A new security protocol devised by The “I Love U Guys” Foundation will be implemented across the district this year.

In an effort to unify terms between schools and among parents, students and first responders, the Standard Response Protocol, or SRP, will be adopted this school year. Safety Day, scheduled for Friday, Aug. 26, will utilize the new protocol, which focuses on four key action plans: Lockout, Lockdown, Evacuate and Shelter. Assistant principal Steven Singleton said the difference in the SRP and previous protocols is that the term “Lockout” has been added.

“The students on our campus have never heard the word ‘Lockout,’” Singleton said. “In a Lockout, we can be business as usual on our campus. A Lockout essentially refers to something outside our campus, and we need to lock our doors – nobody in, nobody out.”

Information about the SRP will be posted on the school’s website, and posters appear in all classrooms and around campus.

“You can’t match what it does for law enforcement and fire because it’s completely standardized,” school liaison officer Cody Jones said. “I was able to sit down with my midnight patrol guys and my daytime patrol guys and walk them through what we’re doing, and they know without a doubt that this is what we’re going to do on every campus. They can be a part of and cooperate with the school and be a part of the response phase.”

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While Lockout is a new term, students may be familiar with Lockdown, Shelter, and Evacuate, similar to the lockdowns, tornado drills, and fire drills from the past protocol.

“It’s a simplified approach to response for any type of emergency,” Jones said. “It does change some things for us, but it standardizes. What that does for us overall as a district is it has kindergartners, for 13 years in a row, learning the exact same protocol.”

The SRP was created by The “I Love U Guys” Foundation, a group established after a student held hostage in her school texted “I love u guys” to her parents before being killed.

“Any program, anything you do doesn’t make your school safer,” Singleton said. “Your people make your school safer, and we have the best people. What this will do is help the best people streamline communication a little bit better and enable us to be a little bit clearer about what’s going on during certain incidences and certain situations.”