NASSAU COUNTY, Fla. — A new state report shows the Nassau County School District missed the mark on several emergency drills and training protocols.
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The State of Florida Auditor General report said, “the district school safety policies and procedures need improvement to ensure and demonstrate compliance with state law.”
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District records were not maintained properly, according to the report. It’s unclear how many active shooter and hostage situation drills were conducted during the 2020/2021 school year.
In June 2021, four of the seven school resource officers had not completed mental health crisis intervention training, according to the report, and one school resource officer didn’t complete his or her own psychological evaluation. In the report, the district said some training sessions were at full capacity, so they signed resource officers up for classes for the following year’s training.
The recommendation from the state is to enhance procedures to demonstrate compliance with state laws, which includes correctly documenting emergency drills and verifying school resource officers complete mental health training.
A district spokesperson said the district agrees with the findings in the report. In an emailed statement, the spokesperson said they plan to utilize Raptor — a school security app — to properly document required drills. As for new school resource officers, the plan is to train them on mental health crisis intervention as soon as classes are available. Recently, there have been staffing shortages.