In the wake of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, our entire country and society should be extremely saddened and angered over this massacre of innocent children. Families, lives, and dreams were shattered in minutes. We should never have to wake up another day and learn that our children were senselessly slaughtered while attending school. Our children are the heart and soul of our society, they are our future. The idea that we don’t keep them safe is blasphemous.
Our American society has reached the boiling point where we adamantly refuse to accept that these violent attacks are inevitable. Our communities have become extremely frustrated that we spend millions of dollars annually protecting politicians, government officials and buildings, and other critical infrastructures, and yet we don’t protect our children. Today, one could argue that we don’t care based on the fact that thousands of schools and hundreds of thousands of school-aged children in this country aren’t protected.
After serving 25 years with the New Jersey State Police, I have dedicated the last decade of my professional career working in the private security industry. I entered this industry to utilize my experience, knowledge, resources, and expertise to focus on creating safer school environments. My strong interest, along with a demonstrated need for improvements to school security and safety, drove me to create a solution. In 2013, I founded K.D. National Force Security (K.D.), which specializes in school security and safety. Since its creation, K.D. has provided school security services to dozens of schools and tens of thousands of students throughout southern New Jersey. With that said, there are no words to describe how these atrocities have impacted my heart and soul.
World-renowned American Psychologist Abraham Maslow’s research found that individuals can only learn and thrive when they feel safe. Our children must feel safe and be safe while attending school for them to learn and prosper.
As a result of our years of experience and commitment to continual learning and improvement, we have developed principles that are proven to create safer school environments.
The principles, broken down into four “C’s,” are Caring, Committed, Capable, and Continual Improvement.
K.D.’s 4C Principles
- Caring – We all must care. Study after study has shown that children will only learn when they feel completely safe in their environments. Community groups, parent-teacher organizations, school administrators, family, staff, and ultimately the public safety community – everybody is a stakeholder, and we all must care.
- Committed – All stakeholders must be committed to putting student safety first. This includes funding, equipment, highly qualified security personnel, and training.
- Capable
- Knowledge – School administrators, faculty, staff, and students must know and understand emergency response protocols, techniques, concepts, and skills. These are learned through specialized training.
- Skills – Critical lifesaving skill sets must be taught and learned. Once learned, they must be practically applied and evaluated during emergency response drills and exercises.
- Mindset – A vigilant mindset must be developed and maintained to observe sooner, act faster, and respond with confidence.
- Continual Improvement – Remain proactive, adapt to current trends, and improve training methodologies and proficiency.
Success in drastically reducing risk and improving personal safety in school environments across the country can be achieved if all four Cs are adopted.
Even here in New Jersey, we still have too many learning environments that are unprotected or inadequately protected. There are still too many security gaps at many of our schools.
As sad as this incident is, with the benefit of hindsight we can analyze the ways this incident could have been prevented or mitigated. This is how we prepare for an attack we hope never comes.
There is little we can do to heal the broken hearts of the loved ones of the students and teachers who died at Robb Elementary, but if we care enough if we are committed and capable enough, and if we are dedicated to continuously improving, we can create safer school environments.
– Kevin J. DiPatri,
Egg Harbor Twp., NJ
Kevin DiPatri is the CEO of K.D. National Force Security & Investigations, LLC. He retired as a Regional Commander of the NJ State Police in 2012 at the rank of Captain after 25 years of service. He has a bachelor’s degree in Law and Justice from Trenton State College, and a Master of Arts in Human Resource Training and Development from Seton Hall University. DiPatri is an adjunct professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University.
