Amy Rock (00:55): Hi, everyone. Thank you for joining me for today's interview. I'm Amy Rock, Campus Safety's executive editor, and I'm joined here today by Brendan Sullivan, who is the director of safety, security, and emergency management at Boulder Valley School District and also a 2024 Campus Safety Director of the Year finalist. And we're going to largely talk about a unique program within your district, and that's the School Safety Advocate Program. And in 2021, a lot of school districts, the Board of Education voted to remove SROs from your district. And as an alternative, you created this program, the School Safety Advocate Program. Can you talk a little bit about that program and more about how it came to be?
Brendan Sullivan (01:34): Yeah, sure. Thanks, Amy. So in 2020, our community started to question the role of SROs in school. A lot of other communities did as well. We put together a comprehensive program and evaluation of it. It was actually an external facilitator with expertise in equity and community engagement who came in, developed what we call the BVSD Equity Council. We had over 900 community members that applied to sit on the equity council. And then also we had another group, our district accountability subcommittee, which evaluated the roles of law enforcement in the school district. So lots of stakeholder involvement, DA, police, community members. We had a public defender's office. A lot of people were sat at the table, were interviewed, were provided an opportunity to talk about their roles in policing, talk about their roles in the criminal justice system, and then an evaluation of how they fit into a K-12 environment.
So there was a recommendation that was made to remove them. And with that removal became the opportunity for us to develop a solution. We still had an obligation and a commitment to keep our school safe, to keep our kids safe. And what did that look like? So we put together basically like a roadshow, right? We wanted to seek community input. We had, I think it was six or seven different community groups that we met with. We wanted to understand from their perspective what was important for them, what knowledge, skills, abilities, attributes, character traits, training, et cetera, was necessary for this school safety advocate position to possess in order to make sure that one, our schools were safe, and two, that there was that good connection with our community, our kids in our schools. So we got a lot of feedback and were able to start developing what the position looked like.
It started from scratch. From a school safety position, we knew that we weren't going to have the luxury, I guess, of having an SRO down the hall where our admin staff can just go say, “Hey, this is the situation that occurred. What do I need to do from a school position? Is this a crime? Is this not a crime? Is this something that I need to report? Is this something I don't need to report? Is this something we can handle internally or externally or not?” And then also someone with an emergency management background and someone who's handled a critical incident before, so knows how to manage crisis, knows how to manage the chaos of something bad or potentially bad occurring at a school. So those were other things that we knew we needed to make sure that these candidates had. So a lot of work, a lot of opportunity for us.
Ultimately, we were able to hire 11 pretty outstanding professionals. And how we came up with that determination was a one for one trade, essentially. We had 10 SROs and a supervisor within our entire school district, so that's what we thought would be an appropriate exchange for that -- School Safety Advocates, which we call them SSAs, and then we've deployed them, gave them a lot of training. I think there was over, since they've been here, there's been hundreds of hours. But initially they had, I think it was close to a month of training, onboarding, shadowing, and then a semester of working with the admin team to make sure that the objectives were being met, understand the roles and responsibilities, understand what they will and won't do, understand how they can work with our admin teams. They are a part of our school admin, so they work really closely with them to help make sure that those issues, those high liability and low frequency events are being addressed appropriately, being handled correctly, being the liaison with law enforcement, understanding the set of circumstances of an event that occurred, right, whether it was a crime, whether it meets the elements of a crime, whether we need to get law enforcement involved, whether is a requirement under the law that it's a mandatory reporting event or it's a public safety issue, et cetera. So a lot of work there.
Amy Rock (6:30): Most of the time it's not an issue that needs law enforcement involved, so it's important to kind of delineate the issues based on that. And I also just wanted to say, it's a difficult position to be in because whatever you choose, whether it's SROs, whether it's SSAs, there's going to be people that have an issue with it or different personal experiences with law enforcement. So you were saying you had an equity committee, which is so crucial for including all these perspectives before big decisions like this are made.
Brendan Sullivan (6:58): Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we needed to hear from the community. We needed to hear from our stakeholders internally within our departments, within our school district as well, to make a good decision. And I will tell you, we've had zero turnover. No one's left this position except for one person who took a position of greater responsibility in another school district. A lot of really, really high-level candidates, and I equate that to the work that was done on the front end of making sure that we had the right people at the table to put the job together and to put the interviews, et cetera, together.
Amy Rock (7:47): You mentioned training. Can you tell me a little bit about the training that the advocates receive?
Brendan Sullivan (7:52): Yeah, sure. So they did a lot of anti-bias education, RISE, which is Resilience in Schools and Educators, some mental health first aid, some CIT or verbal intervention training, classroom culture training, school safety accountabilities, our violence risk assessment, Title IX, a lot of Title IX training, de-escalation training. We actually have, our district threat assessment is managed, and there's oversight from our team, so our SSAs are involved in every threat screener, every threat assessment to some degree or another, so there's consistency. So a lot of training on that. Membership of ATAP [Association of Threat Assessment Professionals]. We have actually, one of our SSAs is on the board here in Colorado, so a lot of training specific to that, Safe Schools Accountability, et cetera.
Amy Rock (8:52): Your nomination says the SSAs interface with law enforcement and provide support to the school's incident commander who is typically the principal. Can you walk me through how these three roles would work together to respond to an incident?
Brendan Sullivan (9:05): So ultimately, the person that's in charge of our building is the site leader. So whether that's a principal or who they've left in charge as their designee. So our role is the public safety side of it. Our principals are instructional leaders, they don't have the depth and the depth of experience of handling a crisis, but we have 11 of our staff members who have extensive experience doing that. So they would marry up with the IC from the school. We have someone from our district that would marry up with the law enforcement IC and create the unified command. So our SSA would help walk the principal through the key decisions that need to be made, be the thought partner for them, be the liaison with the unified command with public safety, and then help them process through these events. There's a lot going on. We want to make sure that the objectives of the school district and the school in particular are being met and are heard at the unified command. That person, that SSA, that's with the principal, is the go-between there.
Amy Rock (10:20): Okay, that's great to have all those people working together.
Brendan Sullivan (10:23): Sure, and there's opportunity, and there's been times where our SSAS will say, “Hey, you know what? I will take the liaising with law enforcement, fire, medical, whatever it is that shows up to address the issue. You just take care of the kids.” They have the principal, who is the face of the community, so they understand how to interface with their families. They know how to communicate with their families. When families show up, they're like, “Yes, that's Mr. And Mrs. Principal.” They recognize who they are, et cetera, so that the SSA can go deal with the unified command or the police or fire command that's there, talk about what's important to the district, et cetera.
Amy Rock (11:02): Now with your district, your SSAs don't recommend, administer, or supervise school discipline. Why is this important?
Brendan Sullivan (11:09): Well, one, they're not licensed administrators to do that, but we specifically didn't want them to, right? They're not an enforcement mechanism. They're a support mechanism, so we don't want them ever being the strong arm. They are there to provide the right wraparound services, provide the right resolutions, provide the right recommendations, get the right people to the table to support our students when there may be issues, when there may be safety issues where risks to the student or to the rest of the schools.
Amy Rock (11:47): They do play a role, however, in helping school leaders and administrators approach misconduct. Can you elaborate on that a little bit?
Brendan Sullivan (11:57): Yeah, absolutely. So whether it turns out to be criminal, whether it turns out to be a greater public safety issue, or whether it turns out to be a bullying event, our SSAs are usually walking hand in hand with the site leader or at times taking over the investigations. They have a background in doing that, right? They've spent a majority of their career in that type of role. So they will assist the building leaders in making sure that those events are handled appropriately, thoroughly. In taking care of it, they will send the report, for a lack of better terms, the outcome back to the site leader for the site leader to make a determination on how they want to follow up with whatever sanctions are necessary.
We do have a restorative practices coordinator also that is part of this SSA program. They work in a different department, but we work really closely with them. We found that there's great value in this -- not everyone that steps out of line has to have the same level of discipline or punishment or whatever you want to say. There are other opportunities to correct behavior and to provide resolution to students who make mistakes, whose behavior doesn't align with what our expectations are.
Amy Rock (13:29): Now, students obviously are the ones most impacted by the switch. Have you heard from students regarding their feelings about the switch from SROs to SSAs?
Brendan Sullivan (13:39): Yeah, they have made a tremendous impact to our students. It is pretty amazing. One day, it was the start of the school year, I was standing outside of one of our high schools and our SSA, I was talking to him, and it was at the time of drop off in the morning, and all these parents had come up and were talking to the SSA, and one of them said that their kids had a bunch of friends over, and they were so excited to get this SSA back to their school because of the relationship they have with him. A lot of positive feedback.
We had one that was nominated for an award in a building. It was one employee out of the building could have received this award, and it was one of our SSAs, which is a pretty outstanding accomplishment. Another SSA for, I think this is his third year in a row, has been nominated by his senior class to read the names at graduation, so pretty impactful, right? Great relationships with these kids. We talk a lot about as every school district does, right, climate and culture is a key foundation for safe schools, and that positive relationship with a trusted adult is incredibly important, and that is one of the many things that our SSAs do, and they do it very well.
Amy Rock (15:11): Yeah, I mean, that's huge. It's only been a few short years really since they've been in place, and I feel like typically those awards are often given to veteran or seasoned teachers, educators, or even a janitor or maintenance person, and you don't usually hear really new people, especially in a completely new position, getting an award like that.
Brendan Sullivan (15:35): Yeah, it was the Impact on Education Award, and it was pretty amazing for one of our SSAs to receive and quite an honor for sure.
Amy Rock (15:43): Now, a lot of school districts are reversing their removal since a lot of them didn't replace them with any sort of safety personnel. Have you found SSAs to be equally as effective as what you had prior?
Brendan Sullivan (15:57): I think they have different roles. They don't have the same statutory authority as police officers. They don't have the same roles and responsibilities as police officers. They don't have the same guidelines that they have to work under. They have an equally important part, but different areas of responsibility, and I think that's probably a really great way to say it. A lot of them have worked in that position before they were SROs or had worked in law enforcement or public safety before, so that knowledge and skill and their abilities that they brought in that previous profession, we were able to leverage it and add in more specific information, detail, et cetera, that we need here in BBSD to best support our kids to best make sure that our environments are safe and to effectively address issues that present themselves that compromise safety.
Amy Rock (16:53): I feel like parents are usually the biggest critics of programs or changes. Have you heard from parents that are happy with the program as well?
Brendan Sullivan (17:01): Absolutely. Yeah. A lot of good relationships with them as well. They're usually their first point of contact when a parent's got some issues with some safety concerns at the school, right? It's the building leader and then it's the SSA and our SSAs have a really unique way and tactful way of addressing these safety concerns and collaborating with parents, making sure that they feel comfortable, they feel confident that the issues are going to be addressed and that there's a lot of competency behind the decision making. I'm a parent of three kids. I have two that just graduated last weekend and then a third grader, and I promise you this -- that is the most important thing to me -- is that they come home safe from school. They come home the exact same way that they went to school. Mentally, physically, emotionally. That's our charge every day.
And I will tell you, when you bring parents along and be open, be transparent about what you do, be available to ask and answer questions, and to get them involved in school safety, you have done a tremendous job. When they feel that they are empowered, when they feel that they're knowledgeable, when they know what's going on, it's a pretty great thing. I compare a lot of this is going to a sporting event, right? You scan your ticket and you go through a metal detector and you go inside and you enjoy whatever it is you're going to watch, a baseball game, concert, et cetera. You don't see as the guest, all the work that happens in the background. Same with the school district. We don't showcase everything that happens. There's an awful lot that occurs. We do explain that to our parents. We do let them know, “Hey, this is some of the stuff that we do.” I mean, we run a 24/7/465 operation. We have a staff on at all hours of the day and night to address events. We have really cutting edge technology. We spare no expenses when it comes to making sure our kids are safe, and that means the human capital and the technology side of it. And when parents know that, they feel confident in us. For sure.