Published: September 24, 2008 02:02 pm      

District at forefront of emergency preparedness

JOSHUA — Already among Johnson County’s more progressive school districts, Joshua ISD is now at the forefront of emergency preparedness.

Cleburne, Burleson and Joshua law enforcement and fire personnel on Tuesday attended a dual-session program at Joshua High called Rapid Responder to bring themselves up to speed on safety procedures at all Joshua ISD campuses.

Among measures already implemented are digitally mapped schools, databased photographs and floor plans of facilities, locations of utility shutoffs and other tactical considerations.

Theoretically, a response team could access campus data in a computer and know how to handle any emergency. But theory must still be put in practice.

“What we’ve learned is that after every one of these [incidents], we have to sit down and talk about it and debrief and find out what we learned,” assistant superintendent John Grigsby said.

“We talk about what we messed up, what we liked, what we’re going to keep doing. We had a bomb threat [recently], and we lost 45 minutes just because we told people to lock doors. They don’t need to be locked. They need to be closed.

“Because we had to search every room, we had to bring in a civilian to unlock the doors to every room.”

Grigsby said he learned about Rapid Responder from a friend in education.

“We looked at it and found a grant that would allow us to access it,” he said. “We got two grants from the Department of Education. We’re working with Burleson and Cleburne first responders.”

The system is in place. In Tuesday’s training session, school district and emergency personnel accessed it online.

Grigsby said the software was implemented at the beginning of the summer.

“Now, we have to update it,” he said. “We moved one building. We changed the entryways at most campuses because we added security systems.

“The floorplans from June were changed in July and August. Those can be changed [in the computer database]. We don’t know how easily.”

Joshua school officials are finding that security is affected by seemingly minuscule factors.

“We never worried about streamers hanging down in the halls,” Grigsby said. “We do now because they block video cameras. We have to change the way we decorate. We have to be careful where we put cameras.

“Security wasn’t something we used to worry about. Now, we worry about how many lockers are not locked. Could someone hide something in them?”

Teachers and staff feel better protected, Grigsby said, if slightly inconvenienced.

“They have to park farther from the building. They can’t just enter through any door at any time of day. They’re working through that."