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RCS Beyond the Classroom Podcast: Safe Schools discussion with Josh Kubly

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Rutherford County Schools is considered a leader and pioneer in school safety, and we continue to explore ways to further improve and maintain our safe learning environments. James Evans, Communications Coordinator, and Keith Ryan Cartwright, Communications Specialist, recently sat down with RCS Safe Schools Coordinator Joshua Kubly to discuss what the school district does to keep our students and employees safe.

Show Transcript

hello everyone this is James Evans on the communications coordinator for Rutherford County schools and I'm here today with Keith Ryan Cartwright is a communication specialist in our department and with Josh Koopalings are safe schools coordinator are your listening to the weather any schools beyond the classroom podcast in the reasons we had this podcast is that we want to talk about topics that we think parents would care about things outside of the classroom that maybe they don't hear from their teachers are from their students in Seoul what's mine lately is safe schools because of these tragedies that we've had more frequently since the beginning of the school year today and I can talk to you in a bit about what he does for so Josh if you could kind of tell him what the same where does because I think there is some people who don't understand what that role is and maybe they have a picture of like some sort of Beano bad if you walk away with no thanks I appreciate the opportunity to be here as a part of this the position was created a little over 10 years ago now and it's my position is kind of unique because in addition to safeschools I'm also the testing coordinator for the district safe schools in the school safety coordinator position essentially my the basic for my role would be to be a lays on between the Board of Education and the school resource officers in the Sheriff's Department weather in terms of making sure that all of our emergency procedures are up to date that we establish drills and debriefings and really take a look at all of our emergency procedures across the district addition to that I'm also responsible as a part of those duties in in terms of applying for and receiving the Bay Schools Grant receive a lot of our funding from the state gets from the federal government through the State Office of safe and supportive schools used for different things in the district our positions with our student services department and we help find a different safety initiatives like DVRs cameras all kinds of safety equipment so my responsibility is to working with the school resource officers across emergency procedures with in student services with assessments we deal with everything from our fire drills to bully turn on harassment it all ties into the student safety and making sure that our kids have an opportunity to attend and environment that you know they feel safe and comfortable and I'm going to make some drills and what I guess the three of us were kids they kind of just we did maybe was like we did at weather drills we definitely fire drills so people hear drills I hope everyone realizes how intensive girls have become and how often we practice them now in addition to the drill the fire drills that we have which are in SMC you every 30 school days we have to have a fire drill but the state also requires us to part okay and doing Intruder drill that which we do we also go a step further in addition to our weather-related drills like tornado which we practice every semester we also have code on your code blue drills or medical emergency drills and then we have the Intruder drills and in addition to those working with the school resource officer Department we actually have two large-scale drills that we're currently doing one in the fall spring those are typically unannounced they range from you know some type of an extensive drill that usually encompasses using a different thought processes for I got you could include a number of different types of drills all rolled into one you can have a medical emergency that is as a result of an intruder drills that we do we always do a debriefing with the faculty and staff or at least with the administrators afterwards to let them know what we saw that went well maybe didn't learn from those those those decision try to capitalize on that this is Keith you're listening to be on the classroom Josh you were talking about the procedure in the drills and little bit ago you talk about that relationship you have with SRO when the sheriff's department talk how that familiarity that everyone has with each other also plays into the procedure God forbid anything happen I think there's an open line of communication between all the different entities with the most of those folks now for the better part of 10 years and the people who are in the leadership roles they're you know we got very good communication and Rapport to make sure that we communicate what's going on on and I think that really helps because when you start to sit down and talk about something serious issues you know you know that the person sitting across from you I desire and that is wanting to make sure that we get it right and then we do the very best job we can for our students and knowing that and having that relationship I think helps you know me rule open and honest about what we're doing and how we can get better I think there's is a lot of eagle with play when it comes to stuff like that you know what they're doing with us is you know something that is a joint venture meaning now they're not sitting here telling us exactly what we need to do because you know they're coming at it from the law enforcement perspective we're coming at it from the education side and I think we meet him between in terms of what is an in the kids best interest in making sure that are are schools are safe and I think having that relationship has made it really easy to take a look at what we're doing make changes when it's necessary and and look beyond what we're currently doing and look to see how we can do better and that relationship goes beyond just on a day that there's a drill me recently the three of us all got together with a larger group of people from throughout the district people throughout the Sheriff's Department real open dialogue about school safety and again that just build on that communication as you said everyone has a common goal we we share that yeah that's something that we do you know quite frequently anytime we have no I really basically a tragedy somewhere in the country we like to pull together as a district to debrief take a look what we're doing in terms of our procedures what happened at the you know at the event is example with Parkland look over all the information that we could get and then we basically look at that okay how would one of our schools have handled that situation based on the procedures in the training is that we've done and you know we have we would bring everybody and we bring administrators and we bring District folks in and can school resource officers and we talk about those things and no in many cases no we don't have a lot that we end up having a change with sometimes we make a little tweak here and there to make sure that that were properly properly prepared in the event that something that like that would happen here well and I think it's important that we're trying to learn from every tragedy that we're seeing I know that you and I and and cave and several others had a debriefing meeting just a week or so ago and you had a play-by-play so to speak you had everything broken down right now at this time just happen he was on that happen well you know I think it's really important not only for us to learn what we do but it's also really important to learn what happens elsewhere and how they dealt with it because you know God forbid something like that happens here you don't that to be the first time that you yeah we practicing with every situation is unique in terms of how it how it transpired so we looked at Parkland and we look at the timeline in the decisions that were made not only after the shooter got on campus but also all of the things that happened before the shooter every made an on-campus leading up to that you know there were two years of events that took place with that in individual how can we learn from that are there some things that we maybe looking at on a proactive side rather than just a reaction side and no that was really valuable for us to take a look at because there were a lot of red flags that were missed down there and I think that you know we're in a good position to pick up on some of those but again I think there are some things that that we learn from that that we can take from it and and improve so that hopefully it's something like that isn't missed on our side what's in some of the more common questions you've gotten from parents I know I've gotten several phone calls since these shootings happen the one in Kentucky the one in Florida and and eating this week we had another shooting up in Maryland what are the common questions you're hearing from parents the number one thing that I've heard from every parent that I saw they just want reassurance and what we're doing you know I think that's one thing that I don't know that we've done a I think this podcast is great to be able to get more information out to parents in terms of some of the things that were doing it usually what happens after I had a chance to talk the parent you know they feel much more comfortable with okay I realize that you can't tell me that the step by step in terms of how you will react in that situation but knowing that we have these drills knowing that the faculty are trained and in many cases students know how to react in certain situation makes them feel more comfortable in in letting their kids go that morning and say goodbye and I think that to me is been the one thing that I've taken from all the conversations as one by the time we're done talking about what I can share with them you know they feel pretty comfortable knowing that that their kids are going to a safe environment so that's one thing I think it's time we had a lot of conversations about social media and proper use of social media I think that's been a great conversation with parents that we need to know what's going on with our kids we need to know and be able to recognize when we see some of those flags and we also have look at when they're when they're using social media that they're using it responsibly meaning that we saw the two weeks after Parkland calls from people saying you know their social media posts about you know a particular student bring weapon on campus walk in many cases that was something that was happening in South Carolina or somewhere else that somebody had shared re-tweeted or reposted and knowing that that information needs to come to the school if there's a if there's a real crap or if there's a safety concern turning that information over to the school or the district so that we can investigate it properly is the most important thing we can do it so we had a lot of conversation with parents like that to know if something comes up and there's a safety concern let us know don't necessarily repost and retweet because that's just going to spread rumor which is what happened we had a you know then we've got our resources are spread very thin at multiple high schools trying something were to Really Happen somewhere else you know we're not in a situation to respond that's a really good heat on that because we try to grab some information parents about encouraging to have those kinds of conversations with their kids about just a responsible use of social in a week can I use social media constantly to communicate with parents and it's a valuable tool for that because it reaches people know where they are but there's also a place where when there's actually an emergency situation or something that's a potential emergency social media is not necessarily best place to share that that's not the best Forum in its steady to go directly to law enforcement or to the school we definitely want kids too if they see something say something actually seeing it and not hearing something and they think it's true because you know that just like you said it it spreads our resources stand were chasing our Tails trying to chase down these rumors almost every time it's turned out to be nothing we've also had some I said cases work work if they hate do this way when you get out of school early today no cancel school and I was a teenager that we've all been teenagers shrimp it's just one of those things that you can joke about it anymore cuz it's just it's such a where is Madden 17 so many different districts across the county or across the country and I know that you can law enforcement in some areas of said they're going to start they got charges against people for doing like false reports possible situation I really hope it doesn't come to that here I think this is something cuz as parents we can talk directly it's about the other distinction between when it is and isn't proper to put it on social media at church and that would really help so yeah questions about her you know you also mention that parents want to know specifically you know if this happened what are we doing why is it that we can't share that information you don't understand we talked about it but don't want to let everyone know exactly how you're going to respond in a certain situation now kids because they're part of the drills and because teachers are part of the drills it's it's in here and I mean you know that that's the problem with that is if you have a student who ends up committing what type of tragedy at at the school they know how the school is going to respond because they've been trained on it we don't want the general public to know how we're going to respond in the event of a fire drill the same way and in the same fashion do we respond to a fire drill and in the case of Parkland if you're in a lockdown situation with the general public to be aware of how we handle situations and there are a number of things that up like that and I swear it's hard you know we want to make parents feel comfortable with what we're doing without giving me what I think you're trying to say is that it can be exploited in the wrong hands if someone is trying to cause harm we don't want them have ready access to RX Perry specific plans Golf Course the general information. Always going to be out there that we respond to fire drills things like that fire alarms but you get in to talk about 6 / campus you know that that makes it very vulnerable for people to do things I think one of the things that the important to know here there's been a lot of discussion among the three of us Post Florida incident post part 1 it's important to know that these drills these relationships all of this stuff has been going on long before that in fact correct me if I'm wrong the Rutherford County School I want to see the first it's among the first to have really pursued having full-time Sr Rose in all the schools we really been at the Forefront of Safety First National Organization I'm not sure if he's still he's finishing up his last term right now or not these guys and gals have gone out and done a tremendous amount of training themselves they've gone out and given training to other Elsa rolls across the country we've been visceral program I think was instituted in the early nineties luckily we were able to get an SRO in every school building shortly after Sandy Hook know the commission decided that it was really important we had one and every building are high schools have to you know what it is it's something I think is definitely a feather in our cap in terms of Rutherford County but you know our first apartment in in ourselves we're not comfortable right where we're at we want to make sure that we're constantly looking at ways that we can improve and you know whether we do you know all of those things are a really important obviously with a debriefings that we've done all of those things kind of go in together and in terms of the whole program in the whole package making sure that we're looking at everything you know it does last thing about safety as you've got not for just about every type of security issue you can imagine and then you drill for it as much as you can now that's the hard part is you're trying to be mindful of instructional time to make sure that you don't you know take the pain hours for these drills but where we're looking at additional safety measures and initiatives here over the next year or two that we think will make us even stronger and better when it comes to school safety this is Keith when you're listening to be on the classroom Josh you and I are Wisconsin and when we were growing up we had officer friendly important a handout Brewer Garden the spring but it's important officers that are that are in school who just by listening to their conversations and you hear things that they reference every day of their lives are spent figuring out and learning what what the newest technology is that can help that what the way in which to put a procedure to gather that you know some of the technical things that we can't quite share but that's their life mission yeah I mean in order to be an answer obviously you have to be the uniformed officer they also undergo over 40 hours of intense training to be a school resource officer so it's not like you can just walk in off of troll you know and plunk yourself down in school when you have an opportunity to go into the school and you see how the SRO is interact with the student how they go into the classrooms especially at the elementary in the Middle School level and they talk to them about safety issues and you see the did they have with the kids kids coming up to a star rose especially the elementary school size after all there's a couple that you know these guys are big and little kindergarten kids running up to him and give him a big hug the morning you know what I mean it's it's inspiring to see that the relationships that they bill with the kids because I think we've seen this time and time again you know when our kids grow up in the elementary schools and they were resource officers and they have them come into their classrooms you know they're being taught that officers are are valuable people you know that they put their lights on will you see the respect that I think more so than you do and other places and you know in some cases when you see at it at the middle school and high school level then when these kids have not grown up with a school resource officer I think there's a difference I really do in terms of they look at the men and women in the faculty and staff fairies at elementary level as they grow up they see these these people they learn what they're all about and it and I think that's it they're not an adversary they're there to there an ally and a lot of kids will go in there and then sometimes they may not feel comfortable going in there talking to a guidance counselor a teacher about a problem is happening at home don't go in and talk to him after all that's what we want we want them to be resource they're not just the lay their lives on the line if somebody comes in and try to do harm build rapport and and help kids learn right from wrong and all the different things we going out yet different from when I was you know 25 plus years ago when I was in school maybe a little longer I'm glad that you guys talked about I think that's one of the things that people miss too soon as we get asked why we need full-time officers in elementary schools you know that's a lot of funding but what were saying is that community policing model where they get comfortable that report you talking about and what's really bad when they get older and their high school or maybe upper middle school where there's probably more likelihood of something maybe happening there come on now that's the person I can go to even though they're wearing a gun and those kinds of things because these kids are seen stories about maybe some police distrust in other cities and things like that him in until having relationship at a very young age knowing that law enforcement someone who's here to protect you and your we didn't had several or many cases where we have intervened because the students went to the SRO and said I saw something and it was it was put away so quickly after that that's just another example minutes for a squatter to take who was school in that situation there there right there and they can deal with it and to have somebody on campus or at the high school level when you got to two people I can trust to be able to deal with those issues situation when they come up and eat some of the more common things that deal with are not even what you seen on the national level so to speak but some of that you maybe babysit domestic issue between parents having a custody Problem whatever that's a somewhat a calming effect when there are they bring the situation in the school and I see there's an officer that that just kind Washington I move on from Wisconsin and you moved here I'm curious why people move here because we're in one of the fastest growing regions Murfreesboro among the fastest growing in the country what right you got a lot of your family moving to let you guys know when we move down here I was looking for administrator position actually up in Wisconsin and we came down for a visit in the spring he was very much about this time of year mowing yards in golfing and hanging out and now back home you know we're still shoveling snow and it's like no thanks I had a sister that was living in Nashville we really like the area got talking about her. We're Young we were both in early elementary school or like Now's the Time to do it while there was an administrative position open up this position was open up in the central office and it's you know it's been a real blessing a few things that were to me and I kind of set it apart was the self remind me a lot of Western Wisconsin and terms of where I went to college and friends with the gist of geography beautiful you still have the change of seasons but you don't have the brutal I don't really like when you can you're ever in your nostril hairs freeze up that lady in your eyelashes are freezing up if you've ever experienced you know what I'm talking about and that's just brutal when it is I can talk about my do other people in the community I can tweet about it once in a while we here kids and teachers that that talk and pray occasionally no I mean I think that's something that was missing in the school systems in Auburn Wisconsin that they had me gone away I mean we came down there we were still calling things Christmas music down here we were still getting you know Christmas concerts in a can I think you still have a lot of that down here which is something that really appealed to us in terms of just being able to express you know ourselves in terms of our religion and and feel uncomfortable and doing that I hope we're down for being accepting you know what I've always been in this region and we have our people of faith of course and we have people who aren't we have people from other cultures but there's such a growing Workforce here with factories and things like that that really drawing in a lot we can we talk about this we serve more than 80 languages in this school district along so just I do think it's a pretty welcoming and diverse place I'll just keep it again. You're listening to be on the stream in the future going to be talking about technology Fine Arts CTE Athletics today we've been visiting with Josh probably about school safety and how how did you get in golden education what brought you to the field well it was one of those things where I wanted to be able to it's kind of interesting when I was in high school I was very small I did play football and soul and ran track but I had to go and I wanted to play college football and I was looking at the possibility of going to Air Force Academy and I didn't think that I was going to be able to play football at Division 1 Division 1 level so I started taking other options and there was a really good football school that was division 3 University Wisconsin lacrosse and despite everybody telling me I wasn't to be able to do it I have walked University Wisconsin lacrosse and one of their things was their primary or they're claiming thing was dislocation so I started off in education is a p e major and adaptive PE minor working with special ed populations and I really enjoy being in that involved with that letter so I after I laughed and graduated I became a teacher and a special special ed teacher quickly got into coaching and then it wasn't a couple years and I ended up being an athletic director or assistant athletic director moving into an athletic director position Administration got my Master's and then I was working towards into becoming a principal at which is when this position came up I tell you what we're going to wrap this up but there's one question that we always want to ask an end because this is meant to be an education podcast is that was really important and influential I'm sure you've got one can you tell us I'm right yeah it was my 6th grade teacher mr. trottier who actually passed away when I was in high school answer but you know he I was a kid who didn't really like to apply my cell a whole lot when I was younger I was more interested in going out and playing sports and just playing and having fun as opposed to studying and reading and doing my homework and he noticed something in me and in kind of call me to 2 decided to look you know gave me the really nice lecture and it was really nice about it but he inspired me to do more and to do better and from that point forward it was a continuous process of you know incline and in working my way up I mean I had when I was in early Elementary School I was getting a lot of these and apps and it was fairly certain by pretty soon I've never had any doubts and never had any seizures in the next thing I know I'm on the honor roll and just kept progressing in terms of believing in myself that I can do this I'm more than just know somebody was interested in sports that I can actually apply myself and and do well and you know it had not been for him pulling me aside and giving me that lecture time I'm not sure what would have happened but I can definitely recall that instantly that's a common thing that it's that teacher that either see something in you or just tells you you can do more than thank you can that typically ends up pushing you to go on to do other things we we hear that a lot from various people and I definitely have teacher fight that my background check and Thomas today and I appreciate the offer does this thing this is Bindi beyond the classroom podcast that we have a number of topics will be covering over the next few weeks and we hope that you enjoy with her today if you have suggestions let us know things you like to learn about we can arrange that too but again

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RCS Beyond the Classroom Podcast: Safe Schools discussion with Josh Kubly

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