SENATE, No. 305

Section 1: Definitions

 “Lockdown” – a procedure in which all students are kept in classrooms or other designated locations in the event of an emergency and is done in a manner so as to prevent the easy movement of persons in a school building

“Classroom” – a room being used for instructional purposes other than instruction relating to physical education during the prescribed school day.

“Office” – a room being used by staff as an office

“Local Police Department” –the police department which has jurisdiction over the region the school is placed in.

“Room Authority” –any school staff member(s) present in a given room.           

“Code Grey lockdown”

                        (a). These procedures will apply for occupied classrooms and offices

                        (b). Procedure for individual classrooms

                                    1. All doors to the room will be closed and locked.

                                    2. All windows in the room will be closed, locked, and covered.

a. Windows with an area less than or equal to 5 square feet shall be covered completely            

b. Windows with an area greater than 5 square feet shall covered as best as possible by drapes and/or blinds

                                    3. All electronics shall be turned off.

4. All students shall be moved to a location in the room as far away from door and windows as possible.

                                    5. Fire alarms and communications to the room are to be ignored.

                                    6.  All persons are to be as completely still and silent as possible.

7. The room authority present will account for all persons who should be in the room at the time of said lockdown.

                        (c). These procedures shall be orchestrated by the room authority

Section 2. Drill Preparatory Procedures

            A standard code grey lockdown procedure, shall not apply to any room that does not fall under the definition of a classroom or office, as defined herein or any classroom or office where either the school’s principal or the room authority for the room or the local police deems the procedures would be inadequate to fulfill the purpose of this bill. Plans for rooms that do not apply under these conditions will be drawn up for individual schools, especially for

                        A. The cafeteria(s)

                        B. The library or libraries

                        C. The gymnasium(s)

            These plans shall be created by the principle and staff of each school for their school or the district school committee for each school. These groups may use any available assistance in developing these plans, including aid from the local police department. This however, does not indicate that any group either than the two mandated to develop these plans needs to participate in the plans’ drafting. These plans shall also include details as to the roles of individual staff members, namely which   individual will announce the drill.

            Special plan review.

                        A. After completion of the Special Plans the plans will be submitted as proposed to the

                                    1. Local police department (local to the school in question)

                                    2. Massachusetts State Police

                        B. After submission, the local police department shall

                                    1. Review the plans for feasibility and effectiveness

                                    2. Inspect the school for feasibility and effectiveness

3. Submit a recommendation for the plan to pass or fail to the Massachusetts State Police

C. The Massachusetts State Police shall review the plans for feasibility and  effectiveness, and taking into account the local police department’s recommendation, shall determine if the plan should pass or fail.

D. Wherein the plan fails, the group responsible for its creation will redraft the plan, and continue until a successful plan has been formulated. The plan fails if

                                    1. The local police department recommends its failure or

                                    2. The Massachusetts State Police recommends its failure

E. If the plan is deemed by both organizations stated under), it shall be implemented in the school’s code grey lockdown procedures.

School Preparations

                        A. All schools must be equipped with fully functional

1. Communication system(s) that allow the school’s main office to communicate with all other rooms and halls in the building with a delay of under 1 second.

2. Communication system(s) that allow all rooms in the school to communicate with the school’s main office with a delay of under 1 second.

                                                a. This does not include restrooms or hallways.

3. Coverings, as defined under (Title 1, Sec. 2-B subsection 2) and under the Special plans (Title 2, Sec. 2), for all windows.

4. Locking mechanisms for all doors and windows that do not a key to activate from the interior of the room.

                        B. All schools must have the following personnel

                                    1. A room authority for each room

                                    2. At least one liaison officer (Title 4, Sec. 1)

C. All staff members shall be briefed on their school’s code grey lockdown procedures and their roles in it.

D. A copy of the school’s code grey procedures as they apply to each room shall be placed visibly near the main door of every room in the school.

E. School inspections shall be conducted in each school by the local police department over the summer break. These inspections will ensure that all requirements of this section are met.

Section 3. School Drill Procedures

            To ensure that the code grey drill best gauges a school’s preparedness, only the following people and groups shall have knowledge of the drill schedule before the day of the drill for a given school

                        A. The school principal

                        B. The district school committee

                        C. The school liaison officer(s)

                        D. The local police department

                        E. The following people shall be notified of drill directly preceding its occurrence

                                    1. The school secretary or

                                    2. Whoever will be announcing the start of the drill

The principal of a given school, along with the liaison officer(s) shall create a schedule for code grey drills, with one occurring per school semester. A copy of this schedule shall be sent to the local police department.

The individual assigned under this section will, through the          communication system indicate the start of the code grey drill upon notification.

A. This will be indicated by the statement, “Code Grey, Code Grey” on the communication system

                        B. The code grey procedures as defined by shall be implemented in the entire school.

C. The drill shall last a minimum of 10 minutes, and until whoever is inspecting the drill, has finished inspection.

The school liaison officer(s) shall conduct inspection drills stated in the drill schedule These inspections shall ensure that

                        A. The procedures as defined under this section are met completely

B. The drill is conducted in what the local police department deems to be an effective and timely manner                       

Section 4. The local police department will assign at least one police officer to a given school as a liaison officer who has sufficient training to carry out the actions described in this bill. In preparation of the event of an actual code grey lockdown, the local police department must have the following

A. A method of being informed of the lockdown in under two seconds of the declaration of the lockdown

B. Any drills for dealing with a code grey lockdown situation that the department sees fit.

The Massachusetts State Police will shall develop guidelines for gauging how effective and timely a code grey drill is. These guidelines will be used for the implementation of the requirements of this section.

Section 5. The preparations for the implementation of this section shall be completed two years after the effective date of this act. All other preparations described herein shall be completed before September of the year following the completion of those under section 2.

The preparations described under section 2 will be completed once every three years after the completion of Section 5 and the plans described under section 2 will be revised at these points. The procedures described under section 3 will occur every school year beginning with the completion of section 5. Wherein schools consistently fail under the inspections as defined under section 3 the following actions shall occur

                        A. If inspection failure occurs on 3 consecutive occasions, the school will be reported to the Massachusetts Department of Education for this problem.