District outlines plan for a single reunification site, increased tabletop exercises and SRO training

MORIARTY-EDGEWOOD — Superintendent Biano told the school board Jan. 21 that Safety and Security is a top strategic focus and the district is pursuing a centralized reunification site to streamline emergency response across campuses.

Biano said the district is working with the town of Edgewood and the Edgewood Police Department to identify a district complex with controlled access that could be used to reunify students with families in a large-scale incident. He described the effort as a planning exercise rather than a construction project and said the goal is to have the reunification option ready for the next school year.

Mr. Adams, who addressed the board after the superintendent, described the operational challenges reunification can create. "Reunification of your school being the most difficult part of an emergency response," he said, citing a prior event where "10,000 people showed up to that reunification site" to underscore scale and traffic-management needs.

Administrators said the district will hold quarterly Emergency Response (ER) meetings with local law enforcement and first responders, run tabletop exercises for principals and central staff, and develop detailed layouts for mental-health rooms, medical assistance stations and an incident command center at the selected facility. Biano said those meetings will include transportation, maintenance and mental-health teams and that schools will retain their existing secondary reunification sites as part of contingency planning.

The board discussed logistics such as traffic flow and parking for family reunification. "I don't think that we'd be looking at expanding," Biano said, describing the effort as planning for how to use existing space and rely on partner agencies to control traffic and entry. Board members pressed for a timeline and for more details in upcoming reports; administrators said they will refine plans, resubmit safety documents to the state for review, and update the board as work continues.

School staff also reaffirmed the district's move to engage School Resource Officers (SROs) more closely in planning; administrators plan to send SROs and security aides to the New Mexico Safe School Summit Feb. 18–20 and brief the board afterward. District staff emphasized that tabletop exercises already include scenarios ranging from isolated campus incidents to regional emergencies (examples mentioned: a car fire in a parking lot, a chemical spill on I-40).

Next steps: the ER team will continue quarterly meetings, the district will complete detailed operational plans for the proposed reunification site, submit revised safety plans to the state, and report progress to the board in coming months.