Safety goes old-school
School deputies mix new tech with on-site mentoring to detect threats
School resource deputy Fred Hilaire arrives at Millennium Middle 30 minutes before the first period bell each day, giving kids fist bumps and high-fives.
When the students settle into class, he goes to work.
Hilaire strolls around the newly minted campus, jiggling classroom doors to make sure they are locked — they all should be — and surveying every adult for an ID badge.
He hopes to coach basketball at the Sanford school, which opened for classes last month, once a team starts up. Last season, while working at Geneva Elementary School, Hilaire said he used coaching to develop a special bond with an autistic boy who played on his Police Athletic League team.
“Every time he needed something, he would talk to me,” he said. “To this day he has my phone number.”
In the wake of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, schools across Florida are relying on new technology — and an increased law-enforcement presence — to ensure campus safety. School resource deputies such as Hilaire say using the
available technology, including apps that let kids report threats, along with mentoring students can help prevent tragedies.
“There is so much opportunity to talk to these kids,” said Sgt. John Hawkins of the Seminole County Sheriff ’s Office, who supervises Hilaire and other school resource deputies on the east side of the county. “So while safety and security is at the top, mentoring is right there with it.”
Apps give schools a new tool
At the press of a button, a teacher at Evans Elementary School in Seminole County accidentally prompted a lockdown of the campus in April.
The Rave Panic Button app, which instantly alerted law enforcement of a threat at the school, includes options for emergencies such as “fire,” “active shooter” and “medical.” When pressed, an alert goes out to everyone in the network— law enforcement, school officials, school board members— and prompts an immediate response.
“We basically had a reallife training scenario without even knowing it,” said Hawkins. “So within a matter of five minutes, you have 50 officers and deputies at the front gates.”
New technology like the Rave app, which the county began using last year, helps school deputies to communicate and respond quickly to a threat.
Lake County’s school district is currently in the process of adopting the Rave app and Osceola County has just begun using it, according to district officials. Orange County’s school administrators are not yet using the app, spokeswoman Shari Bobinski said.
The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act mandated that every school in the state have a school safety officer — a rule Seminole County schools already followed, Hawkins said.
It also required increased active shooter training sessions with school faculty as well as 10 to 12 hours of active threat training that includes tactics, weapons handling and actual live fire exercises.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is also preparing to launch FortifyFL, an app that allows students to anonymously submit tips about school threats to law enforcement.
The app, which anyone can download, is not required for students or faculty, but each county will have designated law-enforcement and school district officials monitoring any tips it receives, said Audrey Waldron of the Florida Department of Education.
Capt. Rick Francis of the district’s safety and security division said Seminole County schools plan to stick with a similar app they introduced to students last year: P3 Campus. A mobile version of the SpeakOut hotline, P3 Campus allows kids to send in tips to the resource deputy on their phones anonymously— though they can include their name if they want, Hilaire said.
Orange, Osceola and Lake county schools also use the P3 app.
The tool has proved successful, Hawkins said. The majority of anonymous tips this year have come through the app, though none have included information on a serious threat.
Seminole, Osceola and Lake counties will be set up to receive tips through FortifyFL, but will continue to advertise the P3 app.
Identifying kids in crisis
In the weeks after 17 people were killed at Stoneman Douglas in Parkland, more than a dozen students were arrested in Central Florida for school threats, typically on social media. By late April, deputies in Volusia County had arrested 27 students for threats.
To monitor social media, Seminole County also uses Social Sentinel, a program that scans public posts to identify threatening language and could point deputies to a crime before it
happens.
The Lake County School Board recently approved spending $70,000 on the Social Sentinel software at an August meeting.
In Osceola County, district officials use Content Keeper, a similar social media monitoring software.
In the past, the Orange County school district used SnapTrends, but has since done away with the program.
A spokesperson for Orange County schools didn’t immediately respond to requests for information about its current monitoring techniques.
Hilaire said the new technology also bolsters the relationship between students and deputies. The P3 app isn’t just for reporting threats and crime, but for bullying or trouble at home.
“If [Hilaire] can identify these kids that are in crisis… we can get the services that we can offer through our youth services division and really help that child,” Hawkins said.
Hilaire recalls looking up to his own high school resource officer, who was friendly, open and gave him a sense of security — and whom he now tries to emulate.
“Any cop can be here, but the one that builds a relationship with them will make [them] feel that much better,” Hilaire said.