Contact School District of La Crosse
807 East Avenue South
La Crosse, Wisconsin 54601
(608) 789-7600
https://www.lacrosseschools.org/

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This is Randy Nelson and this is an edition of extra innings as a retiring superintendent of schools. Many things run across my mind when I reflect on 37 years of education, what's happened in those 37 years. What we been doing in our schools and even what's on the horizon to help facilitate the discussion. I've enlisted the assistance of Mr. Bob Schmidt past radio talkshow host a parent and a friend. There's a lot of things is apparent, especially since all for my kids are gone through lacrosse schools that concern the things that are happening in schools that are not good all around the country, you know, I think I we haven't had any issues here in the La Crosse area but when it comes to safety in lacrosse schools. What Things are being done is a lot of things that are been happening over the last several years and unfortunately most of those have been happening as a response to the national scene and tragedies that have taken place in other schools and what we learn from those Sandy Hook really being the one that started a lot more national conversation about school safety, like many other school districts we have stepped out in front as best we can to respond in several different ways. One of the things and probably the most costly thing that we've done is we have now retrofitted every one of our schools and the school district lacrosse to ensure that there is a two-step entryway into the schools by two-step meaning that there is a vestibule there is a there is a place where once you get into the school. There's another holding place that you go in and add before you would see an adult inside of that school so it's kind of a two-stage process to get in and I just to get into the front door. We've also established cameras and an opportunity for person to announce themselves pushing the button I think of the days that you know people Michael in a club and you push a button or sciences was there and so we been able to use security cameras in such a way that someone with a direct line of sight to that doorway can see with the person as they can get a line of vision on that person. They can also buzz in that particular person. And so it does provide for us an opportunity for that person to go through stages before they actually get into the school you know you talk about school safety and I wish that there were guarantees and and in life and and and there really are to whether it's for me or whether it's for you. There just aren't any guarantees that tomorrow morning were to wake up and I wish that there were guarantees, but what I will say is that what our goal is here is to slow people down when someone's coming to school with that terrible intentions. It's to slow people down slow down the process and do what we can to make sure that we have more ample time to to contact we need to contact for help. One of the things to that the La Crosse school district doesn't think does well is that in the middle school and high school. There's a uniformed police officer in those schools all the time right yeah absolutely that's another thing that we've done. It's something that we've included in partnership with the Police Department and that is that we have full-time SRO school resource officers are schools and one of the things that's really true, it's that the job of those individuals is not just to address someone who might break the law someplace on our school campus or thereabouts, but the purpose of that person inside of that particular school is to build relationships of students we want that school resource officer to be connecting with students. We want the school resource officer to be connected with families because what we do find out is that sometimes despite all of the effort in all the work that we put into buy things and to do things inside of the schools like we've been talking about its many times relationships and the capacity for adults to have built strong relationships with students and other family members that we sometimes can get out in front of issues before they died might develop in the something bad at school when it comes to training staff about safety in general. What kind of things are being done to to help our staff out with knowing and being above and being ready to jump in when they need to just make sure that people are not hearing things and just ignoring it, but they are indeed intervening in those types of situations and helping students understand a couple of other things that that were doing in the school district through some grants that came to us from the Department of Justice here in Wisconsin we have on several of our schools. We have installed what we would call some shatterproof a film on some of our schools that again makes it more difficult for an intruder to comment. The other thing that we've done is were implementing what's called a raptor system when someone does come through those front portals to our schools before they can move into the rest of the school or get past that office. They have to swipe their license and that drivers license swipe is actually going through a really quick database that databases helping us better understand if this particular person. For instance, might not be a good person to be in that particular school. We continue to work on those things. I think what's been difficult to see is that we used to do one fire drill per month in a school now are doing active shooter drills, schools, and it's been difficult to watch that transition and it said it's it makes me wonder why got a lot of philosophies about that, but it's one of the discouraging things that I see happening. I really hope that whatever those things are that are milling about that cause these things to happen that they can be addressed whether it's mental health. Whether it's social status than standing on these things need to be addressed. Somehow, because our schools should not be the place where students feel that they are going to school in fear. It should be at least one of several places, but it should always be a place that they feel that they are safe and there amongst adults who care about. Thanks, Randy. I'm looking forward to our next extra conversation retiring superintendent of schools Randy Nelson's extra innings time as a podcastforhire.com