Report 2016-136 Recommendation 10 Responses

Report 2016-136: School Violence Prevention: School Districts, County Offices of Education, and the State Must Do More to Ensure That School Safety Plans Help Protect Students and Staff During Emergencies (Release Date: August 2017)

Recommendation #10 To: Kern County Office of Education

To ensure that their schools' safety plans comply with state law and are submitted and approved on or before March 1 each year, the Kern, Placer, and San Bernardino county offices, and San Bernardino City Unified should implement procedures to monitor and approve their schools' safety plans. The procedures should include the use of electronic document-tracking systems and safety plan templates.

1-Year Agency Response

Electronic document tracking systems have been created on Google Docs to monitor the completion of emergency drills at each school site and the development and revision of the comprehensive school safety plans. A School Safety Plan template has also been created and shared with each school site to ensure consistency and compliance in the development of the plans. All documents are following in an email to aaronf@auditor.ca.gov

Documents sent via email:

1. SEMS-NIMS Template

2. Court and Community School SB187 Plan Template

3. Safety Planning Timeline and Safety Planning Tracking

4. Alternative Education Safety Drills

California State Auditor's Assessment of 1-Year Status: Fully Implemented

We reviewed Kern COE's school safety plan templates and electronic document tracking system, and we found them to be adequate.

6-Month Agency Response

Starting in September 2017, a leadership committee was established to supervise and monitor the development of the Comprehensive School Safety Plan for each of the court and community school sites in Kern County.

The first step was to establish Safety Planning Committees (SPC) at each school site which consisted of an administrator, classified staff, teacher, parents, students, and other support staff. Some of the SPC's included law enforcement personnel as well. However, each school site safety plan was developed in consultation with law enforcement, even if they were not part of the SPC.

Meetings facilitated by the site SPC were scheduled at each school site over the next several months. The purpose of the meetings were to develop and review the Comprehensive School Safety plan. The development of each school site plan was developed in accordance to the Compliance Checklist for a Comprehensive School Safety Plan provided by the California Department of Education. A final meeting to which all staff, parents, students, and community members, including the mayor of the city, were invited, was held at each site to allow for public input.

Upon completion of the School Safety Plans, the SPC submitted the plans to the designee (Carlos Rojas) at the county office of education for approval. Supporting documents will be emailed to Aaron Fellner at aaronf@auditor.ca.gov today.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 6-Month Status: Partially Implemented

Kern County Office of Education schools have created school safety plans for the 2018 school year and submitted them for approval. However, it has yet to develop any procedures to ensure that this happens on an annual basis, such as a document tracking system. Further, it has yet to adopt safety plan templates to help ensure schools include all the elements required by state law.

60-Day Agency Response

The plan for implementing the recommendation is outlined in detail on the document emailed to aaronf@auditor.ca.gov on 10/20 at 7:47 a.m. PST. We have identified the specific tasks, staff responsible, and dates to be completed to ensure full implementation of the recommendation by March 1. 2018.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 60-Day Status: Pending

All Recommendations in 2016-136

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.