Davis School District outlines multi-pronged school-safety upgrades, cites state rules and new funding

Davis School District risk-management staff on Oct. 1 told the board the district has expanded its safety work to include health services, environmental protections and building security, and outlined items that will require substantial funding or ongoing maintenance. Rich Swanson, the district’s risk management director, said the district already meets some state requirements — for example, entry-video surveillance and secure vestibules — but faces multiyear obligations under recent state legislation and rulemaking. "First and foremost, above and beyond anything else we could talk about... keeping our school campuses secure and keeping people that shouldn't be in our buildings out of our building is the first thing," Swanson said.

Nut graf: The presentation summed existing in-district efforts (school nurses, environmental testing, access controls) and new compliance steps tied to House Bill 84, House Bill 40 and state rule R698-13. District staff described an ongoing $2 million classroom-lock replacement project the district received as a grant, state-supplied bleed/tourniquet kits, a statewide panic-alert procurement, and the multi-part "school guardian" volunteer option for armed staff that must meet training and screening requirements by an August 2025 compliance date.

Swanson said nursing and health services underpin safety responses: the district has 26 school nurses and 62 health-care clerks who update individualized health plans and supervise emergency medications. He listed current caseloads: 3,192 students with type 1 diabetes, 305 students with seizure disorders, 808 students with severe allergies (district-supplied emergency epinephrine administered nine times last year), 1,161 students with asthma and 432 students receiving daily prescription medications under nurse supervision.

On facilities and environment, Swanson said the district has an environmental safety manager, conducts annual asbestos reviews and maintains a remediation log in every building. He reported a recent water-sampling program that tested about 18,000 faucets and said "we are 100% remediated, so there are no faucets within our district that are currently reading below danger levels for lead within our buildings."

Swanson reviewed the state’s phased safety timeline. Requirements for 2029–2030 include video surveillance of entrances and interior classroom locks; by 2035 the state requires limited entry points, security glazing or specified glazing film, and interior windows/ballistic glazing around classroom doors. "That's going to be a very expensive one," he said of glazing requirements. He noted the state changed building needs-assessment frequency from annual to once every three years.

Swanson described operational steps the district is taking now: unscheduled building walkthroughs (five to 10 schools weekly) with principals, work-order follow-up, and coordinated review by the Utah Department of Public Safety School Safety Center, which has conducted district-building walk-throughs and produced multi-page reports. The district also maintains AEDs, annual AED maintenance, elevator/lift inspections, and routine mold and water-sampling programs.

On personal-security equipment and supplies, Swanson said the state has issued an RFP to provide bleed and tourniquet kits statewide and that the district expects to receive kits; he said the kits will require minimal annual maintenance for first-aid supplies. He also said the state announced it will cover the statewide panic-alert system, after the district’s own RFP came back with a $5–6 million local price tag.

Swanson described the district’s classroom-lock replacement project: a $2 million grant is funding installation of new locks on every classroom door that permit a teacher to leave a door unlocked but lock it quickly with an in-room button. "That lock will look like this lock here," Swanson said during a demonstration, noting the locks also bring ADA compliance for some older door hardware. Board members asked how many classrooms exist; staff explained the $2 million amount divided by an estimated per-lock price yielded the district’s classroom count.

On armed-capability options required or allowed by statute, Swanson outlined three choices: additional sworn school resource officers (city budgets and staffing limit availability), contracted armed security officers (district said vendors large enough to cover the district may not exist), and the school-guardian option where district employees may volunteer to be armed guardians if they hold a valid concealed-carry permit, pass a one-time mental-health screening and complete school guardian training. Swanson said the mental-health screening cost had previously been treated as an annual expense (about $400) but under current rules is a one-time screening unless there is cause for re-evaluation; the state pays a $500 stipend to guardians and the district will provide an additional $750 (calculated as an hourly-rate equivalent). He said the district currently has volunteers but would need to recruit more local employees to reach full coverage; he described training provided by Davis County Sheriff’s Office and local police and praised their role in instructor-led training.

Board members asked about tourniquet training; Swanson said the nursing department is conducting training now and that training will scale up when classroom kits arrive. Questions about substitute teachers and panic-button integration led staff to describe that substitutes receive the standard-response-protocol (SRP) badge and that planned panic-button systems will push SRP instructions to logged-in devices.

Ending: Swanson and assistant superintendent Chadley Bodley answered questions and the board thanked the team. The presentation included a request for continued district and city coordination, and staff described next steps to implement the lock project, receive state-supplied kits, continue unscheduled walkthroughs, and process volunteer guardian applications ahead of the August 2025 compliance milestone.