Cherry Creek Schools outlines districtwide safety upgrades, drills and technology overhaul

Assistant Director Ian Lopez and district security staff briefed the Cherry Creek School District Board of Education on the district's safety and security work on Aug. 11, 2025, detailing planned technology upgrades, training and operational changes intended to improve response and reunification in emergencies.

Lopez told the board the district serves about 53,000 students across roughly 101 square miles and works with four law enforcement jurisdictions and two fire departments, which complicates coordination. "We're trying to provide safety and security, and we provide an environment within the schools that makes the feeling of safety pervasive throughout the district," Lopez said.

The presentation listed several projects funded by the 2024 bond and ongoing operations work: replacing and increasing the number and quality of cameras, modernizing aging access-control readers, integrating alarm systems, testing security film through an RFP process, and evaluating visitor-management systems (the district currently uses Raptor). Lopez said the district is working with a vendor called Convergent on a redesign of the security technology infrastructure.

Lopez described the Red Bag system as a classroom-first-aid kit that also carries a QR code staff can scan during lockdown to open a two-way communications channel with district security. "Red Bag was born of that," Lopez said, describing the product's development with a vendor and its expansion to include accounting and reunification features so parents can be registered and tracked before arriving at a reunification site.

On operations, district staff emphasized the emergency operations plans and the use of the Standard Response Protocol and the Incident Command System. "It is state law that we participate in the Incident Command System," Lopez said; the district is emphasizing practical, tiered training so building leaders and staff can manage the first five critical minutes of an event.

Lopez and staff described the district's training and exercises over the summer, including more than 600 drills in recent years. They reported incident statistics for the prior year: 904 medical calls, 7,739 security-based calls, nearly 13,500 transportation calls, almost 10,000 maintenance calls, 29 holds, 37 secure directives and 16 lockdowns. District staff said they conducted 406 student searches and recovered five weapons; the presentation reported that searches with recovered weapons represented about 1.23% of students searched.

Board members asked about coordination with multiple jurisdictions and about Red Bag's next development steps. Lopez and other security staff said relationships with Aurora Police, the Arapahoe County Sheriff, South Metro and fire agencies are built through regular meetings and joint training. Lopez said Red Bag's next step is to expand attendance accounting and reunification workflow to reduce manpower needs at reunification sites.

Other operational work described included rollouts of building renumbering, continued dispatch improvements after merging security, transportation and maintenance into a single operations center, expansion of radio infrastructure, and an RFP and early testing phase for security film. Lopez noted improvements to reunification processes after several recent events demonstrated both strengths and gaps.

The board did not take formal action on the presentation; the item was for information and discussion. The district said additional public updates on specific bond projects and technology procurements will follow as design and procurement proceed.

Lopez closed by thanking staff and the board for support and said the department will continue training, technology upgrades and relationship building with public safety partners.