police Department during the riots, provides a first-hand account of what it’s like to be on the front lines of responding to the pressures of a community, the media, and the politics of a city in crisis. Blending humor, research and deeply personal experiences, "The Politics of Crisis" offers a prescription to prevent disaster from striking again.
