Aspen School District addresses changes made to security after February swatting calls
Lucy Peterson/The Aspen Times
The Aspen School District upgraded school locks, updated visitor policies, and created a new position within the district to strictly address safety and security in response to February swatting calls that rocked the school district, school officials and law enforcement officers told parents during a town hall Monday night.
Eight months after the back-to-back hoax calls put schools in the district and surrounding area into lockdown, the district and local law enforcement have used the experience to correct issues and concerns from parents that arose as officials responded to what they initially thought was an active shooter situation.
In a town hall immediately after the swatting incident, parents told the district that communication about what was going on in schools was one of the biggest concerns. Many parents didn’t know if the threat was real or if they should pick up their students.
Since then, the district has created a text service that anyone can opt into to receive updates about schools, including immediate safety updates, said Aspen School District Director of Safety and Security Garrett Seddon at the town hall Monday. It’s the district’s way of streamlining communication between the schools and the community.
“We work in partnership with emergency (services) and law enforcement, making sure our messages are unified,” Seddon said. “We’re presenting information that’s available to us and I understand that it may not be all the information you may want to know but it’s the information that’s been communicated with law enforcement agencies. We’re trying to get that information out to parents in the fastest way possible.”
Parents who wish to receive the texts must opt in by texting “Yes” to 87569 or 79401.
The creation of Seddon’s position was in direct response to the hoax calls and is meant to keep the idea of “safety first” at the forefront of every student, teacher, and faculty members’ minds, he said. Over the summer, the school updated visitor protocols and upgraded locks on every door in the schools to ensure the buildings are secured. Now, Seddon said, he’s working with students and teachers to remember to “stop the prop” — keeping all doors closed so the new locks and protocols serve their purpose of keeping people who are not supposed to be in the school out.
“It’s a community effort,” Seddon said.
The district is using a new visitor management system, which scans visitors’ drivers licenses and creates badges so school staff know who is a visitor who has gone through the school’s front office. The staff are also using an internal communication app that notifies staff in the event of an emergency so they can follow the correct protocols.
Pitkin County Sheriff Michael Buglione highlighted the partnership between the school district, the Aspen Police Department and the sheriff’s office in addressing how to make their collective responses more effective in the event of an active shooter situation in schools.
Over the summer, the school district added a third school resource officer from the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office to expand safety coverage of Aspen School District schools and also Aspen Community School and Aspen Country Day School.
“Many departments warehouse officers that they don’t want on the street in schools,” said Aspen School District Superintendent Dave Baugh. “We have people who choose to be in the schools who are highly trained and totally kid-centric. It is arguably one of the best deployments I’ve seen of school resources officers, and that’s in 14 years in the chair of school superintendent.”
Another concern from the swatting calls was traffic in town that bottlenecked at the roundabout, Buglione said. He has been working with the Aspen Valley Hospital to determine the best way to get medical officials to the school in the event of an emergency. Getting medical vehicles around a blocked roundabout is something the sheriff’s office is still working on, he said.
“Unfortunately we live, for most of the year, in a dead-end… the commuters thought they had a problem and the skiers thought they had a problem, in my eyes the biggest problem was the hospital,” Buglione said. “If we did have a true event (at Aspen schools), we couldn’t get staff to the hospital.”
“I just can’t get every doctor and nurse and staff member red and blue lights to get through traffic, but I’m working with the hospital to try and figure out what we can do, because they were at a dead stop and couldn’t get to the hospital,” he added.
Seddon has worked with teachers and students to ensure all are prepared in the event that the school must go into lockdown. The schools have practiced with drills, ensuring students are able to get out of sight in their classrooms and teachers are keeping their doors locked at all times.
It’s something Buglione hopes won’t need to be put into practice. But in the event of an active shooter or another swatting call, the school and law enforcement are more prepared to respond, he said.
The swatting calls in February, which targeted school districts across the state, prompted an investigation that involved the FBI. In an email to the Times Monday morning, Vikki Migoya, the public affairs officer for the FBI’s Denver field office, said there were no updates from the FBI regarding the February swatting incidents.
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