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Consultant finds district strengths and gaps; recommends action plan, Raptor use and second SRO
Summary
A retired Secret Service agent’s comprehensive safety assessment praised the district’s security systems but called for a formal safety-and-security action plan, fuller use of the Raptor visitor-management features, a second school resource officer and coordinated tabletop exercises with town agencies.
A consultant hired to assess Nantucket Public Schools’ safety recommended the district adopt a formal safety-and-security action plan, expand use of its Raptor visitor-management system, and plan joint tabletop exercises with police, fire and other island agencies, the superintendent told the school committee on March 18.
The consultant, Thomas Catalano, a retired Secret Service agent, “did three on-site visits,” reviewed district procedures and flagged strengths and gaps, Superintendent Dr. Parsley said. Catalano “recommended creating a safety and security action plan” and said the district should identify a single point person for safety accountability while ensuring staff and students understand reporting and response roles, Dr. Parsley said.
The assessment noted working systems already in place, including cameras, a reunification plan, building-wide safety teams and the district’s recent Raptor visitor-management rollout. But Catalano recommended the district use more of Raptor’s features — for example, threat-assessment logging, hall-pass tracking and integrating scanned badges — to create a consolidated “container” for behavioral and access data, Dr. Parsley said.
Catalano also recommended more on-site supervision during arrival, dismissal and passing times, and a tabletop emergency exercise that includes local police, fire and the U.S. Coast Guard. “He coordinated with the other agencies,” Dr. Parsley said, and “his recommendation is that we all get together and do a tabletop exercise of something that would happen on island and make sure that we’re all calibrated.”
Building-specific findings included crowding and multiuse vulnerability at the elementary school (NES), low lighting behind the middle school campus path at night, doors propped open and inconsistent announcement audibility. On staffing and process, the consultant said human-resources processes should be centralized — “there really should be one point person for human resources” — and student-behavior tracking should be standardized across buildings.
The assessment also recommended an additional school resource officer (SRO). Dr. Parsley said she has spoken with Chief Casper of the police department, and the town is working toward providing a second SRO next year.
Questions from committee members focused on implementation timing and costs, the town lighting bylaw as it relates to added exterior lighting, and whether the consultant would perform a follow-up assessment. Dr. Parsley said Catalano expected to support a spring tabletop exercise and could reassess then.
Next steps the district described at the meeting included drafting a district safety-and-security action plan based on Catalano’s report, expanding staff training in Raptor features and threat-assessment documentation, scheduling the joint tabletop exercise with island responders, improving lighting and speaker systems where needed, and planning more supervision during arrivals and dismissals.
The superintendent said the consultant’s independence was an asset: he “does not have any connection to Nantucket, so he was totally unbiased.”
