APS Details School Safety Systems for Community

APS implements restorative practices across the district through several integrated strategies:

• Staff Training: Schools attend intensive, multi-day training as a site team, with ongoing coaching provided by the School Climate department, led by Laura Valdez and her team.
• Consistency: The district is working with the Albuquerque Teachers Federation to ensure consistency in the language and understanding of what truly constitutes restorative practices across all schools. Implementation is also monitored through listening tours with trained schools to identify successes, challenges and needed district supports.
• Accountability & Supports for Serious Behavior: Consequences for serious behaviors do not go away and are still guided by the student handbook. Accountability is built into the practices by requiring students to repair harm and by prioritizing relationship-building with all students. Schoolwide, preventative supports are also provided.
• Family Engagement: APS uses the community schools model, led by Bryan Garcia, to involve families and communities through community school councils, which the district relies on to address ongoing situations.

APS addresses this type of behavior through a multi-layered response, including training, immediate safety measures, specialized support and follow-up systems:

• Immediate Response and Staff Training: APS, in collaboration with the Albuquerque Teachers Federation, is reviewing current systems, including site safety plans and training, through a district task force. The plan includes having a trained team at each school to respond and help students regulate. Trainings offered include non-violent crisis intervention (required for all educational assistants). Youth mental health first aid is important. 
• Specialized Support and Follow-Up: For students needing more intensive support, the Integrated Support Team component provides consistent case management, working with families and students using protocols from "Culture of Care.”
• Assessment and Ongoing Support: APS utilizes a comprehensive threat assessment with schools and families to identify actual threats and provide classroom support. Following a serious incident, any injury is recorded. Ongoing support is provided through functional behavior assessments and behavior improvement plans to help reduce future behavior issues.

The safety team we're trying to include in our site safety plans is the team that is trained in non-violent crisis intervention, as well as looking at Culture of Care. 

The process for a student to return to class after hurting someone is determined on a case-by-case basis. The response follows the APS student handbook. In most cases, the process involves investigating the harm that was caused to determine the appropriate resolution and subsequent action for the student.

APS ensures that counseling services are provided to all students, even if there is a vacancy at a school, through a system that ensures a counselor is on-site.

The district's current counseling resources include:

• 224 counselors districtwide
• 13 college and career counselors
• 13 high school Crossroads counselors
• 11 middle school Crossroads counselors
• 14 behavioral health counselors
• 12 contracted mental health providers

To address high vacancy rates in these positions, the counseling team is working with Human Resources, the Albuquerque Teachers Federation, and the University of New Mexico to develop a residency program. This program is intended to increase the pool of mental health providers and school counselors to fill vacancies across the district.

APS partners with outside community resources using the following approaches:

• Community Schools Model: The district has 68 community schools where community schools impact coordinators work with partners to identify and provide academic, social and emotional resources. This model is used as a best practice to identify strategic provider partners.
• Request for Proposals: The counseling department utilizes an RFP process for mental health providers, allowing outside partners to enter the system and expanding the identification of additional partners.

APS prevents, reports, and responds to bullying and cyberbullying using a combination of counseling support and technology:

• Prevention and Response (Counseling and School Level): School counselors utilize a data-driven, comprehensive model aligned with the American School Counselor Association to play a critical role in prevention. Schools establish systems and confidentiality protections for reporting, and responses are immediate. If an incident involves a protected demographic class, Equal Opportunity Services is involved for further investigation. A key focus is on utilizing mental health opportunities to be preventative in the approach.
• Cyberbullying and Technology: APS uses technology as a layer of support, specifically on the APS domain (Google Chat, email, and learning spaces). Software is being rolled out to flag keywords indicating potential harm to self or others. These flags trigger a wraparound services response, sending immediate alerts to the counseling team, social workers, and principals for both prevention and reaction. The district continuously looks at local and national best practices.

• Cyber Awareness Education: Our Information Security team meets monthly to evaluate the current and future state of cyberbullying education and provides awareness on safe learning practices on school-issued devices. They work to stay current on the social media platforms students are using to provide teachers and students with the necessary tools.
• Teacher Support and Training: Continuous support is given to teachers, including tips on appropriate student interaction and strategies to ensure safe online learning spaces. This support extends to helping teachers handle information about off-hours dialogue on social media that may impact the school week.
• Threat Response: Threats made through social media after hours (at night or on the weekend) are addressed immediately before the next school day. The district attempts to find the source of the threat and contacts the student and parent to ensure awareness and check for access to weapons in the home.

We believe that a multi-layer approach is the way to keep campuses safe. We have worked hard to make it clear to our students, families and community that there are severe consequences for anyone found with a gun on campus, consequences that include expulsion, arrest and prosecution. Parents also face prosecution if they leave a gun unsecured and a student takes it to school. Kids who are bringing guns to school are younger than they've been in the past. That's something that we really need to communicate to families. One of our most effective tools is our "see something, say something" messaging, which encourages students to let a trusted adult know if they see anyone with a weapon or notice any safety threats. We have even launched a Campus Crime Stoppers program to allow students to report anonymously.  Other layers include: Using federal funds to replace and upgrade cameras. The new cameras have advanced detection capabilities. They can detect things the old cameras could not, such as the outline of a weapon underneath a shirt, which provides notice and information for follow-up. We’re integrating the new cameras with the Albuquerque Police Department's Real Time Crime Center to enable better monitoring.

Metal detectors will be installed at APS stadiums starting at the beginning of the 2026-2027 school year. This initial step is to test the technology and gather feedback from teachers, staff, safety personnel and school police. The district is also considering potentially using this technology as a safety response when a school receives a credible threat.

APS focuses on balancing campus security with maintaining a welcoming environment for families. To achieve this:

• Physical Security: The district utilizes security measures like gates and vestibules to restrict access to schools.
• Scheduled Access: School doors are not locked down all day. They follow specific schedules set by the principals to be unlocked during key times, including: arrival time, passing periods, lunches, dismissal time.
• Staff Monitoring: During these unlocked periods, security staff monitor the areas to ensure only authorized people are entering the campus.
• After-Hours Security: For before- and after-school providers using school facilities, APS uses a system called Facilitron to ensure providers enter where they are supposed to, allowing police to know who is on site if an alarm is tripped after hours.

A reasonable expectation for local access to a school depends on the time:

• During the school day: Expectation is limited, as this is sacred time for teaching and learning. You should check in at the front desk if you need to be on campus for an event like an IEP meeting.
• Outside the school day: It is reasonable to expect access as a community member during assemblies, evening events, activities and athletics.
• For community use–city, community groups, club sports: Access can be requested through the community facility usage program called Facilitron, which is available on the APS website. A small fee for liability insurance might be required.

For issues like litter on the sidewalk: Notify the school principal immediately. They have the teams and tools to address the issue in real time. For security concerns or something imminent: Immediately call 911. This will connect through the Real Time Crime Center directly to APS Police for a response.

The partnership between APS Police and the Albuquerque Police Department Real Time Crime Center supports school safety by providing access to advanced technology, which enhances the district's ability to respond to critical incidents in a sophisticated, real-time manner.

Key ways this partnership supports school safety include:

• ShotSpotter Technology: Access to this technology enables the detection of a firearm discharge near a school. This immediate information enables APS to place the school in the proper state, such as a shelter-in-place, and to notify the principal and School Resource Officer.
• Drone Access: In the event of an active, critical incident, the APD Real Time Crime Center can provide immediate drone access for eyes on the campus. This technology is deployed immediately when needed.

APS incorporates cultural and linguistic relevance into its approaches, particularly within the framework of Culture of Care, through two main strategies:

• Culture-Relevant Training: Schools participate in training that focuses on developing culture-relevant responses to student behaviors and relationships.
• Equity Alignment: The district works closely with its Chief of Equity, Tanya Compos, to ensure that all "Culture of Care" aspects align with her work and the councils she engages with.

APS takes the responsibility of communicating with families during urgent situations very seriously. The administration recently dedicated three days to training on the mechanisms of response, reunification and recovery, led by the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA. The district has an established chain of communication to ensure timely and accurate information is shared:

• Timeliness and Expectation: Families should have an expectation of timely, reliable communication from APS regarding a shelter-in-place or other serious incident on campus.
• Source of Information: When an incident occurs, APS dispatchers notify the APS Communications team, which immediately notifies families through email and a robocall. Families are notified of additional developments and when the incident is over. 
• Reliable Channels: Reliable information is shared by the Communications Office through an immediate posting to the APS website and a posting on the individual school website.
• APS prioritizes accuracy, even if it involves a few minutes' delay to get information organized. They also commit to sharing updated information, which may result in two or three, or even more, communications during a complex incident.

The special education department provides training on inclusionary practices to schools to ensure students in inclusion classes are supported. Key details about the training include:

• Specific Training: The training is very specific to the individual school.
• Needs Assessment: The department conducts a needs assessment for each school to identify its specific requirements.
• Content: Schools are trained on inclusionary practices and what those practices look like in different settings.

Current Status: While this training is being provided, the department is still working to increase its capacity to get to all schools.