Brownwood ISD Superintendent Dr. Joe Young, on the KOXE Morning Show Friday morning, spoke about Thursday’s lockdown at Brownwood High School, how it was handled by law enforcement and the school district, and the lessons learned for all parties to be better prepared if a similar situation arises in the future.
“We had an issue at the high school where we received a notification from the police department of a perceived threat to the campus,” Young said. “We always take those things seriously, whether they’re active and happening or whether they’re a threat. Those people who make the threats or want to create chaos in situations like will be prosecuted as much as possible. We practice these things, we have drills, we were actually having a drill while this was unfolding, but we have operation plans, we have discussions all the time about these issues. The plan worked, flawlessly is not the word because we learned some things that we can do better in these situations in the future, but it did work as planned for the most part. We were able to secure the area and secure the students which is our first priority. Once we secure the area, secure our students and staff, then we send out as much notification as we can at that point.”
Young addressed those who were trying to contact the high school to inquire about what was happening during the lockdown Thursday morning.
“One thing we did learn that we’re going to do better is that we’ll be sure to automatically switch our phones from the high school to the Central Support Center so those phone calls can be answered,” Young said. “We understand if you don’t get an answer that can bring on anxiety if people don’t know where to call next. Very early on in these types of situations, information is very limited as far as what’s going on, but we always err on the side of taking the most severe security we need to based on the situation and then we can always go backward from that. Our first priority is not answering the phone at the high school when those kind of things are unfolding, it’s securing the students and securing the staff and being sure we know the situation going on.”
Young also spoke about parents’ concerns that notifications were sent out Thursday by email only instead of text message.
“As far as the notifications go, we did send out information but when you have text messaging that’s limited in the number of characters you can send out,” Young said. “We opted to send out the email and that probably was not the right course, we probably should have sent both. We should have sent the email that gave the information we had at that point in time and then also sent a text message to say there is a lockdown at the high school and please check your email for more information. That’s something else we learned that we can do better in the future in those situations.”
Young also shared his thoughts regarding some of the feedback received in the way Brownwood ISD handled Thursday’s lockdown.
“We appreciate everyone who has given us constructive feedback on some things we can do better,” Young said. “We definitely have a list of things that we can improve on and we’re not ashamed to do that. We want to be better as we move forward. People have a tendency in this day and time I’ve noticed, and I myself sometimes find myself in this situation as well, to believe everything is a lie and being deceptive. There’s no harm in that, but ask questions, ask for more details if you think things are not adding up in your mind. Those are the kind of things we want to get out there or, if we don’t know, we want to connect the dots as well because we probably have the same questions. Feel free to ask us if something is really true, if that is really the information we have, we’re OK with that. But don’t jump to the conclusion that we’re lying to you because we’re not. We may have bad information or information we think that is right that we’re passing along, and if it’s wrong we’ll change it. We’ll not be ashamed to say we messed that up and we’ll do it right. But we’re here for no other purpose than to educate our kids and keep them safe and secure. To think there’s any ulterior motive besides that is not what I’ve seen from our district or the people who work in our district.”
Young thanked those who assisted in making sure Thursday’s incident was handled as smoothly as possible, considering the situation.
“We want to thank Chief (Ed) Kading, Assistant Chief (James) Fuller, Lt. (Troy) Carroll and Officer (Fred) Bastardo, those were main gentlemen on the ground that were helping us through the situation,” Young said. “And thanks to our staff for their attention to detail. Our teachers and our staff members are as stressed during these situations as everybody is. They want the kids to be safe, they want themselves to be safe. It’s stressful a situation they’re put right in the middle of. They acted admirably and I appreciate their efforts to keep everyone calm and safe. We want to be sure that we have a simple plan, but an effective plan that keeps people safe and as secure as possible, and then we’ll assess and advise after the fact. But understand that safety and security for our students and our staff is the No. 1 priority and we continue to find the most effective ways to do that. It won’t always be the most popular ways, but it’s what we think is the best option.”
CLICK HERE to listen to the full interview with Dr. Young on KOXE