Klein ISD seeks to fill 8 police vacancies, implement additional training programs

"We believe that made a huge difference in some of the different things that are happening around the districts," Kimberly said.

Other improvements made over the last school year were also addressed during a safety and security update at a KISD board of trustees meeting July 14. In addition to training and community outreach programs held throughout the year, Kimberly said four officers attended Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training and another 10 KISD officers were certified in Intruderology.

He said several purchases were made for officers, including level one trauma kits for all officers on duty.

"If we have any unfortunate events, we're going to be the first responders," he said. "We hope if anything happens, we're really going to make a difference there."

Looking ahead to the 2014-15 school year, Kimberly said the department hopes to begin deploying one bicycle officer per campus.

"We feel like we can reduce a response time by four or five minutes," he said. "They can get across a high school campus on a bicycle in a minute or a minute and a half."

Kimberly said there are plans to host some Emergency Operations Plan training in September for personnel to create their own emergency plans online. He said the department also plans to implement Threat Assessment Training—which identifies students who could be a threat for targeted violence—and Crisis Response Team training—which provides psychological first aid for students and faculty following a crisis.

"I really appreciate this last week how the crisis response team responded to our staff [following the Stay family shooting]," Trustee Georgan Reitmeier said.

Trustee Stephen Szymczak said he would like to see a consultant study ways to recognize and prevent any violent crimes before they happen.

"It's not uncommon [after a violent crime] to hear people say 'I'm not surprised,'" he said. "No one wants to wake up tomorrow and see a school shooting and say, 'what didn't we do that we could have done?'"

Kimberly said one of the key law enforcement tools at their disposal are the personal relationships with students and faculty to help identify problems before they happen.

"That's where this training comes into play," he said. "It's getting them to recognize that when something's important for them to share it with us."

For more information on Klein ISD, visit www.kleinisd.net.