The Arkadelphia Public School District, in conjunction with the Arkadelphia Police Department and the Clark County Sheriff's Office, is implementing the "Standard Response Protocol" to be used in the case of an emergency at any of the district's campuses.
The SRP is a free program from the I Love You Guys Foundation that allows organizations to have common terminology, visual aids and instructions for all groups to employ in the event of an emergency situation at a campus.
APSD School Resource Officers and administrators have begun working with faculty, staff and students to educate them on the terminology and visual aids used in the program.
Recently in the Badger Blast we have been directing you to the SRP website. Then a few weeks ago, we were advised to implement the "Lockout" portion of the SRP by local authorities due to an incident in town. Since the program is still in the implementation stages, there was some confusion between the terms "Lockout" and "Lockdown."
There are a few things that we noticed that can be done better in the event we have to implement the SRP in the future and one of those is that in the future we will be sending out a text notification if any of the four areas of the SRP are put into action. Just one week before last week's incident, we were in discussion about whether or not to issue a district-wide text notification during a "Lockout" since there is no imminent threat to students. We learned after Thursday that it's better to utilize our text notification system in any case so as to try to help alleviate confusion.
This incident also is a good time to tell you to pencil in the evening of Tuesday, April 9, for a district-wide informational meeting about the SRP program to help parents and community members be on the same page. We set the meeting before our most recent event, but it reinforced the need to have such an event to help parents understand the program. To get a head start on the meeting and learn more about SRP, we urge you to see the information below and visit the I Love You Guys Foundation website. We'll be sending out more information about meetings specifics as plans are finalized. The safety of our students is of utmost importance to APSD, APD and CCSO and we want parents to know about the Standard Response Protocol.Be on the lookout for information regarding an informational meeting in April for parents to attend to learn more about APSD's use of the SRP. In the meantime, for more information on this program, visit the SRP K-12 Program website here.
