Chandler Unified outlines layered school-safety plan and expands student supports
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Summary
District officials detailed a multi-layered approach to campus safety — from visitor-management and camera upgrades to tip lines and mental-health staffing — and shared data showing most students report feeling safe in classrooms, while administrators pressed to refine incident rates and follow-up supports.
Dr. David Dela Torre told the Chandler Unified School District governing board on Oct. 8 that the district uses a layered approach to school safety that combines people, technology and student supports.
Dela Torre, presenting in a study session, said the district is midway through required five-year threat vulnerability assessments that inform upgrades, and is replacing an older camera system (Ocularis) with a platform called Access to enable clearer footage and future AI-enabled anomaly detection. "We're transitioning to software that gives us greater capabilities for clarity with our cameras," Dela Torre said.
She described a phased rollout of a Raptor alert-and-visitor-management system that can triangulate the location of an employee's badge or an app alert to within about 10 feet and that includes a reunification tool for evacuations. Dela Torre said the system links to a federal registry to help flag visitors of concern at check-in.
The presentation included student-safety metrics derived from district reporting tools and annual climate surveys. Dela Torre said the district completed 128 threat assessments last year, six of which were judged "substantive," and reported 37 threat assessments in the first quarter of the current year with two substantive findings. She said secondary campuses are 1-to-1 for devices and online-monitoring tools (formerly Lightspeed, now Stop It) have generated alerts used for behavioral and safety follow-up.
On student well-being, Dela Torre highlighted counseling and social-work staffing increases supported by grant funding, a new site-based prevention liaison at each campus, universal social-emotional curriculum (Second Step in K'8) and tiered interventions. She cited climate-survey results indicating 91% of students "feel safe in their classroom" and about 80% feel safe going to and from school, while noting those percentages still leave room for improvement.
Board members pressed for more detail on how disciplinary "events" are counted and compared year to year. Trustee Mohsen Heap requested normalizing incident counts by student population; Dela Torre said district teams can disaggregate incidents by campus, repeat offenders and incident category. Trustee Kurt Rohrs asked whether the rise in "minor aggressive acts" reflected increased reporting or worsening behavior; Dela Torre said it was likely a mix of both.
Dela Torre also described procedural steps after significant incidents, including mandated reintegration meetings for students who were suspended and annual reviews of reporting and forms to refine documentation and response.
Next steps outlined by the district included completing the TVA reviews by year-end, continuing camera and visitor-management evaluations (including grant applications such as COPS), expanding staff training on mandatory reporting and trauma-informed approaches, and increasing site-level student engagement to better understand local safety perceptions.
The presentation closed with Dela Torre inviting follow-up questions and promising additional data by request.
The board did not take action at the study session; the district said it will return with further details and year-over-year trend data at future meetings.
