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In the wake of Uvalde, Fort Worth developing warnings for danger near child care centers

Fort Worth Star-Telegram - 6/24/2022

Fort Worth police and the Institute to Advance Child Care at Child Care Associates are partnering to create an early alert system for dangerous activity near child care centers following reporting by the Star-Telegram on the issue last November.

The process has been hastened by the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas last month that killed 19 students and two teachers.

Unlike schools, child care centers speckled across the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex don’t have campus police officers or dedicated lines of communication with law enforcement to alert them when there are concerning incidents in their vicinity.

Instead, they rely on teacher friends and the social media of schools nearby to alert them to possibly dangerous situations. That precarious approach leaves early educators worried that delayed alerts could come too late.

That’s why the alert system, which is still being worked on by Fort Worth police officials, gives Ontara Nickerson a sigh of relief.

The director of Good Shepherd Christian Academy on Fort Worth’s east side has hardened security measures, hired extra staff and refined lockdown training for her staff after a number of incidents ranging from theft of catalytic converters and trespassing, to a threat by a man with a knife.

“It would put my mind at ease and make us more alert,” Nickerson told the Star-Telegram. “We do walk outside and take the kids to the playground area, so if something or a suspicious person is in the area and that’s something we already know about, then we can lock it down.”

Child care leaders are meeting with police to create a solution

Kara Waddell, the CEO of Child Care Associates, has been a key figure in pushing for the comprehensive solution, which conceptually will notify providers via text message or phone call if a serious incident occurs within the vicinity of their location.

“I do worry a little bit about when there is a lockdown at an area school because of gun violence,” she told the Star-Telegram in November. “There’s a process in place where schools are contacted. Child care doesn’t get called … about anything unless somebody heard about it.”

Waddell said she brought the concerns to the attention of the Fort Worth Police Department, and has met with police several times over the past couple of months, with meetings planned to hammer out details in the works.

“It is scary to feel like you’re out there and no one is calling you when there is a dangerous situation,” she said in a recent interview. “I think we can change that. And we would be one of the first communities in the country to have an early notification system specifically for our child care programs.”

After the Uvalde shooting, Waddell followed up on the proposal by publicly responding to Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker on Twitter as she called for more resources for school safety and mental health.

Lt. Chris Daniels, the chief of staff to Fort Worth Police Chief Neil Noakes, said that when Waddell asked whether an automatic alert system already existed, police took inventory of their capabilities.

“We realized that, no, we actually didn’t have that in the schools,” he said. “We have the officers there that can notify the staff, we have our contacts with Fort Worth ISD and the other ISDs we work with so we can contact them directly anytime there’s some kind of significant event or threat or anything like that. But with the day cares, we didn’t necessarily have that.”

Daniels said the department is exploring the use of an existing software that already notifies law enforcement internally via text message and email depending on the type of call that comes in.

“We are looking at some kind of system that would send out a text message or an email notification anytime there’s any kind of violent incident or any kind of incident that threatens public safety, within a geo-fenced area around a specific address,” he said.

The software, called Everbridge, also has products designed specifically for K-12 schools to initiate lockdowns.

One of the details being worked out is what will rise to the level of needing a notification, Daniels said, something that happens on a case-by-case basis with schools.

In addition to a notification system, Waddell said she wants to see more comprehensive lockdown drills in line with fire drills and other safety preparedness exercises.

“All child care providers hold drills on what to do in the case of a fire, what to do in an emergency and they have lockdown procedures in place,” Waddell said. “But we don’t get visited every year and reevaluated in some of those plans, which can be 10 years old.”

Lockdowns are not the same for child care as they are for K-12

The process of going into lockdown has become second nature for children in schools across America.

Turning off lights and huddling in designated areas, and keeping quiet and away from windows are drilled into students from an early age. But for younger children, the process isn’t always that easy.

Early educators walked the Star-Telegram through lockdown procedures that resembled more of a hushed game, coaxing students to the back of a classroom and keeping them from crying out.

That was the reality at Good Shepherd last year when a man with a knife was spotted walking near the school.

“Just keep the kids safe, that was my priority,” early educator Anna Villarreal told the Star-Telegram at the time.

Villarreal was going through the motions when she was notified by another staff member that a suspicious character was outside, holding a knife.

The assistant director, June Robles, took control and corralled the kids to the back of the building at 5625 Good Shepherd Way, called the police and waited at the front door, telling parents they would not be allowed to come in until an all-clear was given. It eventually was, after the man was picked up by someone in another car just moments before police arrived, according to Robles.

But there’s more that needs to be done to clarify the unique lockdown procedures needed for younger children, Waddell said.

“I’m not an expert on gun violence in schools,” she said. “But one of the reasons they wanted kids to stay in one place in schools was that they had a hard time figuring out who was the shooter and who were the students. We don’t have that problem with toddlers. We know who the kids are.”

Child care providers need to prepare for more than just gun violence

According to news reports and interviews with area child care providers, violent crime is not common around day cares. But it also isn’t unheard of.

Across the country, violence and threats have caused child care centers to bolster their facilities or close down.

San Marcos police officers were dispatched to guard day cares across the city earlier this month after receiving an anonymous CrimeStoppers tip, according to local reports, and a Washington, D.C., child care closed its doors after a drive-by shooting occurred nearby.

But there are other tense situations that early educators face on a daily basis that don’t involve guns at all, Waddell said.

“There’s a lot of times custody issues, an absent parent, someone who’s not approved to take that child who shows up … so defusing a very difficult situation is a skill set that they need,” she said. “They also need to know how to handle if something really dramatic were to happen … but honestly just making sure those doors are locked and knowing what to do.”

“And that early notification at least gives them the attention and the awareness to have everyone aware that hey, there’s something going on in the community, let’s take special attention of our youngest ones.”

Uvalde tragedy spurs action to ensure child care, school safety

Waddell had already reached out to Parker and Noakes when a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde Texas resulted in the deaths of 21 people.

The tragedy, which is mired in controversy as official accounts shift from day-to-day, has leaders at every level of government reevaluating their safety procedures to prevent a similar mass shooting from occurring in Fort Worth.

“How do we provide this comprehensively is something that will be important for us to answer,” Waddell said. “While I can hardly discuss the tragedy and what’s happening in Texas, if it can mobilize our community to be proactive for our youngest children, I think that that is at least something that we can feel proud about as a community.”

Patricia Looper, the director of quality assurance for CCA, has been working to refine the plans.

“We were talking about this prior to Uvalde, but that weighs heavy on our hearts and minds because we hate that that happens anywhere, and certainly don’t want that to happen in our communities,” she said. “I think it puts gas on it a little bit more to make sure that it actually gets of the ground. As we get ready to start this new program here, it is very much on all of our minds.”

Daniels said that the police department is always reevaluating and looking for ways to be proactive in preventing threats of violence.

“We’ve been fortunate that we haven’t had any of these big shootings other than if you think back to the Wedgwood shooting,” he said referring to a mass shooting at a Fort Worth church in 1999. “But when (Kara) Waddell reached out we were like yes, this is a blind spot.”

“We rely on folks with different perspectives to give us a heads up on things that they might think that we’re not doing,” he said. “It gives us an opportunity to take a step back and look at what we are doing to make sure that we are being effective and using our resources effectively to make sure that we keep people safe.”

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