Dear DSST Families, 

I write to share some updates on safety and security at DSST schools. The last couple of weeks have been challenging for all of us as gun violence continues to impact schools and communities across the country. Please know that the safety of your students and our staff is the highest priority for DSST. Thank you for your partnership in supporting the well-being of your child(ren) during these challenging times. 

After seeing the results of the Tri 2 Family survey, and the circumstances of the past few weeks, many of you have very valid concerns about the safety of your student(s) and what we are doing to ensure they are safe.

In order to address some of your concerns, we have spent considerable time reviewing our safety protocols. Because we are authorized through DPS and APS, we must also work closely with them on safety and security and provide input and evaluation on changes for district-based protocols and policies. With that in mind, I will address four topics in this email: our viewpoint on armed officers in schools, actions we are taking on student safety searches, our ongoing actions to strengthen school safety and an opportunity to hear from all of you.

Before addressing these topics however, I want to say how saddened and frustrated I am to have to devote so much time to gun violence in our schools. There is a moral imperative to keep our children safe and secure, and as a society, we remain without the courage to make the necessary changes to keep schools as safe as they should be. Instead of talking about gun violence, we should be spending time on how we best teach our children, accelerate their learning and help them grow into amazing adults. I wish I was writing two pages to you about that. All that being said, these are important issues to update you on.

Armed Officers in Schools

As you may be aware, following the shooting at East High School, DPS made the decision to place armed officers at 14 comprehensive high school campuses for the last two months of this school year. Two of those include shared campuses where DSST schools are located - Evie Dennis (DSST: GVR HS and MS) and Paul Sandoval (DSST: CG HS). In Aurora, APS has had an armed officer in each of its five largest high schools, and we expect that to continue. Over the past week, our DSST senior leadership team has revisited our current viewpoint on armed officers in DSST schools. After reviewing the body of research on whether armed officers in schools make schools safer, and gathering input from our school leaders, we have decided not to change our current viewpoint on armed officers in our schools for the last two months of this school.

Our viewpoint is: DSST will not have full-time armed officers in our schools unless there is an immediate security threat identified at a specific campus.

A few expanded thoughts on this. First, the data is very inconclusive that an armed officer makes a school safer. In fact, a recent study indicated school fatalities and injuries increase when armed officers are present. Second, we believe our small school communities are focused on building trusted relationships between staff and students - this is one of the best prevention strategies with school violence (study). In the family survey, you all told us that close-knit communities are why you choose DSST schools. You want your child to be known, supported and loved in our schools, and we will continue to focus on building those relationships. Third, when there is an immediate security threat, we will request officer support. Lastly, when a weapon is suspected of being on a campus, we do ask security personnel to come to our schools to conduct searches and provide extra security if needed. 

I do not take this decision lightly. It is a hard one. I want to assure you that we do everything we can to keep our students and staff safe. And, I don’t believe the evidence suggests placing armed officers in schools and the corresponding unintended consequences warrant a change in our viewpoint. Finally, we will continue to evaluate and re-evaluate this viewpoint if new evidence or information surfaces, and if DPS and APS explore new safety and security strategies.  

Student Searches 

The incident at East High School raised an important safety concern around school searches of students who may be suspected to have weapons. We have spent the past week evaluating this practice. We believe we need to formulate a long-term policy on these searches. DPS and APS are also revisiting their processes. While long-term search policies are being revised and finalized, I want to do everything we can to strengthen the safety of how our schools conduct these searches right now. Toward that end, we have asked DPS to provide security personnel to be present if any school needs to conduct these searches at the beginning of the day through the rest of this school year. Currently, we only have a couple of these searches across our 16 schools. We will stay in close touch with DPS and APS as they review and potentially change their policies for the last two months of school. 

School Safety Focus  

I have asked our Home Office operations team to continue to evaluate our school safety practices. Here are a few areas that our team will be focused on in the coming month in all of our schools.

• Spring Safety Audits: The Home Office operations team is conducting its regular spring safety inspections this month with a heightened focus on external safety measures. These audits will focus on physical security measures (doors, security cameras, evacuation maps) and emergency plans, drills and training. The safety audits from the fall demonstrated strong compliance in these areas, and they have been regularly monitored since. Issues that arise are addressed promptly.
• Perimeter Security: We are reassessing and increasing vigilance with perimeter security with a focus on external doors automatically locking, ensuring there is strong monitoring of main entry access and processes to tighten the use of exterior doors for non-emergency purposes. We are also working with our partners at DPS and APS to implement exterior door alarm systems to ensure doors are secure and monitored throughout our buildings.
• Safe2Tell Reports: All of these reports go directly to the police and our school leadership so that we can take appropriate action. We encourage you to utilize this resource to anonymously report anything that concerns or threatens you, your friends, your family, or your community. To file a report you can visit https://safe2tell.org/schools/ or call 1.877.542.7233. 

Your Input

Finally, we want to hear from you. Please share your thoughts on school safety and security here in this two-question feedback form. We would love for you to take a minute or two to hear your recommendations and/or suggestions. This will help inform our long-term policy decisions on school safety and security.

Thanks again for entrusting us with your child(ren).  We take the responsibility of educating your child(ren) very seriously and will do all that we can to deliver on that commitment. 

My best,

Bill Kurtz

CEO, DSST Public Schools