PALO VERDE VALLEY TIMES, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 7, 2018  B7
PVTA’s concern with safety against school shootings
BY CATHYLEEN RICE
TIMES REPORTER
Presenting to the gov-
erning board of the Palo
Verde Unified School
District, Mary Roberson
the current president of
the Palo Verde Teachers
Association shared pos-
sible solutions and steps
to take to ensure every
classroom at every school
is protected against gun
violence.
Standing behind the
podium before the school
board, Roberson said,
“We have been sitting
with our hands down
long enough. We need to
do something and I have
spoken before and noth-
ing has never happened,
and it’s sort of frustrating
because once again you
have a school shooting
and Dr. Guith comes on
campus to check doors
and it’s not enough.”
After reaching out to
teachers and learning of
their concern with class-
room doors and the safe-
ty of their students and
themselves in the event
of crisis, Roberson spoke
at the last school board
meeting to make it a case
in point to the district
about investing in pre-
cautionary tools.
With a close relation-
ship with the staff at Felix
J. Appleby, Roberson’s
proposed plans for action
included the number of
classrooms currently at
the elementary school,
wherein she shared in-
formation that was cost
effective for the board,
should they decided to
move in favor of her pro-
posals.
Since teachers at Ap-
pleby told her their main
concern in the event of a
gun situation was with
classrooms doors and the
risk they take in stepping
outside of their class-
Leaving tracks:
Adrenaline-fueled
count shows scant
growth in Mexican
gray wolf population
BY JENNA MILLER
CRONKITE NEWS
ALPINE — Ole Alcum-
brac has just eight min-
utes.
A wolf sprints across a
field of dry grass, a heli-
copter clattering above.
About 30 feet above
ground, Alcumbrac —
eyes glued to the wolf —
leans out of an open door,
into the turbulence, raises
his dart gun and aims for
its rump.
The chase is adrena-
line-fueled, but there’s a
rhythm. If Alcumbrac, a
project veterinarian for
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, fails to dart the
wolf in eight minutes, he
must allow it to rest for at
least five minutes before
trying one more time. And
if he doesn’t hit his target
on the second attempt, the
wolf is free to go — until
another day.
On this trip in late Jan-
uary, Alcumbrac’s aim is
true; the wolf slows to a
crawl, then stops.
“It’s a challenge, plain
and simple,” Alcumbrac
said.
The chase was part of
the federal agency’s an-
nual program to moni-
tor endangered Mexican
gray wolves living in the
wilds of eastern Arizona
and western New Mexico.
The service tries to get
an accurate count of the
wolves, which have been
listed as endangered since
1976.
The Mexican gray wolf
once was prevalent in
parts of the Southwest,
but intensive trapping
and hunting had nearly
wiped out the wolves by
the 1970s. They are the
smallest, rarest and genet-
ically most distinct sub-
species of gray wolves in
rooms, Roberson relayed
to the board, “They have
to step outside to lock
their doors and step back
in, that takes a couple of
minutes and if you’re un-
der stress, when you’re
fearful, when you are
whatever, it takes forever
and it’s a lot harder to
do.”
Thus, taking the time to
do a little research on her
own, the PVTA President
found feasible, yet dura-
ble door barricades and
program systems that
will help bring ease to ev-
ery school administrator
and teachers’ anxiety.
Finding fast and effec-
tive sleeves, barricades
and lockdown magnetic
strips, which would
make it difficult for a
perpetrator to break into
classrooms at the school
and open fire, Roberson
showed slides of infor-
mation, including costs,
directions of installation
and the effectiveness of
each item.
With Felix J. Appleby
Elementary School hav-
ing 40 classroom doors,
Roberson’s projection
included the purchas-
ing of magnetic strips
that totaled about $1.84
per door or $27.96 for a 5
pack, in addition to bar-
ricades/sleeves ranging
anywhere from $59 to $79
each.
As a second concern
made aware to Roberson
by teachers at Appleby,
was the need for window
security should a student
try to break in from the
outside.
“We have 2,600 square-
foot of glass (windows) at
Appleby” Roberson said.
Yet, with her finding of
window security film that
goes over both sides of the
window, Roberson’s re-
search showed that with
the film added to all the
windows in Appleby, the
North America, officials
said.
A program to reintro-
duce the wolves into the
wild began 20 years ago,
and the population has
been growing slowly.
The field team said the
information gathered in
annual surveys plays an
important role in that
growth. They take great
pains to capture and care
for the wolves.
Alcumbrac stays within
the eight-minute limit be-
cause he doesn’t want to
cause unnecessary stress
or overheat the wolf,
which could injure or kill
it.
The dart, which is filled
with the sedative Telazol,
will knock out a wolf for
only a short time. The
team has to work quickly,
landing the copter, racing
to the wolf, and carting it
back to the helicopter for
a quick trip to a waiting
team of biologists and vet-
erinarians, stationed in
trailers or makeshift fa-
cilities in rural locations
across the wolves’ terri-
tory.
The team treats the
captured wolves for any
injuries, administers vac-
cines and fits the wolves
with tracking collars be-
fore releasing them at
the same spot where they
were captured. The medi-
cal treatment is meant to
keep the wolves healthy,
and the collars help to
monitor their movements
throughout the year.
This year, the team cap-
tured and collared 24 Mex-
ican gray wolves, more
than any previous year.
However, after strong
population growth of 16
wolves in 2016, the 2017
survey showed an in-
crease of just one in the
past year, bringing the
possibility of someone
getting through the shat-
terproof windows is like-
ly, but unlikely.
She said, “They can
take a rock, they can take
a crowbar, they can take
whatever they want to
take and that window will
not shatter...Eventually it
will shatter, but by that
time, you will have first
responders.
First responders have
to arrive in three minutes
once the call is made, so if
you can keep your school
safe for three minutes un-
til the first responders ar-
rive, you’re doing really
well and that film on that
window will last three
minutes. It will not last
forever, but it will last.”
Next, she shared a third
concern with the board,
which detailed how un-
wanted visitors on school
campus could be tracked,
which can also be used
in the best interest of the
school, should an offend-
er try to make their way
on school grounds.
Using a “Keepntrack”
program that the high
school currently utilizes,
Roberson said visitors
would be tracked and ac-
counted for, as the scan
will run state identifica-
tion through the national
registry of sex offenders,
to ensure that office staff
know who is on campus.
Roberson shared with
the board, through this
way, “You know immedi-
ately whether that person
should be on your cam-
pus or not. I can tell you
first hand how I had that
happened last year where
I had to tell a man that he
could not come onto our
campus for the assembly,
because he was on the
National Sex Registry, so
those things happened ev-
ery day.
So we have to protect
our students and this is
WHEN THE WOLVES ARE RELEASED,  they typically rejoin with their packs quickly, veterinarian Susan Dicks said. The results of
the latest aerial survey show 22 Mexican gray wolf packs living in eastern Arizona and western New Mexico.
number in Arizona and
New Mexico to 114.
“It was a disappoint-
ment that we didn’t grow
this year,” said Sherry
Barrett, U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service Mexican
wolf recovery coordina-
an easy way.”
“We open our doors
in the morning, visitors
come in and out, parents
come in and out, whoev-
er comes in and out; we
don’t really keep track
of that before still starts.
[but] once school starts,
we lock the doors. No
one can go in unless they
come through the office,
but [what if] they’re al-
ready on campus, and if
they don’t leave, if they
hide somewhere, they’re
there and how are you go-
ing to protect that,” Rob-
erson questioned.
In addition to fine
combing record data-
bases, Roberson said the
Keepntrack program will
also print a photo ID for
visitors to wear while on
campus, so that students
and staff know that the
visitor have gone through
the proper regulations to
be on campus.
However, nonetheless,
Roberson said teachers
will also need classroom
supplies and additional
training for themselves
and their students, be-
cause as of right now,
“We have nothing!”
From keeping class-
room supplies for bath-
room breaks and food and
drinks for those who have
dietetic needs should
the school ever have the
need to go on lock down
for any reason, Roberson
said nothing from the dis-
trict is currently being
provided unless it comes
directly out of the pockets
of the teachers.
Urging on the safety
conversation, Roberson
said, “We need to train
our teachers and our stu-
dents, and we don’t need
to train our students
while they’re sitting in
a classroom, we need to
train them at lunch, when
they’re at recess, we need
to train them at all times.
tor. “It slows our time to-
wards recovery.”
She said officials hope
for a 10 percent popula-
tion growth each year, but
they expect some fluctua-
tion. They measure the
growth rate as an average
They need to know what
to do, and so do our teach-
ers.
Kindergarten students
need to know what to
do in [case of an] event
[when] they’re on the
playground and do not
know what to do. “
Since speaking to the
board about bringing
much needed safety to the
schools in PVUSD on last
year, Roberson said she
was sent out to a train-
ing in Claremont at a TO-
SAS conference, where
she learned about other
safety and preventative
measures to help protect
students and teachers.of
PVUSD.
“Actually right af-
ter the San Bernardino
shooting,I had the oppor-
tunity to meet the head
of security [of] Redlands
School District, because
when they captured the
guy, he was close to the
school and so forth, and
I have had the opportu-
nity to go to several CTA
conferences (California
Teachers Association)
and learn more informa-
tion, and I spoke a year
or maybe two years ago…
There was a situation in
a school district over to-
wards the big cities and
they had to call lock down
and when they called lock
down in the schools, the
teachers stepped outside
and anybody in the hall-
way, they brought them
in.
“Well it just so hap-
pened that the teacher
brought the perpetrator
into her classroom, be-
cause there was no way to
identify the perpetrator.
So at that time I brought
forth that there was a
way to produce visitation
badges with pictures on
them and [only] the high
school has [it], but not the
elementary schools.
In January, I went to
PHOTO BY JENNA MILLER/CRONKITE NEWS
over a number of years to
account for these dispari-
ties. The average popula-
tion growth rate over the
past 10 years was 7 per-
cent.
Cronkite News reporter
Meagan Barbee contrib-
Las Vegas to a CTA con-
ference and I spent time in
a “keep your school safe,”
session and the same guy
from Redlands who is the
head of security at Red-
lands was there, and he
asked these questions:
How many of you have
monthly fire drills? We
raised our hands proudly
and we were like, “ooh we
have monthly fire drills.
And he responded,
“When was the last time
you had a fire in your
schools?” Oh, can’t re-
member ever having a
fire in a school where
it was killing a kid, or a
teacher or faculty or any-
body. Shooters, yes! We
had many of those.
Do we practice for that?
No!,” shared Roberson.
As she asks for schools
to conduct gun-violence
drills and have it added
to the school’s calendar
in the event of unforeseen
danger happening close
to home, Roberson said
unfortunately, every year
people get so busy that
the drill never ends up
happening.
However, Roberson
stated, “We have to prac-
tice.” We have to train
our students. We can no
longer shelter them. [Stu-
dents] have to know what
to do in case something
happens. We can no lon-
ger shelter them, we have
to train them.
We live on I-10 and you
never know what’s going
by and what’s going to
happen; besides some of
the homegrown people.
Of course it all takes mon-
ey, well you know what,
there are thousands of
grants out there and the
city of Blythe has a grant
writer that could help
with this.”
uted to this article.
This story is part of Ele-
mental: Covering Sustain-
ability, a new multimedia
collaboration between
Cronkite News, Arizona
PBS, KJZZ, KPCC, Rocky
Mountain PBS and South-
ern California PBS.