District Police

October 21/2020

Good morning again. This e-mail was sent to our Officers this morning. Officer Scarafile is working on the 6 schools listed at the bottom that have radio issues. If you have radio related questions please call me or Capt. Bill McMahan.

Thank you,

Stewart

Good morning all,

The Chief and Captain Garza wanted us to thank everyone for the fast responses on the radio checks of the schools yesterday. The walk-throughs went well, and the vast majority of the schools are on the radio frequency that enables us to speak with them.

Most of you already know this, but we do have some newer Officers that may not know. We want to inform and remind everyone why being able to communicate with the schools through the radio is important.

We all know in critical situations, seconds count. In the event of a major incident, we want the best information we can possibly receive. Sometimes things are lost in translation between a call being taken in Dispatch and then relayed via the radio. We all know that the reportee/callers from the schools and Dispatch are doing the best they can to relay to us pertinent information, but sometimes it is just not quite right. Being able to use your school radio to speak directly to a Principal, Assistant Principal or someone else on campus who has direct knowledge of what is transpiring could save lives.

The school radios serve a great purpose during an emergency. We need to utilize that on a daily basis for those non-emergency calls and day to day interactions. The daily use of the school radios serves a few different purposes.

· First and foremost, it allows the schools that do not speak with us regularly on the radio to become accustom in communicating with us in that manner. In an emergency, we want whoever is speaking on the radio as comfortable as they can be. They only way to achieve this is through repetition.

· Secondly and just as important, we know school radios are a main stay of communication between Administrators and Officers assigned to High Schools. Intermediate Administrators and Officers also communicate frequently via the school radio. We need to work on getting Elementary and Middle School Administration and staff comfortable with speaking with us on the radio as well.

· Third and finally, it can aide in those non-emergency calls in which you still need pertinent information, to include but not limited to (i.e. an upset parent, a special needs student wanders from the campus, assisting with EMS calls)

I know this is longer than a typical email, but there is a reason behind it. We ask that while conducting your walk-throughs/campus checks, please contact the school by using your school radio to let them know you are on campus, and when you depart. This will get the schools comfortable in talking with us on the radio as well as, aide in social distancing.

For example:

Lenting: Officer Lenting to Genoa Elementary

Genoa : Go ahead Officer Lenting

Lenting: I will be monitoring the parking lot/conducting a walk-through.

Lenting: Officer Lenting to Genoa Elementary, I am departing campus

Genoa: Thank you Officer Lenting

If you call out on the radio and a school does not answer please make contact with the front office. Similar to what you did yesterday, ask what channel they are using and nicely remind them that the channel you have is how we will communicate in the case of an emergency.

Scarafile is currently working on six schools that are having radio issues:

Kruse Mellilo

Freeman BHI

Young Jessup

Understand that you may temporarily have issues communicating with these six schools.

As always, if you have questions, give Lonnie or I a call.

Grice