Wake school safety leader lists ongoing safety efforts, but mum on fatal stabbing

Wake County and state law enforcement agencies are drafting training for major incidents and large event security in Wake schools, school and law enforcement officials said Friday.

Kendrick Scott, the Wake County Public School System senior director of safety and security, spoke about school safety at a school security conference in Raleigh, just days after a fatal stabbing at Southeast Raleigh High School. Scott didn't mention the incident, which is still under investigation. He declined to speak with WRAL News on Friday.

“Consistency is huge,” Scott said during a presentation on how schools can collaborate with law enforcement to handle and prevent school violence. “It leads to smoother operation than a fractured bunch of stuff.”

The work of the county's School Resource Officer Coalition on the training and other security measures has been going on since before Monday's incident.

The school system is reeling from the fatal incident at Southeast Raleigh High School, where flowers sit in memoriam and classes resumed after two days off. Additional crisis counselors are working with students and employees.

Collaboration with area law enforcement agencies and third-party auditors is critical toward improving school safety, Scott said. That includes the county's now two-year-old School Resource Officer Coalition and having a third party evaluate school safety, he said.

The group holds monthly meetings. It conducts reviews of incidents, big and small, and works on equipment needs, planning and other things.

Scott, along with Holly Springs School Resource Officer Sgt. Tom Brienzi, spoke at the School Safety Advisory Council's eastern region National School Safety Conference.

The Council has been advising the Wake County Public School System on school security since 2019, starting with an audit released in 2021.

The audit made several confidential recommendations but also recommended consistent visitor policies and management, additional emergency procedures, additional staff training and a threat assessment team, among other things.

Friday's presentation was an update on the district's work since the audit and the formation of the Coalition, and work is still ongoing to make security improvements.

The school system is pursuing five physical security upgrades this fall but has not disclosed what they are. Officials say disclosing them could expose the security vulnerabilities that the projects are designed to fix.

While some efforts are confidential, Scott and Brienzi listed some things schools have done so far and are still working on:

• The system has eight security administrators covering all 198 system schools
• Each of the 31 high schools has a school resource officer, an assigned security administrator and/or support from a private security company
• The system rolled out on July 1 a visitor management system that performs quick background checks on each visitor. That's so far caught several people who should not have been on campuses but would not have been caught under previous visitor procedures, Scott said.
• Developing training for practicing for major incidents, new laws, reunifying families and students during major events and large event security. Large events would include athletic events.
• Changing school buildings to have only one door to access the school is a costly project, Scott said, but the school system has upgraded some schools to do that.

The audit is part of a continual relationship with the auditors that connects the school system to resources all over the country, Scott said. Auditors have connected him with other school safety leaders who have worked on similar problems he's trying to solve, rather than leaving Scott to figure out solutions on his own. Many of the other school leaders are from small school systems, he said. They're more nimble because they're smaller, he said, and therefore are great resources.

In Wake, he said, "it's like moving the Titanic" to make major changes or investments because of volume of schools, he said. "You're not going to do anything quick."

That's one reason the system and 11 Wake County law enforcement agencies formed the SRO Coalition in 2021, to ensure uniformity in rules, procedures and priorities for school safety. Since then, state agencies have gotten involved, Brienzi said. That keeps a major event from being even more chaotic.

It's also helped schools avoid lockdowns related to social media threats, Brienzi said. While some still shut down, officers can investigate the threats, tell other agencies about them, and agencies can keep more schools from shutting down, Brienzi said.

Being more nimble and responsive is something new Superintendent Robert Taylor has said he'd like the school system to be. Taylor has planned to meet with departments and schools and determine ways to do that later on in his young tenure as the system's new superintendent. Taylor started Oct. 1.

WRAL News Reporter Matt Talhelm contributed to this article.