Colonial School District details expanded training, detectors and monitoring systems as part of safety upgrades

At a safety summit held at William Penn, Colonial School District officials outlined a series of security and student-support measures the district said it has added or will launch, including expanded ALICE active-shooter training, additional metal-detection units, access-control upgrades and new monitoring software.

The district said the measures are intended to improve response capability and to identify students in crisis earlier. "If you see something, say something," a district official said, summarizing the partnership the district seeks with parents and the community.

District staff said they have switched to a new platform to centralize safety plans and exercises; are testing an AI-enabled camera system at William Penn High School; bought a second metal-detection system that will be based at McCullough Middle School but be available districtwide; and completed a secure vestibule at Newcastle Elementary, with access-control upgrades planned next at William Penn and at staff centers. John Barr (referred to in the meeting as "JB") described continuing site-level drills — fire, lockdown and tabletop exercises — and said the district has trained at least two buildings this school year on ALICE, the alert-lockdown-inform-evacuate active-shooter protocol. "We are the ones that are gonna run to the danger while everybody else is running away," Carl Bond, the district lead constable, said of the constable program.

John Cooper, the district's director of health and wellness, described programs the district uses to monitor and respond to student mental-health and safety concerns. Cooper said the district participates in a statewide GoGuardian deployment via the Delaware Emergency Management Agency that flags concerning searches on school devices; "We get those alerts. We notify the parents," Cooper said, adding that if staff cannot reach parents they notify police and request a wellness check. He also described Take Care Delaware, a notification program that alerts schools when a student has been present at an incident where police were involved so counselors and teachers can simply "keep an eye" on that student the next day. Cooper and other staff described a separate reporting app that allows anonymous student reports and online counseling.

Staff also said the district is replacing a legacy mapping tool with a FEMA-related comprehensive safety platform (described in the meeting as "SLIDE," which district staff said will standardize plans across schools), and that they continue to use monitoring tools they named as GoGuardian and Stop It. District staff described "halo" bathroom-monitoring systems that detect smoke and gunshot and push alerts to administrators.

Officials gave details on staffing and constable coverage: the district said it now has 12 constables across the district, with three assigned to William Penn; some smaller campuses share a constable. Staff said the number of constables statewide has risen from roughly 200 several years ago to "over 400, close to 500." The district did not provide a line-item budget for those posts during the presentation.

Officials said they have been reviewing the timing of attendance-notification messages after an audience question about why absence notifications are sent at 6 p.m.; staff said they are testing the capabilities in the new Infinite Campus system and expect to provide an update in the coming months. Staff also encouraged parents to keep contact information current in Infinite Campus, to lock firearms at home, check student backpacks and monitor children's online activity.

Corporal Green, introduced as a school resource officer with the Delaware State Police, described building relationships with students and staff and invited parents to reach out if they had concerns.

No formal motions, votes or policy adoptions were recorded during the presentation; the session was framed as an informational update and a question-and-answer period with parents and community members.

The district said it will provide a written safety-and-security update to the board every three months and that a public update will be posted to the board documents page on the district website. The staff presentation noted some items are still in testing and rollout phases and that further details — including timing for the AI camera rollout and exact schedules for ALICE training at individual schools — will be provided when available.