Over the last two months, there have been numerous reports of school threats in Arizona, whether credible or false. However, an ABC15 investigation found there are few laws at the state level regarding safety and security for schools and their buildings.
Arizona schools and districts do have security protocols such as perimeter fencing for certain grades and emergency protocol plans where a required number of drills are laid out. In those plans are specific needs with emergency operations plans in conjunction with emergency response staff, but since Arizona is a local-control state with schools, physical safety measures can vary from district to district and even from school to school within the same district.
Measures like visitor single point of entry, cameras and perimeter fencing are seen at schools but it’s not a requirement. According to guidelines from the Arizona Department of Administration, the School Facilities Oversight Board, under the department, “a school site provides adequate security if there is a fenced or walled outdoor, play or physical education area for preschool children with disabilities and students in kindergarten through grade six.”
In Arizona, there are a few laws listed under the safety portion of statutes surrounding education. The website shows measures including sunscreen or eye protective devices. Other statutes include posting child abuse hotline numbers in school as well as the suicide prevention number on students’ IDs.
One statute of note is the school safety program, which the Arizona Department of Education works under. This is the ARS that provides funding and grants for School Resource and Safety Officers for districts as well as social workers and counselors.
“It’s sad we even have to have my position, to be honest with you. It's sad we have to have security officers,” said Allen Moore, Mesa Public Schools’ safety and security director.
Mesa Public Schools is the largest district in the state, and with Moore on staff for years, the district has implemented several security measures over his tenure. Moore said the district started putting in more protocols after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut in 2012.
Since then, because of a voter-approved bond several years ago, Moore said the district was able to add more security measures as well as update protocols they felt were needed that also didn’t cost money, such as locking all classroom doors.
All the high schools in Mesa have weapons detectors and the district is working on rolling them out to all junior highs now. Moore hopes to get them at elementary schools down the road but that’s not a certain plan. The district has vape detectors that can also alert school administrators if a fight is about to break out in a bathroom due to loud noises or keywords that are heard, according to Moore.
He said the district also has ballistic film on all glasses or bullet-proof glass in some areas.
“When they first talk about hallways of glass, I cringed. But when I discovered the ballistic film, I said I can do this… It will keep it intact if somebody starts banging at it with a hammer or even start shooting at it,” he said.
Moore also told ABC15 the district has an app that any staff member who downloads it can put the school into lockdown in the event of an emergency. For Moore, he’s able to put any and all schools on lockdown with just a few buttons. When he does that, there is a chat that pops up and he’s in communication with school staff and school resource officers. The district also partnered with the City of Mesa to allow the police department to quickly access their security cameras only when there’s an emergency.
Learn more about the app and how it works in the player below:
There are numerous other measures in Mesa that not every district has. Mike Winters, the superintendent of the Saddle Mountain Unified School District, a smaller, rural district in Tonopah, recognizes they don’t have as many but still feels his schools and many others are safe. The district does have school resource officers, cameras, gates and more. Winters says they have looked into weapons detectors that are used in Mesa and other districts, however, he says it’s not feasible for them.
“That’s just an expense that we don’t have,” he said, adding that it takes staff and paying them to oversee the weapons detectors when they’re being used.
When ABC15 asked Winters if he believes there should be a uniform approach to school safety, he said yes. In seeing national headlines of school shootings and safety measures other districts have in Arizona and even across the country, it’s a bit difficult for smaller schools.
“It's a challenge because there's a public perception out there that, ‘Well, this school has this and this school has that. Why don't you?’” Winters explained.
It comes down to funding and if it makes sense for that community as well. A majority of schools’ safety and security measures come from bond dollars that are voted in by taxpayers. However, in recent years, some districts have seen those election measures fail.
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Mesa Public Schools’ bond measure it asked for in the November 2023 election failed. The district hoped to continue retrofitting some of its schools to have a single-point entry for visitors in part of that bond request, however, because it failed, they’ve had to push that back among other projects. The schools that don’t have the single-point-of-entry vestibule measure have other protocols in place, Moore said.
Some smaller districts told ABC15 they’ve had several bonds fail in the past, so they stopped going to voters for them.
“It shouldn't be about whose taxpayers are willing to pay more. It should be about what the minimum standard is and all school districts should get it,” said Chris Kotterman, the government relations director for the Arizona School Boards Association, a group that advocates for public education in the legislature.
Kotterman is part of the Governor’s Minimum Adequacy Guidelines Modernization Committee. The group was created through an executive order by Governor Katie Hobbs in 2023, looking to modernize current guidelines for school buildings. The goal of the committee is to give the governor’s office recommendations on what should be changed in the guidelines for schools. That could include technological upgrades as well as safety and security measures. While it’s been slightly updated over the years, Kotterman said a major overhaul hasn’t been done since the rules were created in the late 90s.
“Right around they were finalized [in the 90s], is when we had Columbine incident in Colorado and it kicked off sort of the modern era of school safety,” Kotterman said.
The group, which is composed of stakeholders, has been meeting since October of 2023 and plans to have recommendations submitted to the state by November 15, but it will still need to go through more checks in the governor’s office.
Measures like security cameras or single-point entry for visitors could be on those recommendations. However, if those are made as requirements and are approved to go out to schools, there’s another issue that needs to be considered.
“There’s an element in saying in 2024, 2025 now, there’s an element of safety that should be a minimum standard, there’s going to be a price tag to that,” said Scott Thompson, an assistant superintendent of Mesa Public Schools.
“If you’re a smaller district, it’d be difficult to incorporate that into your budget because some of that stuff can get expensive and it’s unfortunate that it can’t be more affordable for all schools because you’d want that for all schools,” Moore added. “All the kids deserve to be safe. All the kids deserve to feel safe and same with our staff.”
One Phoenix-area father, who reached out during ABC15’s Town Hall on school safety and threats, took matters into his own hands, feeling that his two students’ schools and districts do not do enough to keep them safe.
Michael, who didn’t want his last name to be disclosed for the privacy of his kids, purchased two ballistic panels to put in his kids’ backpacks as schools were targeted by social media threats.
“If they never have to use it, it's the best thing... If something were to happen, it gives them a chance,” he said.
He tells ABC15 that his oldest son in high school has escape plans mapped out. His youngest in elementary school asked to have a phone.
“In the event that something happens, so that way he could call and tell us he loves us,” he said. “It’s heartbreaking to hear that that’s on his mind… That’s scary that he’s even thinking about that as 8 years old.”
While some parents look for their own ways to keep their kids safe, despite some safety measures in their schools, Winters said safety also starts with students and staff.
“At the end of the day, it’s the people that’s going to keep the safety. When we find out about threats, it’s because a student reported it to a teacher or the assistant principal or someone reports it on our anonymous hotline,” Winters said.
Winters said mental health support is crucial for their community as well.
“It can be challenging to get mental health support. As a school, we’re left responsible for it,” he said. “It’s a lot of physical things, it’s a lot of other things that go into play that help keep everyone safe.”
