HOW SAFE ARE LOCAL HIGH SCHOOLS? GROSSMONT DISTRICT ELIMINATES SCHOOL SAFETY DEPARTMENT

By Kristen Andelman

Photo:Jay Farrington testifiedto board on priorities for the Office of School Safety, which the GUHSD board majority later voted to eliminate.

July 18, 2024 (El Cajon) -- Grossmont Union High School District has ousted its School Safety Director Jay Farrington and eliminated the entire school safety department entirely, effective June 30. 

The action is shocking and particularly troubling in a district that survived two mass shootings at Santana and Granite Hills high schools back in 2001.The Santana shooting killed 2 students and injured 13 people; five people were shot and injured at Granite Hills. School shootings are at record levels nationwide today. So far this year, there have been 107 school shootings, killing 29 people and injuring 61.

The decision was made by the GUHSD board on May 11 in a in a 3-2 vote.  Board members Chris Fite and Elva Salinas voted against the cut, while members Robert Shield, Gary Woods and Jim Kelly voted to eliminate student safety.

Farrington was hired in 2022, following the retirement of Mary Wood, a former San Diego Sheriff’s Department Captain who was hired in 2019 to be the district’s first school safety director.  Farrington has worked in law enforcement for 26 years, having serve as an officer for the San Diego Police Department, and as a Lead Investigator for the San Diego District Attorney’s office. 

Farrington said that during his tenure he helped to thwart “at least four acts of mass violence” on GUHSD campuses – at least one of which resulted in an ongoing FBI investigation. 

Farrington also said that sexual assaults and battery were rampant across the district, and that approximately 15 sexual assaults (involving physical contact, and not just verbal harassment) were reported during his two years there.  “But a lot of sexual assaults don’t get reported,” he added.  “The students feel like no one cares, and they’re not going to do anything.”

Other threats to students’ safety are also disturbingly high. San Diego County is among the top 13 human trafficking hubs in the U.S., and District Attorney Summer Stephan has launched a campaign to protect young people. “Stolen,” an NBC investigative series, found recruiting minors for sex trafficking at every local school they investigated. Hate crimes targeting religious minorities and LGBTQ individuals are on the rise, and sexual assaults on campus also endanger students, Farrington notes.

In a 37-page report, which Farrington provided to key decisions makers, union groups and this media outlet, Farrington detailed his achievements to make schools safer and raises serious concerns over the future safety of students and staff.

During his two years at GUHSD, Farrington hadn’t achieved his critical goals: the “hardening” of “soft spots” across the campuses, the standardization of the reporting protocol for sexual batteries, and the implementation new technologies (including Artificial Intelligence) that had already been shown to improve public safety.

“I tried to standardize things across the campuses,” said Farrington. “There was a lot of talk, but not a lot of action.” 

Farrington said GUHSD was paralyzed -- primarily by Kasten’s lack of leadership of Kasten – and also by the impotence of Human Resources director Terry Stanfell, who was routinely ignored when he directed campus administrators to defer to law enforcement during ongoing investigations into crimes on campus.  Stanfell retired at the end of this last school year.

Farrington said he was shocked to find a district where crime evidence was not kept in a centralized location so it could be cross-referenced or otherwise used intelligently.  Rather, potential evidence was often spread across campuses, computers and various paper files – and “sometimes on ‘post-it’ notes.”

Farrington said that the hobbled district couldn’t deliver on the simplest of fixes to some of the campus areas most vulnerable to active-shooters – such as installing anti-shatter film on easily accessible windows that were similar to the ones school shooters in Nashville and Sandy Hook shot through to gain entry during their rampages.  “Seconds save lives in these situations,” he said, adding that he’d hoped to have the advanced window film installed prior to the start of the last school year – and that it’s still not up.

Farrington also said that they lacked uniform systems for reporting sexual battery; that each campus had its own antiquated camera systems; and that “no one” was assigned to monitor camera feeds district-wide now that he and his staff analyst, Brielle Wilkerson, had their last day of work June 28.  He described vice principals as being “too overwhelmed with collateral duties like IEP meetings” to focus on school safety. 

GUHSD has already had two mass-shootings: On March 5, 2001, a shooter opened fire at Santana High School, wounding 13 and killing two. Several weeks later, a shooter opened fire at Granite Hills High School, injuring five people.

Photo:  Parents and community members at a 2021 candlelight vigil commemorating the 20th aniversary of the deadly Santana High School mass shooting.

In response to a request for comment from outgoing Superintendent Mary Beth Kasten (retiring this summer, after two years in the top job), GUHSD spokesperson Collin McGlashen stated: “Critical safety duties are currently being reassigned to other District departments including Student Support Services where school safety responsibilities lived prior to Mr. Farrington’s appointment.”

McGlashen indicated that the Director of Student Support Services,  Mary Nishikawa,  will be the point-person for school safety going forward. While she does not have a law enforcement background, McGlashen says, “She’s been heavily involved with the District’s responses to a number of safety issues during her tenure as Director of Student Support Services. She has worked directly with our law enforcement partners in her current role, and she will continue to do so.”

“The critical steps we take to deal with school threats – such as widespread communication regarding the availability of the P3 application, close coordination with law enforcement to evaluate and investigate every potential threat, and working with school leadership to make appropriate decisions regarding school operations in response to a threat – will continue under the direction of our Student Support Services Director,” he stated.  (Farrington said he was hired right after the retirement of Maria Wood, who held his job for about three years, and who was a former Captain with the San Diego Sheriff’s Department; Wood did not return calls for comment.)

But Farrington said that most of the gridlock and confusion within the district came down to the failed leadership of Kasten – and also to the ineptitude of Nishikawa, the director of Student Support Services.

“It’s really irresponsible that they would leave this in the hands of someone with no law enforcement or safety background,” Farrington said of Nishikawa, who he said had refused to collaborate with him, and who canceled (at the last minute) over six meetings he had scheduled with her to discuss training key personnel on each campus.   

One example of gridlock came after Farrington got the district to purchase OmniGo, a $32,000 safety-analytics software used successfully in other districts (including Cajon Valley Unified), and trained vice-principals from each campus in its use.  He said Nishikawa “walked out of the OmniGo training halfway through”-- and then never followed up, mirroring leadership’s approach to his efforts to improve safety.  OmniGo has been effectively abandoned by the district, he said.

 “The problem is that [Nishikawa] would give different marching orders,” he said, adding that OmniGo was not being used at most district campuses when he left – despite him having trained all district vice-principals in its use.

McGlashen said the district still has school resource officers on campuses to provide support. “We are grateful for the close partnership we have with the El Cajon Police Department and the San Diego Sheriff's Department,” he added.

When asked if the elimination of the Safety department was due to a reduced risk on campus, none of the board members returned calls asking for comment. Nor did incoming Superintendent Mike Fowler, whose term starts this summer.

Countywide and statewide, there is no indication that the threat level has gone down.  When he took the job in January, FBI San Diego Special Agent in Charge Stacey Moy did not sound optimistic: “2023 was certainly challenging for many, especially with the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict,” Agent Moy wrote in an Op Ed when he took over.  “Nationwide, and right here in San Diego, the FBI saw an increase in reports of threats against Jewish, Muslim, and Arab communities and institutions.”

Farrington said that when he started at GUHSD, he was “really shocked by what they didn’t have,” in terms of technology.  Each school had its own antiquated camera systems, with no way to monitor them centrally, and no one assigned to do so. “I was trying to get them up to a baseline of basic safety standards,” Farrington said, hoping that the next step should have included integrating the camera feeds with Artificial Intelligence technology.

When pressed on addressing the critical safety lapses identified by Farrington in his outgoing report, McGlashen indicated that the board and district leadership would “likely not agree” with some of Farrington’s conclusions.

Farrington suspects safety will fall to vice principals, whom he says are already too overburdened with other duties to devote the time necessary to protect students’ safety, and who have no background in law enforcement or needs assessment, let alone the connections he’s built over the years.

Farrington said district leadership didn’t support him, or provide him with the time, to cover what he called “critical safety lapses across the campuses.” 

With no succession plan, he fears for what had been his highest priority goals:

One, having GUHSD adopt several important new technologies (including Artificial Intelligence, real-time data analytics, and formal procedures for reporting sexual assaults/batteries on campus.

Two, the “hardening” of the physical campuses through an array of old and new technologies, ranging from: fence completion, visitor management systems, to ensuring that security camera feeds across the 14 campuses are consistently monitored.

Third, he sought to make uniform the procedures for reporting sexual acts at school that might be a crime, with safeguards in place to protect the integrity of the investigation, and a tracking and follow-up system to assist survivors of childhood sexual assault occurring on campus.

“if I would have stayed on and had the collaboration, the sky was the limit,” Farrington said, who said that Kasten paid lip service only to his warnings.  “We could have really made it a leading district in the nation as far as keeping kids safe, and that was my long-term vision.”

About ten other positions across the district – including certificated and non-certificated– were also cut at that meeting. 

Jay Steiger, a candidate running for the GUHSD board, has served as chair of the GUHSD’s Citizens Bond Oversight Committee and Chair of its District Advisory Committee, as well as  serving in the Grossmont High School Education Foundation and the Foothills Council of PTAs for the Grossmont District.

Steiger believes eliminating the district’s school safety department and other personnel was a mistake that didn’t need to happen.

Photo: Jay Steiger, candidate for the GUHSD board, has been sharply criticial of the decision to end the School Safety department.

“The decision by the board majority to enact layoffs of key teachers and district personnel, despite having available funds to prevent this action, demonstrates a disregard for the best interests of the students and staff,” Steiger told ECM. “ School safety is an absolute essential and Mr. Farrington highlighted the progress and ongoing work to protect our students within the district.”

He concludes, “Our community knows there are dangers to both our youth and school operations.   Removing a staffer with specialized knowledge of this issue was a poor choice.  The board majority should collaborate with teacher and staff representatives to rebuild trust and respect to best protect students.”

Nishikawa did not return calls seeking comment, nor did incoming Superintendent Michael Fowler, nor any of the GUHSD board members.