Q: How has your experience as a police officer helped prepare you for this role?

A: I’ve worked in a variety of positions in law enforcement over my career. Naturally, I started as a patrol officer, but during my career I was also a crime scene investigator, detective, sergeant, and Internal Affairs investigator. I moved to the chief’s office for five years before becoming an Internal Affairs commander. Finally, I finished my career in law enforcement as a patrol district commander.

It’s safe to say I’ve seen and managed a tremendous amount of incidents. I’ve also learned a lot of best practices for preventing, de-escalating, or resolving incidents. Of course, at the top of that list is communication. That’s why I believe in Verity: it makes communication around these incidents so much clearer and faster.

It’s interesting because when I was assigned to Internal Affairs, we actually used a similar system to Verity that was designed strictly for police department Internal Affairs. It’s was a software program that tracked department incidents that I helped initially test and implement. It goes to show that even the police department has seen the value in a platform just like Verity.

Q: As a police officer, did you ever work with other organizations that used a digital platform like Verity to manage internal investigations or support law enforcement investigations?

A: No. Verity is a totally unique solution. Its ability to instantly connect organizations with local law enforcement and share their records is something that I’ve never seen or worked with during my time in law enforcement — but it’s something that would have been incredibly beneficial in improving communication and investigations.

Q: What can schools do on their end to help facilitate the work of law enforcement when incidents occur?

A: Collecting evidence and keeping accurate records are the most important things that school districts can do to predict future threats. One of the great things about Verity is that when you enter an incident, you can attach videos, photos, or any other documentation. So, if you have photos of vandalism, for instance, you can store it safely with the records of the incident and the involved student(s). After logging that information, you can immediately email or invite your local detective or officer to view.

Timing is critical to police investigations. The sooner you can pass along information to a detective, the sooner they can work on it, and the sooner it can be resolved.

Q: With today’s public issues around school safety, everyone wants to figure out the best way to prevent incidents. A lot is still being figured out when it comes to school safety, but what can schools do right now to better prevent incidents involving high-risk students?

A: I think the best prevention method schools can be doing right now is to better monitor all students. If schools can start monitoring students as they begin school, and continue throughout their education, we can start to detect patterns of behavior. Hopefully, that can lead to faster intervention if it’s deemed that student needs extra support (such as counseling or other mental health resources). It’s crucial that we allow school administrators to view detailed student records from the past, to help determine whether that student could pose a future threat to school safety.

Q: The Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 11 earlier this year. It outlines new regulations that schools must follow when it comes to risk management. How do you think Verity can help schools respond to this legislation?

A: Senate Bill 11 outlines that school districts must create a Threat Assessment Team to assess students’ threat levels across the district. That’s really no easy task. Many school districts in Texas are huge. The Threat Assessment Teams need resources that allow them to sort through the large volume of records that each school will have.

Verity was customized for school districts’ use, so all the reporting functionality that’s essential in Senate Bill 11 is already built-in. For instance, there’s a requirement in Senate Bill 11 that the superintendent must be notified if a student’s threat level increases. We know this, so Verity is built to send an alert to the superintendent when the Threat Assessment Team increases a student’s threat level. This doesn’t just fulfill Senate Bill 11 requirements, but it makes communication clearer across the entire district.

Verity also allows users to have different access levels. That means that the Threat Assessment Team can be granted the highest access — with the ability to edit records and alter threat levels — and other users may have the ability to simply view some or all of the records across the district.

We’ve really tried to make Verity a turn-key resource for school districts looking to check all the boxes with Senate Bill 11.

Q: What’s the value for schools in having a platform like Verity for facilitating communication across large school districts?

A: I see the biggest advantage as the significant time savings Verity offers. Administrators’ instant knowledge about what is going on at every school is so valuable. Threat Assessment Teams will also immediately know about incidents that occur across any building or campus in their school district. Verity removes communication hurdles that cause blind spots across a district when it comes to knowledge of potential threats.

Q: Finally, Verity is a platform that holds a lot of student data. Some of it, of course, is very sensitive or confidential. What security measures are in place to ensure that Verity is a safe platform to store these records?

A: Verity will be FERPA-compliant to protect student and family information; this means that we ensure data is encrypted and protected behind a firewall, with additional network access security measures. We also have the ability to host Verity’s platform on a secure server off-site, or can host it on a school district’s own server or cloud network. Whatever the school district prefers, we can support it.

Your Free Verity Demo

Verity’s platform is the solution your Threat Assessment Team needs to better analyze incidents across your district. To learn more about Verity and how it could work for your school district, reach out to experience a free demo.