Cedar Rapids schools stress consistent emergency protocols, roll out CrisisGo and pilot cell-phone limits

Janessa Carr, Safe and Secure Learning Environment Administrator for the Cedar Rapids Community School District, said the district’s top safety priority is uniform emergency procedures across buildings and “making sure we have clear, established emergency protocols across all of our buildings.”

That focus underpins a broader push the district described to reduce physical aggression, standardize responses to incidents and expand a digital crisis-management tool called CrisisGo. The district is also piloting approaches to limit student cell-phone use during instruction and said the Executive Director of Behavior Support role was created under a consent agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice.

Why it matters: district officials said inconsistent building-level procedures and rising instances of physical aggression since the COVID-19 pandemic have made a single, districtwide foundation for safety more urgent. Officials said clearer protocols, training and technology will help staff respond more quickly and keep students in class — a stated goal tied to academic outcomes.

Carr said the first step is a “foundational layer of safety,” meaning…