GREEN COVE SPRINGS, Fla. — Clay County leaders have created plans for each school detailing emergency response in the event of a school-related emergency.
“I promise you I’m going to keep your kids safe," Clay County Sheriff Sheriff Michelle Cook said.
This promise from Clay County Sheriff Michelle Cook comes after 21 lives were lost during a school shooting in Uvalde Texas.
The tragedy pushing safety to the front of the minds of many parents.
“Watching that tragedy at the end of the school year. So there’s always that level of stress and worry as I hug my kids good bye and drop them off at school," Katie Hathaway, a parent, said.
The County Hazards Incident Response Plans or CHIRP is clay county’s way to address parent concerns. It was created over several months, during meeting with administration from each individual school.
“The CHIRP is basically a play book. Okay. And it gives us options the day of. We’ve already vetted these locations, we’ve already come to an agreement ‘hey if something happens here, here are the two or three best locations that we can conduct reunification," said Sheriff Cook.
CHIRP is specific to each school and provides steps by step guidance on how to lock down schools, neutralize a threat, treat the injured, and reunite students with parents. It also includes plans for communicating with Clay County parents during a critical incident, which will be done through the app ‘Safer Watch’ and on the county's twitter page.
“God Forbid the day of an event, we’re not trying to figure something out. We already got a playbook, we can open up the playbook and say this is what we’re going to do," Sheriff Cook said.
Clay County has already taken steps to increase school security, every school has a single-entrance access point. An entrance under construction at Orange Park high School, is the last to be updated.
Following Uvalde, many were critical of the delayed police response, pointing to a lack of command. Sheriff Cook believes having CHIRP ensures that won’t happen here.
“We are all training off the same page, not only in regards to tactics but how do you manage the incident, and I assure you Scott that god forbid we have something happen here, you won’t see an issue with chain of command here," Sheriff Cook said.
Leaders say these plans will be ready for the start of this school year.