DeKALB – A team of educators, staff and administrators in the DeKalb School District 428 is ensuring all buildings have the same protocol for responding to threats or other emergencies.

District 428 Superintendent Jamie Craven said the plan is supported by the Federal Bureau of Investigation after Director of Students Services Cristy Meyer attended an FBI workshop on the matter.

“Safety protocols are always too much until they’re not enough,” Craven said Tuesday during the District 428 Board meeting. “We’ve been doing it as silos in each building.”

Craven said the plan will allow specific people in their roles, such as a building principal, to perform their emergency duties in the same manner from any building in the district.

The board gave its consensus to bring the topic back for a vote at a later meeting in the new year, and will begin discussions as district staff, in conjunction with district school resource officers, begin to compile the threat assessment plan.

The District 428 Threat Assessment Team will include Director of Student Services Cristy Meyer, school psychologist Lisa Becker, DeKalb police detective and school resource officer Aaron Lockhart, Chief Technology Officer Ben Bayle, DeKalb High School Assistant Principal Donna Larson, school counselor Jen Gammelgaard, social worker Kevin Herrera and Director of Facility Operations Services Tammy Carson, according to district documents.

“I want to emphasize it’s hopefully preventative to stop a threat before any action takes place,” Meyer said. “It has a very thorough training associated with it, and it really does help a team work through step by step, making sure we’re putting supports in place.”

Board member Jeff Hallgren asked what would change in the new model compared with the protocols in place in district buildings currently.

Meyer said the plan simply will formalize the steps already in place.

“[The plans] are based on events that are brought to the leadership team at each building,” Meyer said. “They are responding on that individual level. So they have been informal but fortunately, to this point, effective. It makes our protocol consistent throughout the district.”

Meyer said the consistency will be similar to the district’s procedures for tornado or school intruder drills.

Donna Larson said the safety committee met once a month to discuss possible scenarios needed to incorporate into the plan.

“We have everything in pace for certain threats,” Larson said. “But this will give us a little more background information on how to handle certain situations. Things are super different each time they come across our buildings.”