At a special meeting this week, the Manhattan Beach Unified School District laid out its plans for school safety, highlighting current measures as well as information about expert companies it is bringing in for consultation and support.

The meeting was the latest in a series of responses that came in the wake of an incident at Manhattan Beach Middle School in which a student was discovered to have an unloaded handgun in his backpack.

District officials said that schools would reconvene their school site safety teams before the end of the school year, and that the middle and high schools would see the return of K9 campus visits. The presentation also included a timeline and outlined the next steps for security enhancements and school site response training with various consulting groups.

"This work is iterative, so it’s not, 'We’re going to do something over the next few months and then we’ll be done with it,' because we know that scenarios evolve, situations evolve, and staff evolves," said MBUSD Deputy Superintendent Dawnalyn Murakawa-Leopard. "There’s new people, people in different places, so this is work that we are going to need to make sure that we are continuing to do on an ongoing basis as we move forward."

The external school security measures in place currently include fencing in place at all entry points, and more than 300 cameras at all eight school sites with networked feeds viewable at any time. All volunteers must go through a security process; and all campus visitors must check in at the office and display a badge on campus. 

Next month, the district will be sending a team to CSTAG (Comprehensive School Threat Assessment Guidelines) training, which helps schools establish a decision‐tree process to
determine how to assess, respond to, and resolve situations as they arise.

The district has also brought on three outside consultants: 

• ESMP, which will assist with refining comprehensive school safety plans, safety protocols, and crisis communications protocols; 
• Chameleon Associates, which will assist with school safety measures; 
• ICS4Schools, which will assist with emergency trainings. 

Murakawa-Leopard said that between now and June, school site safety teams will hold meetings, ESMP will be working on analysis of gaps in protocols, Chameleon will be walking the campuses to assess physical safety needs, and district staff will attend the CSTAG training.

The community is also invited to attend a panel on Gun Violence Awareness, to be held on May 19 on the Grand View Elementary campus.

Over the summer, ICS4Schools will also be assessing campus sites, while ESMP will work with school management teams and Chameleon on best practices for physical security.

In the fall, the district will hold security awareness trainings, implement CSTAG recommendations, and will hold additional exercises and drills, including a district-wide Great Shake-Out drill on October 16.

Parents who are interested in participating in or suggesting additional safety measures are invited to fill out this form.

Handgun Incident Spurred Conversation on School Safety

The handgun incident at Manhattan Beach Middle School incited anger among families and school staff, faulting the MBUSD administration for not communicating about the situation in a timely manner. 

Manhattan Beach Middle School Principal Luke Olesiuk has since announced that he would be stepping down at the end of the school year.