Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools held its inaugural Safety Summit at Elbert Edwin Waddell High School on Tuesday, Oct. 21. Held during School Safety Week, the Safety Summit showcased the district’s commitment to safety and included a resource fair that featured several community partners and CMS departments, a panel discussion and breakout sessions.  

“Our Safety Summit marks an important moment for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools,” said Chief Operations Officer Tim Ivey. “We’re launching our new 24Safe, Stronger Together campaign which focuses on three main points — sharing the safety measures we have in place at CMS, rallying support from families and helping our community understand the role we all play in keeping kids safe. Safety isn’t just the school’s responsibility, it’s a team effort.”

Panel discussion highlights school and community safety measures

Sonja Gantt, CMS Foundation executive director, moderated a panel discussion that covered a range of topics including School Resource Officers (SROs), Title IX, the district’s prevention methods, community resources and school safety enhancements.

CMS Chief of Police Jonathan Thomas highlighted the important role SROs play in the school.

“Our SROs have to be a jack of all trades,” said Thomas. “They’re looked at to be that compassionate police officer many students first encounter in a positive way and can be trusted for students and staff to reach out to.”

The CMS Police Department is made up of 25 sworn officers and 200 civilian staff, and works hand-in-hand with local first responder agencies. James Flowers is a SRO at Rocky River High School and focuses on the “resource” title in his role. A lot of what he learned is from interactions he’s had with students. 

“Our SROs really do build some strong partnerships,” said Thomas. “They’re the same ones in the schools for years and a lot of them have seen these kids grow up. They’re lifelong friends.”

Breakout sessions dive deeper into district protocols and community resources

Safety Summit attendees had the opportunity to attend breakout sessions around topics including the ABCs of Active Survival, NC S.A.F.E. and the newly adopted Standard Response Protocol (SRP).

The SRP was adopted this school year and was developed by the national non-profit “I Love U Guys” Foundation. It creates a predictable and unified response to any school-based incident.

“With the Standard Response Protocol, we have consistency across all of our schools,” said Ivey. “There are five terms that we utilize and each of those terms has actionable steps that go along with them so that even if you’re not trained in the SRP, based on the posters and information that’s throughout the school, you will know what to do and where to go for each type of situation. So based on that, it allows us to create a more, I think, calming environment for our students.”

Ivey looks forward to future summits and conversations ahead, and shared that if the community wants to see improvements, “we have to rally together.”

“The safety of our students is, of course, our top priority and when students come to school, we want them and our staff to feel safe and secure,” he said. “CMS has really invested in the fact that we’ve got a very differentiated, layered approach to safety for our students and staff. By talking about safety and making it a topic that’s open for people, we’re given the opportunity to find out if there are areas we need to improve on and keep the conversation alive so it stays at the forefront of what we do.” 

For more information on safety in CMS, visit here.