District approves emergency plans after presentation on new drill and communications requirements

The Santa Cruz Valley Unified District governing board on Oct. 28 approved updated emergency procedural plans after a staff presentation on new safety requirements and communications tools.

Robert Thompson, safety and security coordinator with the Valley School District, told the board the Arizona Department of Education will require expanded drills starting in school year 2025'26 and the district was using the current school year to pilot changes. "We're up to speed on everything. So we're doing good. We're doing great right now," Thompson said.

Key operational changes Thompson described:

- Fire drills: Sites must conduct monthly fire drills, with the first drill within a school's first 10 days, consistent with the 2018 fire code; Thompson said Arizona is reviewing the 2024 fire code and the district is monitoring any changes.

- Lockdown drills and shelter-in-place: Lockdown drills will increase from one to three per year; Thompson emphasized that an actual lockdown event does not count as a drill toward the three required drills. Shelter-in-place events and drills can each satisfy planning needs but are handled separately for compliance and practice.

- Incident Command System (ICS): Site administrators are identified as typical incident commanders; the system establishes roles and a common hierarchy to coordinate multiagency responses. Thompson said the district and partner agencies have trained under ICS this year.

- Bus evacuations: The district must document at least two bus-evacuation exercises; Thompson said the state guidance focuses drills on regular bus riders but the district prefers broader practice to prepare for field trips and other scenarios.

- Communications tools: The district has enrolled staff in the Raptor alert system to send drill- and emergency-classification messages by text and email to administrators and to partner agencies, including the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office. Thompson described Mutualink as a tool that sends audio, camera feeds and maps to 911 centers and law-enforcement partners and said the district went fully live April 3. "That turns on your app on your phone and that goes to administrators," he said, describing Mutualink as linking the district with local PSAPs.

- Surveillance and access control: Thompson said the district will install at least 18 additional cameras and is enabling audio on some feeds; software can search footage by clothing attributes in some cases. The district also described ID-card and phone-based access control and a lockdown button in the access-control app for site administrators.

Board members asked about past false alarms and discipline, accountability for substitutes during drills, and camera zoom and image quality. Thompson said the district has not had widespread incidents of alarm misuse in recent years, that substitute training was a topic being addressed by the substitutes coordinator, and that zoom and image quality vary by camera.

After an executive session the board returned to open session and moved to approve the district' emergency procedural plans as presented; the motion was seconded and passed by voice vote. The motion did not record individual roll-call votes in the meeting transcript.