Ep 56 - Andy Caton, Sikeston R6 School Safety Coordinator - Threes Rained And Safety Reigned

Seventeen threes on Friday, an 83–80 nail-biter on Saturday, and a straight-shooting conversation about how we keep Sikeston kids safe—this one brings the noise and the nuance. We break down the Bulldogs’ hot streak, then hand the mic to School Safety Coordinator and criminal justice teacher Andy Caton, a former detective and Air Force vet who lives this work on campus every day.

We dig into the playbook for real safety: the Raptor platform that lets staff launch GPS-enabled alerts and share live updates with DPS in seconds; OpenGate weapons detectors that spot threats without flagging every phone and key ring, moving big crowds quickly on school days and game nights; and visitor badging that scans IDs against national offender databases so we always know who’s inside. Andy explains how simple tools used consistently beat complicated systems nobody touches—and why training, drills, and clear roles keep small problems from becoming big ones.

Safety isn’t just fences and checkpoints. It’s mental health support built into the school day, teachers trained to spot red flags, and a culture that makes students feel seen. Andy shares how the district’s counselors and behavioral health partners coordinate to reach kids early, while controlled access and high-definition cameras add another layer without turning school into a fortress. We also step inside SCTC’s criminal justice program—crime scene processing, law basics, and the FATS simulator with branching, shoot/don’t-shoot scenarios that change minds about what real decisions look like under stress. Many grads now serve as officers, social workers, and conservation agents across Missouri, proving the pathway works.

If you care about Sikeston basketball, you’ll love the breakdowns. If you care about Sikeston schools, you’ll leave with a clear picture of what’s working and what’s next. Subscribe, share this with a Bulldog, and drop a review on Apple or Spotify—what part of school safety do you want us to unpack next?

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Transcript

Opening, Sponsors, And Studio Updates

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Alright, Bulldog Nation, it's time to get in the dog house. This is where Sykes and Pride live, where we tell the stories that make this town special. From the legends of the past to the faces shaping our future. Whether it's basketball, community, or just that good old Bulldog grit, we've got you covered. You're listening to the Dog House, the voice of Sykes.

SPEAKER_05 0:22

What is up?

SPEAKER_04 0:23

Bulldog Nation. Coming back again to you with episode 56. And this is episode 14 of season two. Yep. Where we uh extended our episode, I guess, by one day, or not extended it. We we changed the the release dates. Today is Sunday. World game yesterday. Yeah. Yeah. Mike and I talked, and we wanted to get all that we only had we had two games this week, and they were happened to be Friday and Saturday rather than like a Tuesday, Friday, or whatever. So we decided to wait after yesterday's game and come back to you. So you are Micah Harris. I'm Matt Tanner. Thanks for listening. And give a couple shout-outs real quick before we get rolling. Shoutouts to our partners, Mercy Phoenix and Greengrass Guys. Mercy Phoenix for all your EMT, excuse me, EMS, and your healthcare staffing needs. They are they're the go-to folks. And if you are interested in, if you are in that sort of field and employment. Employment, exactly. Jody is always looking for folks to fill those positions. And they I know I think last year or one point they filled one of those. Like a disaster? Disaster. I was gonna say I was trying to figure out what word I want to use in emergency, but it was like a disaster, there was a hurricane or whatever that they filled in some spots when there were some needs for extra health care workers. You know, when you have hurricanes and take things out, people are displaced, and you know, working at that moment for them is not their main priority. And so people come in, you know, just like they do when there's power outages, like what happened here when we had the power outages and all the other ice storm, you know, several years ago and all that stuff. So they are your folks. Reach out to them, mercyphoenix.com on their Facebook page, Mercy Phoenix and Mercy is M-E-R-C-I. Phoenix, P-H-O-E-N-I-X, and Jody and Tucker Cheney, they will be willing and ready to talk to you and put you to work. And also uh Green again, green grass guys, that's D and David Bizzle, long-term partners with us, long-term cyclistonians. They will make your lawn look like carpet. I I I'm not the I'm not the technical guy when it comes to that stuff. I know a little bit about turf.

SPEAKER_02 2:53

I did I did notice that they're probably gonna have a little bit of work on yours where the tractor like oh do you see where it gouged a couple?

SPEAKER_04 3:00

I did. I mean, it just it happens.

SPEAKER_05 3:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:02

I I was talking to my neighbor Bobby, and he said that I I told him about mine. He's like, Yeah, he goes, Man, when they clean mine off with the with the front end loader, I went out there with orange paint and painted. I'm like, crap, I didn't think about that. Or and I think maybe even said he put flags up, you know, so they knew where the edge of the concrete was. So they but it's not the end of the world. It's fixable. Oh yeah, it's just grass. They can grow it back. It's not a big deal. They'll put some dirt and sand and whatever and fix it. But it's all good. It's all good. We got the we the main thing was getting the ice and the everything off the driveway. Safe and sound. Exactly. We we can grow some grass back, but and they'll green grass guys, they'll fix it like it's when it never happened, exactly. Because that's what they do. But we're so proud to be partnered with them. They both, again, we talk about this a lot. They see our mission and our values and the and the ideas that we have, and we are so proud they're part of that to help us continue bringing this content that we have and promoting our area along with promoting them. And they are just top-notch folks. But all uh both of our partners are just top-notch folks. Again, shout outs to Luke. Well, we don't have it up here right now. Our graphics guest graph, yeah. He's our our our graphics and video visual stuff, and that'll be up on our second half of this when we have our guest on today. Aaron, my bride. Thanks for uh giving me time to do this stuff. It's it's a labor of love, as they say, right? Yeah. I enjoy doing it, and we're we're we're getting closer, Micah, to what we'll be moving our studio. I mean, it may be several months from now, but getting getting our man cave done. Okay. I'm trying to I think I've narrowed it down to kind of what I want and trying to figure out, man, it's a you know, you just don't want to jump out there and do something. I've I keep going back and forth into what we want to do. Price would just go up to that too. And so anyway, we're we're we're looking into that and trying to figure out exactly what we want to do. Uh shout out to her again, shout out to uh Justin, Micah's brother-in-law, my brother, our chief legal counsel, and our assistant IT guy, x ex-IT guy.

SPEAKER_02 5:22

Editor. Well, he don't really he he critiques us sometimes.

SPEAKER_04 5:26

He does. He does. He gives us some uh constructive feedback. And shout out to Tucker Cheney, not only for being a partner with his dad and uh partner on the show, but he is our chief IT guy. Man, he's helped me so much. I'm getting I'm getting a lot better, and I've still got a long way to go with some of the video editing. He's helped me with a lot of things. I've learned transitions, there's these little effects, you know, it looks like the page flips and rolls and all this stuff, and I've learned how to do that. He showed me how to do that.

SPEAKER_02 5:54

That's a fade ins, fade out, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:56

Exactly. Exactly. That kind of stuff. He showed me that. Now I need to figure out how to do a thumbnail. I haven't figured out how to do that. That's the like the first screen, like you see, like on a video. That's like it tells you what it's about, and then the video starts. I've got to do I don't know how to do it. I'm gonna have to get Tucker involved. Tucker used to work for KFES, and he did, I mean, this stuff, he was showing me and he was like, bumble, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, Slower man. Exactly. All right, Tucker, I'm gonna I'm gonna need you to write this in crayon. You're gonna come back here and do this every time. Exactly. I'm like, you're gonna have to write this in crayon, because I'm like, it's gonna take me a minute to figure it out. But he's he he he and he did, and he sent me a I've I've got a list of a checklist how to do things, and so he he he he's great. He's great. We appreciate him for that. Deege, our our uh statistician statistician, statistician, local historian, oh, all the above, and and Deege is now I'm getting a direct copy of his stories now, don't have to even wait for them to be published. Yeah, it was nice of him to do that. So that's how I got the story already. I and it may be published now. I know sometimes he'll get them and it may take several days, but I've got yesterday's article, and so we'll be talking about the Bulldogs, had a great week. We'll be talking about that here in a minute. And then I actually re-recorded our guest yesterday, and he was in here and he was like, Man, what a cool sign on the wall. We're like Tyler Anderson. That's our boy TA, twisted arrow woodworking. Yeah, he's he's great. So shout out to Tyler. We appreciate that, appreciate the the swag, and appreciate him for being on here. And and hang on, guys, we'll we'll talk about the Bulldogs, but man, you don't want to miss our guest. He really gives us some insight and some uh knowledge about school safety, yeah, school safety and a whole lot of stuff, and even some of the things he does in class. Correct. I want to go check it out. Exactly. I do that. Sounds really cool. I that when there were some things he was talking about, I didn't realize that that they have that it worked like that. I thought it was like a pre-programmed, like it was already baked in. He's like, No, I can change this and do that. And I was like, holy cow. So it's really cool. It's really cool. And again, shout out to all our folks. Make sure you like, share, follow our pages and our social media on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. Hey, give us a shout-out, man. Give us a comment, give us a like, give us a share, rate, review us on everything, review us on the podcast, Apple, Spotify. Give us a review there if you don't mind. Give us you know, give us a review on our pages and all that stuff. We appreciate it. And you can catch all our podcasts, all the audio podcasts on Apple, Spotify. By the way, Spotify, according to my notes and and the stats that we have, Spotify is about to pull even with Apple. Really cool. Yep, Apple was kind of far ahead, but Spotify's coming on. But we're on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, our Heart Radio, and I think there's like 20 of them. RSS P.

SPEAKER_02 8:50

It probably means we got more Android listeners now.

SPEAKER_04 8:53

That is true. That is true, and of course you can always listen on our website. It's the doghouse.buzzsprout.com, and there's an embedded player on there that you can click and listen to it there as well. So there we've got a whole host of ways, and then obviously we have the videos on YouTube and the audio on YouTube as well. So that all posts to that, and if you want to watch the audio, and then our the AI deal that we use. Of course, we use AI to help with our with the podcast upload. The the audio, it helps me create the transcripts and the descriptions and the chapters, and I don't have to go in and manually do all that stuff. That would take just hours, days. Yes, yes. I mean it it does it in 10, 15 minutes. It it's just it's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

The little reels that were shortwork.

Audience Growth, Platforms, And AI Tools

SPEAKER_04 9:42

Yeah, that's exactly the the reels. I really feel like that's been driving some some views on our content. I was sharing with Micah before we you know, we would do hit and miss, and just to give you an idea, we're like 20 something thousand views a month. Now it's we're bumping way over 30,000, 32,000, 33,000. You know, Facebook on their their analytics shows it within the last 28 days. I don't know why it uses, I guess the four weeks, I suppose, or whatever, but in the last 28 days, and it keeps, you know, it's 32, it was like 29, it was 30, then 31, and now we're close to 33. And so we appreciate everyone out there for again listening, watching, following along, liking, sharing, commenting, reviewing us, all those things. And I just can't say thank you enough for listening to what we do, right? And continue to help us and and like our content. Again, if you've got any suggestions, please email us. You can email us at the our doghouse. It's not the it's doghouse.syksten at gmail.com. Send us an email, send us a DM, send me a message, text me on my personal page or my phone, you know, or Micah, reach out to us if you've got a suggestion or a guest suggestion or whatever. We're we're open to that at all times. We've got swag. I had somebody reach out to me, and the other want some hoodies, so I'm gonna be looking to get us some hoodies right now. We just got t-shirts, but again, we've we've talked about some stuff. I've got to I've got to finish up on that too. I'm trying to finish up. I've got kind of several trying to juggle three or four balls at the same time, keep the plates in the air, as they say. I'm trying to get all the stuff put together for our man cave slash podcast studio slash I don't know what it would be, another slash. Uh Aaron says it's a it's a she shed. It's she yeah, that and a and a pool house because that our friends next door have a pool and they want me to, you know, provide the building. Well, it's not gonna be up on that side, it's probably gonna be further off the house. I'm finna say, is it gonna back up to Well no, we're gonna no, it's gonna face east because I want it, I want in the afternoon, I want you know it to be in the shade. And so I don't know, I guess we'll have to put a gate in on both of our fences over on this side where they can walk through and not have to go all the way around, or maybe they'll just have to go through the backgates. I don't know. We'll have to figure that out. So anyway, summer you'd be outside anyway. Exactly, exactly. They can walk a little bit, it's not gonna kill them. But anyway, well hopefully we'll have some more swag soon. And again, if you're interested in partnering with us, we would be we would love to talk to you. Or again, reach out to us, doghouse.sychstent gmail.com, send us a DM, text me, call me, come by and see me, however, you need to do it. And Michael, let's get into let's get into a little bit, or not a little bit, a light bit. A Friday night? Yeah. That was unreal. It was just a shooting exhibition. It was. I mean Mike and I, we were sitting, he was sitting, we were sitting right beside me, and we kept thinking, man, we hit a lot of threes, and you kept up with it or new kind of instinct.

SPEAKER_02 12:58

Yeah, it just kind of well I I thought, and then and then we got the we got the actual total at halftime. I think it was eleven at halftime, wasn't it? Correct. And then I just kind of kept up with it after that.

SPEAKER_04 13:09

We yeah, we had 30 we hit eleven threes, so that's 33 points, and we had 37 points at half. So we had two layups in the first half. Correct. And then we hit another six. We had we finished with 17 team threes.

SPEAKER_02 13:22

Which is fifty-one points. We scored seventy-two total.

SPEAKER_04 14:01

Yeah, 72-42 was a final. That's right. Yeah. So we scored whatever percentage that is, was a ridiculous amount. It you know, at the end of the day, it was it's a little bit by necessity. I mean, you know, we were shooting the ball and we were hot, so you know, we had a good night shooting, and of course I heard somebody say, one of our coaches say, you know, if we only make 10, you know, we're talking about a different game then, right? You know, we hit that'd have been 21 points, all of a sudden we're only up six or seven or eight or nine or whatever it is, uh as it turned out. So we're talking about two different things there. Now take what they give you. You do, and a lot of that I felt like was necessity. Cape is uh big and strong, and they I felt like they really guarded the inside. They cut off the driving lanes, they did a good job of that. We had some turnovers. I mean, we turned them over some, is where I was saying. But we we just shots were going that night, right?

SPEAKER_02 14:59

Yeah, we were everybody, it was coming from everybody too. Yeah, there were I I'd I'd say at least six or seven different ones.

SPEAKER_04 15:08

Marquell ended up with like twenty-three, Kobe had thirteen, and Sean Cole had 11. I believe that's the numbers, but you know, Ben had Ben played well, Jaharis Quay played, he had some big shots. I think J. Ray had one. He did, he did. And so we ended up with 17 as a team. The the article that they had in SEMO Ball, let me pull that back up. Let's see.

Merch, Partnerships, And Community Involvement

SPEAKER_02 15:37

It was a fun game to watch, though, really. I mean, when you get mad, oh they shot a layup. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:43

We were we were laughing, we were sitting with Coach Soron. Yeah, he he he didn't understand, and we we were just kind of laughing because we're like, nah, I get out of here with these layups. Let's see. Marquilla had 23, Kobe had 13, Sean had 11, and Jaden Johnson with the Tigers had 14. That's all we hit eight three-pointers in the second quarter.

SPEAKER_02 16:10

Man.

SPEAKER_04 16:13

They didn't they didn't have a box score after that. I'm sorry about that. For the rest of the scores. But listen, anytime you can beat Cape, they're a district foe, they're a conference foe. I hope we keep shooting like that when we're in that building. Correct. Yep, yep. You know, I and I've said it before, you know, uh we that that place is a tough place to shoot. We don't seem like we shoot it well. Cape has a lot to do with that, right? You know, they they guard us well and they can play hard. That night they were going in. And so it was it it was a good night. It was a good night to be a bulldog, and anytime you can beat Cape is is a it's a good day. It is a good day. And then the Bulldogs turned their focus less than 24 hours to play Scott City at Scott City. You know, I I don't so I talk I had some friends of mine, some folks I know that are Scott City fans. No, no, we talked about that last night after the game. We played them in Michael Porter's years. We played up there and they beat us actually would have been oh seven-ish, oh eight-ish, somewhere right through there. No, it was uh that they beat us. We had three or four guys that didn't play that starter that were out, they were sick. Just one of those things that happened, and not to take away from what they did, they beat us. It was fair and square, but we didn't have everybody there. But I I don't know if they're coming here next year. Oh, I know where I was going with that. The the fans and the folks that I know that are fans and and follow the Scott City team, they've got most of those guys are juniors. So they feel like they're gonna be really good next year as well. Maybe they'll come to Sykeson next year. I d I I don't know. I coach didn't say and I didn't ask him, so and he would tell me, but I I don't I don't know if they will be or not. But I would yeah, if they're they're gonna be good. Let's get down to the box score.

SPEAKER_02 18:20

Jaharis had a career night. He had 23. I I did notice that. I mean, like what the parts I got to watch.

Friday Game: Historic Three-Point Barrage

SPEAKER_04 18:27

I mean, it was it was he played very well. Marquell followed up a 23-point with a 22-point night. Kobe had 14, Sean Cole had seven, Quay had Alan had seven, Ben James had five, and J-Ray had five. And we had four, six, seven. We had nine three-pointers against them. Interestingly, we sh only shot five free throws. Huh. And we were one of five. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And they only shot two free throws, interest interestingly. They were one of two.

SPEAKER_02 19:06

Well, that's a good good game, not to have to watch it at the free throw line.

SPEAKER_04 19:09

Right. I totally agree with you.

SPEAKER_02 19:10

If you watch a college game now, you're watching it at uh nothing but free throws.

SPEAKER_04 19:13

Gosh. They had Walton. I think Walton was that big kid, that guard, that big guard that handled the ball. He had 26. Snyder was a kid that was knocking down the threes. He had three threes. He had twenty-one.

SPEAKER_02 19:30

I felt like he had three in like two minutes.

SPEAKER_04 19:33

Well, that's because he did. They he hit him. That third quarter? Yeah. Fourth. Fourth quarter. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 19:42

Where was that?

SPEAKER_04 19:50

Walton and Snyder, the two combined for 20 of the team's 24 points in the fourth quarter. Yeah, they played great. We now have won 46 straight wins against Southeast Missouri competition owing owing its only losses in the last three years of St. Louis area schools. One loss to Father Tolton in Columbia.

SPEAKER_02 20:13

And Jackson would be the last team in Southeast Missouri to beat us.

SPEAKER_04 20:17

Mm-hmm. And that's setting up for a big That's a big game Friday night. It is a big game Friday night. And we can't overlook New Madrid. New Madrid seems to be getting hot at the right time, too. That's right. Yeah, they beat. They beat a good who'd they beat the other night? Hayetire or someone? Yeah, yeah. I won't say it surprised me.

SPEAKER_00 20:34

I just wasn't I didn't Or was it Curlisville? It was Hayeti or Curlisville.

SPEAKER_04 20:40

Yeah, it was one of the one and a good team that I, you know, I thought might give New Madrid trouble, and New Madrid beat them, and they're you know, they're kind of rounded in shape. But uh the Bulldogs pulled out a close game. Like we said, it was it was 8380, and we Jaharis stole a pass literally with just seconds on the clock and then flipped it ahead and we're able to secure the win. It was a good win against a good team. Push both teams. I think it would help prepare both teams for uh a district run. The dogs are now 20. What does that make them? What did I tell you? 20 21 and 2. I'm sorry. 22 and 2, and now the Rams are 19-4. And this was their first loss since Christmas. They've they've and they beat well, they beat Cape Central what last week or a few weeks ago, whenever it was. So they you know, they're listening their quality team. And the I I talked again, I talked to some of their guys afterwards. I think Woodland is in their district, or I don't think that's they said Woodland's in their district, and that's gonna give them some problems.

SPEAKER_02 21:52

Is that are they two A or three class three?

SPEAKER_04 21:55

Yeah, now they're in Principia's class.

SPEAKER_02 21:59

Playing for second in that class.

SPEAKER_04 22:01

Yeah, and listen, and that's no knock on Scott City or Woodland or anybody. And it's it's it's it's a shame. It's it is Misha's gotta do something with that. Well, that's a whole nother subject, and they're under some scrutiny right now by the by the actual state state government.

SPEAKER_02 22:17

I know there's some controversy with the state taking over they're getting sued over an appointment, some like diversity or like Oh, Misha's getting sued over that? I don't know I'm not I don't I didn't know about in the opposite way of what you think. I mean.

SPEAKER_04 22:34

They're where I was talking was the state is is wanting to step in and and provide some overseas.

SPEAKER_02 22:40

But I think I think the lawsuit kind of Oh propelled that?

SPEAKER_04 22:44

Propelled that. Ah. There's been some grumblings for several years about Misha, and there's some folks wanting to do some stuff.

SPEAKER_02 22:55

And I you know, I mean, we don't who knows. I mean, we don't know what the answer are.

SPEAKER_04 22:59

Yeah. I don't it's you know, we don't want to get necessarily in the messy politics on here of of giving our opinion, yeah, and what they should do. But you know, I've talked to some and they think that you know some changes, but they don't want it to be the government, which I totally understand. And then there's others going, well, wait a minute, they've there's got to be some oversight. There, there is no oversight. You know, they're getting public money essentially from the schools, you know, even though it's not directly from the state, but you're getting school money, so it's technically public money, and they don't so it it it's kind of a jumbled mess.

SPEAKER_02 23:32

Well, I mean athletic athletes like c in college, NCAA's under about the same kind of scrutiny. I mean, like that's right until I mean until the federal government comes in and and legislates because I mean they're each state's not going to be able to legislate the other states. Right.

SPEAKER_04 23:52

That's right. I mean it'll have to be a federal on that on that level.

SPEAKER_02 23:56

No, I mean like it's just like the schools. I mean, how do the schools hold them accountable? You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 23:59

Well, and that's the that's the other part of it. And and the thing that most people some people may not understand, MISHA stands for Missouri State High School Activities Association, not athletics. It covers band, choir, speech debate, drama, drama, uh, all the other things. It doesn't just cover athletics.

SPEAKER_02 24:25

So it's not we'll talk about that a little bit when Matt was announcer.

SPEAKER_04 24:29

Exactly. So it's not just it's activities. And so the folks wanting to jump into that may not realize that, oh, this is not just sports, this is band choir, you know, all the other. So anyway, it'd be interesting to see how that plays out. Hopefully there are some cooler heads can prevail and and and get it sorted out and with some common sense. And I know there's there's some folks up there that can uh get that done. So anyway, I don't we don't want to it it is interesting to keep an eye on it.

SPEAKER_02 24:59

Yeah, yeah, just to pay attention to it.

SPEAKER_04 25:00

Make your own opinion. Exactly, exactly. Yeah, just inform yourself and you know talk to your leaders in that, talk to your folks at school or talk to your local reps, because that will could be something that comes up for vote in the state legislature.

SPEAKER_02 25:14

We've got a busy, I mean, from what just I was looking at a few things, and I don't know all of them, but I we've got a busy legislative set session going on right now. I mean, like it's pretty busy.

Saturday Thriller At Scott City

SPEAKER_04 25:26

Well, Jamie Berger was at I mean his grandson plays for Scott City. I saw we didn't talk politics, but just saw Jamie and we talked for just a few minutes. So I know he's again, if Jamie's your guy, talk to Jamie. So anyway, don't get hung, let's don't get hung up in that. Let's get back to the Bulldogs. Great win, two great wins this week, 22 and 2. Now we look forward to next week, and we got senior night this Tuesday against New Madrid. You know, they've they've had some struggles this year, but don't overlook them.

SPEAKER_02 25:57

They were young. They are young. Getting older.

SPEAKER_04 26:00

Yep, yep. They're they're getting better, and just don't overlook them. Sort of maybe not to this level, but man, don't overlook Charleston. Gosh, they put a thumpin' on Woodland. Yeah. 99 to 70 something, 73 or something. I at Woodland. Yeah, yeah, I did not expect that. Now I think Puxico and I think Van Buren's class two in a different district.

SPEAKER_02 26:32

Well, I mean, like when we had uh Bernie Andrew and and and they said that class two is the class to watch.

SPEAKER_04 26:41

Yeah. Oh, you got a bunch of schools. I mean, you got Bernie, Puxico, Van Buren, Charleston. That's f I feel like Hayti is in there. Man, you're gonna have to.

SPEAKER_02 26:54

What's Cruzville?

SPEAKER_04 26:57

I think there are three, but don't hold me to that. But that's a that's a barn burner of a class two.

SPEAKER_02 27:06

It's probably gonna come out of Southeast Missouri.

SPEAKER_04 27:08

I mean, more than likely. More than likely. I would say if that team can get out of that sectional game, I don't know. I haven't looked that far ahead. I I don't really know, but again, don't look, don't look past Charleston. I'm just telling you for your for your own, if whoever listens to this, don't look past them. Just don't. And listen, Pucksaco is the king on the hill right now, and you obviously can't look past them. They are, and and for a good reason. That you know they've set themselves up to be there. And so still I'd say this don't look past the Eagles. Dogs can't do need to come in and take care of business, and they will set up for a huge showdown.

SPEAKER_02 27:46

Hopefully Friday night.

SPEAKER_04 27:47

Yes, with Jackson. Hopefully, we both come in undefeated in the conference. That and we'll say undefeated in the conference, Sykston beat them in the conference tournament.

SPEAKER_02 27:56

So that's their only loss this year.

SPEAKER_04 27:58

That's correct. That is correct. That is the only loss they've had. And so listen, they're very, very well coached, very well schooled. They are they're big. They're big, they're athletic, they can shoot it.

SPEAKER_02 28:11

You know, they're very I think even when you know at the beginning of the season, we we were kind of surprised that they weren't the one seed in the in the SEMO conference tournament.

SPEAKER_04 28:19

They're very skilled, that they're heady, kind of all those things. It's gonna be a dog fight, in my opinion. And I I think, you know, and it's at Jackson, so it makes it tougher for the board. I want to say they're in the top five in the city. They were I thought they were nine. Or was that right?

SPEAKER_00 28:37

They were they're in the top ten. I know that.

SPEAKER_04 28:39

They are they are now ranked in class six. And so, I mean, there you go. You know, we we hear, oh, this is down, this is down. Guys, Scott City's really good. They're ranked number six in class three. Jackson's ranked number nine, or they're in the top ten of class six. You can say what you want about Southeast Missouri basketball. It's gonna always prove to be a gauntlet. And the Bulldogs have to have their hands, they'll have their hands full. I would recommend getting there early Friday night if you can. I'm gonna try. Yeah, you and others, because it's it's it's gonna be a packed house. I know they'll be ready.

SPEAKER_02 29:16

I was looking at my schedule. I may actually I don't know. I don't know what I may do Friday.

SPEAKER_04 29:21

Come on. Oh, and that's a triple header, by the way. Oh, is it?

SPEAKER_02 29:26

Freshman, yeah, freshman JV Varsity. That may really make my decision. There you go. And so maybe I may be off at noon. That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_04 29:33

I may me too. I may take off at noon. Me too. And so we want to get there early, watch our freshman team play, so everybody be ready. Come out and support the Bulldogs. I'm sure they have Huddle, or if you can't make it, I'm sure they got some kind of streaming. Just look for Sykes.

SPEAKER_02 29:54

We I mean like Sykes and Athletic page usually puts something.

SPEAKER_04 29:57

Right. Right. I would look on the Sykes and Athletic Facebook page. They'll have something out later in the week. I'm crazy.

SPEAKER_02 30:02

Probably they'll probably put out some information about buying tickets, you know.

SPEAKER_04 30:06

Yeah, I don't know if they're I know Cape Cape was Cape was still doing the digital tickets and all that stuff. I don't know about Jackson. And I don't know about clear bags. You know, I I don't know about all that stuff. I don't know. That will come out.

SPEAKER_02 30:21

I'm just gonna assume that any school you go to, you might as well just think you're in the clear bag.

SPEAKER_04 30:25

Yeah. Yeah. If you do, then you're safe. So again, just look for more information about that. Obviously, if you can't make it Tuesday night, listen to uh Andin and me or watch the game and listen to Andon and me on Bulldog Nation Network, be our last home game of the season. I assume we're done after that. I d I they haven't said anything to us about doing any district games or anything like that. I don't know. If they do, maybe it's a maybe A Corp regular does it. I don't know. I I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 31:34

Well, I mean it would be on the road, probably. I mean Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:37

That just would be my guess, but I don't know. They haven't said anything to us. So since they haven't, I would assume that it is not.

SPEAKER_02 31:44

Now I can't remember this and I'm just thinking about district. Does Cape They have a YouTube channel, don't they?

District Outlook, Rankings, And SEMO Landscape

SPEAKER_04 31:51

Yeah, that there was yeah, we watched that the other night and we got back. Yeah, they have a they have they have a streaming service. Now during district, though, remember they they charge them to do that. So I don't know how that's gonna work during district. So I if you can during district, try to get to the games. All I can say. So anyway, we've got one more week of basketball, regular season basketball, and we'll be back next week to recap all that. We'll talk about the seedings, district seedings, they will come out later this week this week. I think the seedings are Tuesday or Wednesday, the seed meeting.

SPEAKER_02 32:24

I know they came up probably came out Wednesday for the class one through three.

SPEAKER_04 32:28

Yeah. And so I can't think of anything between now and then that would knock the dogs out of the top seed. Just not sure. I I don't know what what that could be. Because by the time we play Jackson, they'll already be out. I can't I mean a loss to New Madrid could probably hurt us, but it's not a district, you know what I mean? I don't know. But anyway, I I I think our body of work is is enough that would cause a dog's.

SPEAKER_02 32:56

In that district, I think we're correct.

SPEAKER_04 32:58

I think we're the number one seed.

SPEAKER_02 33:00

That doesn't mean we win it. What that means Right.

SPEAKER_04 33:02

Right. It's not over. Right. We haven't played them yet. It doesn't mean we're going to win it, but it means we would be the top seed going into it. And in anything's it's always it's as I always say, it's uh high school kids and anything can happen night to night, right? But with that being said, we look forward to uh great postseason run and follow the dogs and we'll be right there with them. And Mike and I will bring you all of the the breakdown and the stats and the discussion points and all that stuff. So if you would just stick with us. We've got a great guest coming up. Don't miss this. Again, like, share, follow the doghouse on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, give us a shout-out, review, and comment, and just stick with us and we'll be right back. Hey, thanks for sticking with us through the break. And uh, Michael, we're gonna roll right into our guest, yeah. I guess this week, VIP, evidently, from what I understand on Facebook. Red carpet. Local legend. Local legend, as as been told by our New Madrid County Sheriff. Right. So without further ado, today in the doghouse, we're talking about something that matters to every parent, every student, and everybody who cares about Sykeston schools, school safety. Our guest today is Andy Caton, the Sykeston R6 School Safety Coordinator. Andy brings a unique perspective because he's because he's lived this work from every angle. He's a former detective with the Sykeston Department of Public Safety, a U.S. Air Force veteran, and he's also in the classroom as a criminal justice teacher at Sykeston High School. And if that's not enough, he's a junior high track coach. So he's around our kids every day in real life, not just on paper. We're going to get into what school safety really looks like, what's changed over the years, how the district prepares, and what families can do to help. This is a practical conversation with someone who's in the middle of it every single day. Andy, welcome to the dog.

SPEAKER_03 34:51

Man, you guys made me sound amazing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:53

Hey, that's what ChatGPT does. Makes me sound smart asking questions, right? Yeah, it helps with my curriculum as well. I guarantee it does. I guarantee it does. So I obviously have a little bit of insight to to know what you do as being on the board, but for those that don't have that particular insight, tell us what what you do and tell us your day job, so to speak, and then tell us what the safety coordinator does and kind of what your role in that is. Sure.

SPEAKER_03 35:24

Well, as you said, I teach criminal justice. You know, it's a it's a two-year program, criminal justice one and two. So two years.

SPEAKER_04 35:31

Yes. Two-year program. So essentially you don't take seniors as new students then.

SPEAKER_03 35:36

I do, but it's a rare exception. Okay. Um a lot of times you get you know, we get all the sending schools, you know, from the surrounding area. So if we get somebody who just moved into the area, a lot of times we'll take them in. They may have they may have taken a similar course at their school, and so they're kind of uh ahead of the game, so we let them in. Gotcha, gotcha. Sorry, I cut you off. No, you're good. Yeah. And as far as the safety coordinator goes, it's quote, a part-time job, you know. Right. So to speak. Easily take up a full-time position, you know, sure amount of time. But basically, we have nine campuses, and I coordinate with all the other campuses and the staff. And that's all the elementary schools, everything. Every school that we have, you know, SCTC2. I guess it's not ever been, you know, we haven't named it officially, but that's what that's what the uh part do. Yeah, part two. Yeah, that's what the running name is. And so I've got a great team because every school has their own safety team, you know, and so they report to me monthly and say, hey, this is our concerns, or everything looks good, or can we do this, can we do that? And so it's just a it's a team effort, you know, just like anything else. And basically to prevent as best we can any tragedies, you know, uh any disasters that may come along, whether it be weather or you know, somebody trying to come in and harm, you know, harm somebody, staff or student in the school, or you know the students' mental health, you know, is the hugest thing right now.

SPEAKER_04 37:07

So yeah, so it doesn't mean it's not just keeping it it it's all things encompassed with safety, like you said, weather. You do you do the oh shoot the drills stuff? So you you I guess schedule those for I guess you do, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:25

You know, it's it's and and we'll talk more about this, I'm sure, but that new Raptors, you know, system which is amazing. And so I go in at the beginning of the year and I schedule them, you know, and I send it out to all the other schools, and so they have it and they can they uh obviously I don't set everybody's drill. You know, I'm not doing wing elementary's oh drill, but they know they know in their system when to do them. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 37:49

So you sort of okay, you're coordinating all that, so to speak.

SPEAKER_03 37:52

Okay, I've coordinated it and they see on their end, you know, they can pull it up and know when to do it.

SPEAKER_04 37:56

Are you the are you also like lack of a better term, like a liaison with the DPS? Sure. So it's I am yeah so if if there's an issue, you may be one of the probably Shannon and you and Central Office or whatever. Maybe it's one of the first calls if there's a whatever to go on. Even what about a like a student that has a health issue and there's an ambulance or something like that? Is that something that you're involved in? Not not necessarily going to help them physically, but as far as are you aware of that stuff when it happens?

SPEAKER_03 38:29

You know, I'm aware if if an incident is initiated, and again, we'll talk more about the retro system, but it's an application, and you know, if if a if an employee or staff member initiates an incident at any of the campuses, okay, being the safety coordinator, okay, I get all of them. You know, so if you're a teacher at the high school, you don't know about it, but being the safety coordinator, I see it. You know, I'm not exactly sure what's going on, yeah, because I don't have a radio or anything like that with me, but I know that there's been an some kind of incident initiated and it and then you can type notes into it, you know, on what have you. Now, having said that, to kind of jump ahead with that raptor, as soon as an initi and an incident is initiated, it's live time to DPS. Oh. So if there's say there's a fire, you know, or a fire alarm's going off, and one of the staff members I sell, I smell smoke, and they swipe on the app, it immediately dispatches police and fire. Oh, geez. And shows their exact GPS location. So shows the person that did it, their GPS. Absolutely. And and in live time. So say that they initiated a fire and then they're obviously not going to stay where the fire is. They're like, but it shows then, you know, now I'm out here, and then you know, all the teachers can can input in live time, you know.

SPEAKER_02 39:42

That's pretty impressive, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 39:44

All the teachers can say, you know, Miss Johnson's class is here, you know, Mr. Franklin's class is here.

SPEAKER_04 39:48

I didn't realize that. I just I I know probably Yeah, it's uh just a Yeah, it's a neat deal.

SPEAKER_03 39:55

It's wow. Yeah, and the teachers use it. You know, that's yeah, you know, the last program we had, you know, no no knocks on it. Right. I'm sure it was a great system, but it's only as great as people that will use it. Right. And they they the teachers and staff love this, they use it. You know, I got a great feedback on it, you know, because I ask them like, you guys like this? If it's not working, let me know. Right. And they're like, I absolutely love it. I hated that last deal because it was not user-friendly.

Scheduling, Streaming, And Ticket Logistics

SPEAKER_02 40:18

No, it wasn't. No, no, yeah. Micah knows it's clunky. It's too much to it. Oh I'll be honest with you, I never was able to really Me either. I can't even remember the name of it, but you get emails and prices go, and you feel like, yeah, yeah. And I remember I remember like getting emails about it like, what is this?

SPEAKER_03 40:36

I know, I know.

SPEAKER_02 40:37

Well which and I'm I like I said, I wasn't I was in the school, but I wasn't, you know, right kind of but you were still had to be involved with it though.

SPEAKER_03 40:44

Yeah. When I went to a seminar to research this, you know, it was a couple days seminar, and the guy held it up and he showed me the you know, the basically the face of it of the app once you open it up, and it looked like a kindergarten. It had like five or six different big button color-coded, you know. I mean, almost like, you know, no offense, but a senior citizen's phone. Absolutely. You know, and I'm like, hey, I like I said, can I try that? And what sold me on it is he hands me his phone and it was basically a trial phone. It wasn't even really his phone. It's an app, you know, it's a phone that they use for clients or whatever. Right. And I said, now how say I let's say there's a fire. What do I do? He goes, you hit that right there and you swipe. I go, what else? He goes, that's it. I said, I like it. So yeah.

SPEAKER_04 41:25

Simplicity, ease of use, all that.

SPEAKER_03 41:26

You know, and especially once you know you get an actual incident, it's gonna be a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 41:31

Let's let's take it not to the extreme. Let's say if there's a leak in the bathroom, you know, like a water break or something like that. Is there a way to notify and then it goes to maintenance and well no, it doesn't go to maintenance.

SPEAKER_03 41:45

Any any emergency, any incident. If it's an emergency incident. Now, there are there are you know some of the big color buttons are you know a water. Well, that probably still would go to DPS, but say that there's some minor incident or whatever, but it needs to be addressed immediately, that will go within, you know, within that school, and it will it will notify administration and stuff like that, who will obviously then contact maintenance.

SPEAKER_02 42:09

I was wondering, like I mean, I I know we think of safety, but I mean, like that's a safety issue.

SPEAKER_04 42:15

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Well, from time to time, and and Shannon does a great job of keeping the board up to date. The reason she does is sometimes we'll start getting questions, nothing bad. I can pull up a text message. Student passed out at the junior high. There was an ambulance sent. Somebody maybe, why is there an ambulance at junior high? Right. Oh, well, a kid passed out. It's okay. The kid's okay, but they they tell us, but uh, but you would get notification of that that there was an ambulance sent to junior high. You wouldn't necessarily know what it was, per se.

SPEAKER_03 42:45

Yes. And of course I'm getting it in my classroom, you know, because my phone's going off, you know. So I tell administrators, you know, because you know, we try to, you know. Not be on your phone, not be on my phone, you know, because you don't want you want to follow the rules too. You know, the students don't have theirs, so you don't want to be on theirs, but they obviously they understand that in my role in that capacity, I need to be.

SPEAKER_04 43:03

At least a little bit. Right. Okay, cool. What do you and we've talked about this sort of at a board level, but what does proactive look like as opposed to being reactive or something? Yeah. What do you what does that look like to you?

SPEAKER_03 43:17

Yeah, that's easy, you know, because obviously being in law enforcement, you know, you want to be proactive. So proactive basically it speaks for itself. You want to be ahead of the game, you want to take every measure you possibly can to prevent something before it does happen. You feel like raptors kind of in spades, so to speak? Yeah, you know, and again, if you're using it, you know, right. You can have the best equipment in the world, but if no one's using it, then it's worthless.

SPEAKER_02 43:41

So it's a it's a paper rough. It's a paperweight.

SPEAKER_03 43:44

Paperweight, yeah. Paperweight. That's exactly right. Yeah, you know, well, this winter storm, just take it for example. You know, did it did you do anything to prepare? You know, did you go buy some extra food? You know, did you make sure that you had some extension cords or a generator or you know, make sure that you had alternative heat sources or anything? That's proactive, you know. And those people who weren't proactive, they had some frozen pipes, you know, at bus and stuff like that. So now they're reacting. So just you know, transfer that to the school situation, and that's what we're trying to do. Yeah. I like it.

SPEAKER_04 44:13

Well, what would you say? And don't get in it's we'll have to I I know there's things on here that you you can't say, and and I know there's other things that are involved that I can't talk about either, but what what are some of the priorities that that like the school's doing right now for safety? What what are we doing that you can talk about?

SPEAKER_03 44:32

Well, as everybody can see that comes into the school or goes to a ball game or anything like that, the first thing that stands out is the weapons detectors.

SPEAKER_04 44:39

Yeah. You know let me just pause you there and just give you my perspective on that. As as a board, when this just different things kept perpetuating it. You know, Cape Central had a deal at graduation and there's other schools that got 'em. And you know, frankly, and uh I I don't speak for you or Micah, but I feel like you probably feel the same. I hate that we have to have them. Oh yeah. Everybody does. I hate that we have to have to to to do this, right? Yeah. Or have clear backpacks. Correct. Right. All of that stuff. I hate it. Yeah. But I don't hate it. Enough to not do it. Right. To feel like we've done we feel like we've done everything we can to keep our kids safe, right? Well we hate that there's evil in the world in general.

SPEAKER_03 45:21

You know what I mean? Right. But unfortunately, that's the you know, the old quote, that's the world we live in. It is. So, you know, you have to prepare for the world that you live in.

SPEAKER_04 45:29

Yeah. So the from our perspective, it was just one of those, and frankly, we thought there might be pushback, so to speak, from our constituents, from the kids, teachers, people coming in the field house, people coming in for a band concert, graduation, football game, whatever. Well actually I felt like it was the opposite.

SPEAKER_02 45:53

Well, I feel like I I mean like the system that they got now is so much more advanced than what what originally got going through I I I would say. It's not a metal detector, is it? No, it's a weapon. We had metal detectors like earlier, you know, and that that was a process.

SPEAKER_03 46:09

I mean, yes, yes. No, and that you know, and just to touch on both what both you guys said is no, nobody wants it. Right. You know, I I don't want it. I didn't want it, even though I fought for it. You know what I mean? I'm like, hey, we need this, you know, we need it. Nobody wants it. Yeah, but you need it. Uh you know, nobody wants to have to lock their door at night, but you need to lock your door at night. Right. Nobody wants to have to lock their car, you know. It's obviously easier now. You got touchless and you grab the door handle, but nobody wants to do it. So but to touch on Micah's point, but real quick, 100% feedback. I mean, I'm telling you what, there may have been two out of 10,000 people who had a problem with it, and everybody else is like, hey, this is great.

SPEAKER_04 46:48

You know, yeah.

Teeing Up Jackson: Packed House Expectations

SPEAKER_03 46:49

And yes, we have metal detectors still that we had purchased that are kind of in a closet now, I'm afraid. Uh because you're right. I mean, it picks up everything. Yeah, you know, if you have a lighting ring on, watch, phone, all the things, you know, and again, I went to a demonstration of these open gate, is what the brand name is, weapon detectors, and they use them in NFL stadiums, MBA stadiums, you know, and that's what they use. And they showed us, and they had, you know, they had 500 people or whatever in the auditorium and as at their demonstration, just walking through, and people had phones and you know, all kinds of metal, you know, change in their pocket and all the things that the traditional metal detector would have gone crazy on. And then you'd spend five minutes on each individual, and then you got a thousand, two thousand people trying to funnel into the field house.

SPEAKER_02 47:34

Uh you're gonna make a empty your pockets out now. I mean, like when when you first started going through those like Numagar, I think Numagger had them for one of the first ones. Yep. That you'd go down there and you'd have to empty your pockets out. Yep. So I mean, like I I feel like the technology has surpassed the old agent.

SPEAKER_04 47:56

Yeah, so did they show you at your demonstration like someone actually carrying a weapon out of the house? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And it caught it.

SPEAKER_03 48:03

Yep. Yeah, I mean, to the point where, you know, sometimes in the mornings, because I'll I'll still help out, you know, with monitoring those or whatever, along with DPS V there. And to the point where I'm like, I'll have the officer, I'm like, Will you walk back through her? Because we've had 400 kids go through, you know what I mean? And I know that it's working, but you still need beep, it goes off. You know, it's it's just picking up the the hardened steel of weapons of mass casualty, basically. So, you know, a big knife, you know, even even a mid-sized knife or anything like that. Obviously, the barrel of a gun, you know, is the hardened steel. And it picks up on Chromebooks. You know, the company learned real quick, they're like, oh dang. And it's the hinge on the Chromebook. But fast forward, all the students know that now. And so they set their Chromebook down, they walk through with all the other stuff they have on and in their backpack, and they pick their Chromebook and go on, you know.

SPEAKER_02 48:56

So yeah, I mean it's which is I guess why like whenever you had the seats or whatever, like where you're right, right.

SPEAKER_03 49:02

Oh yeah, we didn't do that last night. Yeah, because of the big metal, you know, I mean it's picking up on that.

SPEAKER_04 49:06

So that's right. Yeah, we had our chairbacks last night and we had to hand it to them and let me do the side of it.

SPEAKER_03 49:12

And you could set the sensitivity on it. You know, you can make it, you can make it a metal detector, you can make it pick up all the things that you want to pick up, you know, depending on depending on your crowd. So Gotcha.

SPEAKER_04 49:21

Oh, I didn't realize that. Yeah. Nice. It's neat. It's a neat deal. So, all right, so we've got weapons detectors, you know. As bad as I hate them, I wish we had one at every entrance. I know. I mean, frankly, but we don't have an unlimited supply as far as money. Right. So to speak. I'm I'm sure OpenGate would be happy to sell us. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:42

They'll they'll sell you excuse me, they'll sell you all you want.

SPEAKER_04 49:45

They're more than a dollar. Yes, exactly. So what so what el what other things are we doing to help uh some of the priorities that that you that you're working on?

SPEAKER_03 49:55

I'll tell you what, and it's not so much me working on it, but the biggest thing, and as as you guys know, is mental health. Well, you know, I mean, everybody talks about, you know, everybody talks about tornadoes and active shooter and all this stuff, which is all important, you know, and we need to address all of it and be prepared for all of it and be proactive. But mental health, that's where, you know, that's where a lot of the issues start, you know, is is is the mental health aspect of it. And so, you know, again, I'm not right in the middle of that, I'm not a counselor or whatever, but the team that we have, you know, and every you know, behavioral health people that are in there, I mean, they just need to get apart.

SPEAKER_02 50:30

I think they I I know they meet several times throughout the year. I mean, with counselors and you know, people that are involved in mental health earlier. So I've been in a few of those meetings myself. Yeah. And it it and the school is very proactive towards making sure that people get the help that they need. Yeah, they really they really are. The students and students and staff absolutely yeah. Yeah, it's it's it's it's you know, and you know, and even educating on that part, you know. I mean, um I know we had just had Scott on that, you know, has the gun.

SPEAKER_04 51:08

Right. All right, you're you you he he was the former single sector coordinator, right?

SPEAKER_02 51:13

He you know, he he he talked about, you know, a lot of the same things you're right you're you're doing. But he does the suicide prevention gun violence, like right or and and I know that that's a big issue. Like and we had Joey Eergerson, the sheriff in New Madrid County, one of the number one issues in their job right now is youth gun violence.

SPEAKER_03 51:37

Right.

SPEAKER_02 51:37

Yeah, I mean, and I know that that uh goes right into the schools. Right. I mean for sure. For sure. But mental health is a big thing and it it really It is. And and the thing is you don't always know. I mean you don't No.

SPEAKER_03 51:50

No, you don't. I mean, and that's that's something else, you know, and we may get into that too, but you gotta look out for the signs. You know, you as a teacher, you know, I mean you you know your students, you know, and yeah, talk to their friends, you know, their peers, and you know, is is Johnny okay? He seems a little down lately or whatever, you know. I don't know. He's been he's not talked to me either, you know, so just look for all the red flags, right?

SPEAKER_02 52:12

But I know a lot of teachers are trained in like the question, persuade, response, you know, refer, you know, those type things, which are all effective ways to deal with that. Right. I mean sure. And not only that, I mean you can get mental health services right there in the school. Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. From yes, Moodle RC Mill Health Network.

SPEAKER_04 52:31

Yeah, that was a that was a big deal just a couple, or I say a couple years ago, gosh. And that was 19. That was in 2019. That was in 2019. Well, I say that Andy, I'm like, you've just been teaching for a couple years, right, Andy? Yeah. 12 years now.

SPEAKER_02 52:44

Yeah, I think I think it was I think it was the end of 2019, early 20s.

SPEAKER_04 52:48

That's probably right. That's probably right. Yeah. You know what? It was that was about that's about the time Tom retired and Dr. Robinson came in. That was a that was right about that time. Yeah, I do recall that now. Yeah. So I know they're obviously weapons detectors, mental health. Are you involved in some of the school? We've had a couple we built Wing and Lee Hunter. Were you involved in some of the vestibule area things? I I and I know we've added new vestibules to some of the other trying to create a choke point, so to speak, or a bottleneck.

SPEAKER_03 53:21

I wasn't on those because I wasn't, I hadn't taken the position yet.

SPEAKER_04 53:24

Oh, gotcha.

SPEAKER_03 53:25

But like you're talking about since you know, since the add-ons on some of the other deals to make it a funnel, like you're basically talking, you know, a vestibule to, you know.

SPEAKER_04 53:33

Control access.

SPEAKER_03 53:34

Control access, you know, control the access and who's coming into our schools, you know. And to just continue with the re with the raptor system, it's not like a raptor spokesperson, but I tell you what, uh I I'll shout shout it after this episode paid by a raptor by open gate.

SPEAKER_05 53:51

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 53:51

Yeah, I'll be looking for my commission. Right, right. But now, whenever somebody comes in, like you said, we have choke points, you know, where when you come in to the you want to come into the high school, you have to go through A building. Yep. You know, you'll go through the you'll go through the weapons detectors, and then you have to get a visitor badge, which the Raptor system prints out.

SPEAKER_04 54:10

Okay.

Guest Intro: School Safety With Andy Caton

SPEAKER_03 54:10

You know, so we know who's in our schools, you know, we know what time they got there, and then they have to check out whenever they leave. So know what we know what time they left. Even maintenance workers, you know, that that aren't employed by the school. Right. You know, if you have somebody, contractor, come in to do something, you know, they've got a they've got a sticker with their name, you know, and a picture ID, the secretaries will take their driver's license and it runs them through a national database to check for registered sex offenders. So we make sure we don't have these absolutely so how does that deliver like with delivery?

SPEAKER_02 54:40

Holy cow, I didn't realize that. How does that work? How how does that work with uh like delivery systems like food like coming in to the school do those have to check in? We kind of shut down the whole food thing. Oh, did you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 54:54

But it but if they come in, I mean if you get Grubhub or whatever like that.

SPEAKER_02 54:58

Oh no, I'm talking about I'm talking about like deliveries from like like vendors. Uh oh my goodness, I guess. So Cisco Vendors, yeah. You're right.

SPEAKER_03 55:06

Yeah, no, that everybody checks in. Everybody okay. Everybody checks in. Yeah. Yeah. If you step foot in our campus, we want to know who you are and why you're there. Wow. I think that's great. Yes, sir. And so Again, nobody wants to have to do that. No, no, no. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 55:19

Right, no, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 55:21

But yeah, you can again proactive.

SPEAKER_04 55:23

Yeah. Are there are there any other things that we're do that you can think of off the top of your head?

SPEAKER_03 55:27

That are that are then back up that you could mention that we Yeah, I mean there's several more cameras. You know, nice high def cameras, you know, throughout the campus. So, you know, we keep an eye. And again, I don't I'm not sitting there watching the cameras or whatever, but you know, if something is going on or something went on, you know, we can get to the bottom of it. And go back and see the administration can look at it and say, you know, that's not exactly happened like you said it happened or whatever. That never happens.

SPEAKER_04 55:53

What do you mean?

SPEAKER_03 55:54

Right. Maybe leaving a few parts out.

SPEAKER_02 55:56

Right. And I don't know if y'all have you looked at any of the AI cameras that have like the like stuff that detects like odd behaviors and we have actually.

SPEAKER_03 56:06

That that's not off the table. Uh Mr. McGill and I have been working on that. And uh we've reached out to several different companies and it's pricey. I will say I'll say it's very good.

SPEAKER_02 56:18

I just I just know there's a store here in in town, which I mean they they deal with cameras. The business anyway, like I think some of his cameras are AI.

SPEAKER_04 56:27

Wow like they can detect like So if you start acting fidgety, that camera's gonna train on you then.

SPEAKER_02 56:32

Well, it's like like in this this one, it shows like kind of like if you move something towards like your if you pick something up, put it in your jacket or something, it it detects that.

SPEAKER_03 56:42

The ones we were looking at were specifically weapons where they could before they even got to the school, you know, you see somebody in the parking lot, it it's pretty remarkable. It would it would detect a rifle or a handgun or something like that, you know, five hundred five hundred yards away, you know.

SPEAKER_04 57:00

Holy cow.

SPEAKER_03 57:01

Yeah, it's pretty it's pretty wild.

SPEAKER_04 57:03

That's crazy. Well, with and I think we've done a pretty good job with this, but how do you balance like all the we we want it to be safe, right? But we want we don't want to feel like we're at a prison either. Right. Is that just kind of a feel that like you've been in it so long and you kind of you know again, nobody wants to live in a prison, you nobody wants to be in a prison.

What A Safety Coordinator Actually Does

SPEAKER_03 57:28

Right. We try to make it for for lack of a better term, as aesthetically pleasing as possible. You know, new fencing that's going up around the high school, uh things of that nature just make it what it is, I guess. Yeah. You know, it's if we if we prevent any kind of incident from occurring, you know, then we've done our jobs. Agreed. You know, now I'm not we're not gonna put barbed wire up and stuff like that. No concertina wire, nothing. There's no landmines up, you know, on the practice field or anything.

SPEAKER_04 58:02

So well, but there is there is a a line to understand where you are that we don't want robots coming into the building, right? Right. Because they've still got to think critically when they get there. Right. And we won't don't want to scare people to death. Right. But in your parent, you you want to know when you drop your kids off, they're gonna be safe, right?

SPEAKER_03 58:24

You know, I've had it's funny you say that, and I'm not kidding. I've had so many parents come up to me and say, Hey, about your weapons detectors and this and that. I'm like, I know, it's just they're like, no, no. I'm not going down a hole of negativity. I just want to tell you thank you, because I think it's amazing. I can drop Susie off or Johnny off and not have to worry about it. Yeah. You know, so I mean that's that's that's the majority of people.

SPEAKER_04 58:49

How do you we were concerned just at the board level and and we try not to get down in the weed so much. I mean, I know you and Andy and the and the team that do all this, you vet all this stuff out, but we're gonna get asked a lot of questions too, right? Sure. How do you how do how do we keep that process moving, like coming in the schools? Because it doesn't seem like there's a bottleneck. And I'll even at the field house, when you get a big game and people are streaming into this thing, it goes pretty quick. Is it because of of how good the weapons detectors are?

SPEAKER_03 59:21

It absolutely is. You know, like we talked about it just a few minutes ago. You know, they use them in in stadiums, you know. I mean, professional at you know, professional athletes, you know, professional teams, colleges, you know. I know the Red Devils in Arizona, they use them, you know. I mean, it's just you know, and that was one of the videos they showed, you know, and it's just it's it's pretty remarkable.

SPEAKER_02 59:40

And they move what well, you a stadium anywhere from 70 to 100,000 people.

SPEAKER_03 59:45

Yeah, absolutely. I mean holy cow.

SPEAKER_02 59:47

I mean, and and you typically a stadium opens an hour before games, hour and a half. Right. And most people are in, you know, I mean well, we had to go through.

SPEAKER_04 59:57

I mean, we talk about it on here, but Micah and and Justin, my brother, we've been going to uh the way the the Way Mizou away Mizzou games. I mean, we were in Oklahoma this year. And they we went through them. Yeah. You just yeah, just and that was that was a eighty thousand dollars. Oh, however many it was. It was full of it was University of Oklahoma and Norman. I don't know how many of that seats. Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:21

You know, I mean, you go to a cardinals game, you know, you go anywhere, just about anymore, you know. Yeah, and it's it's become quite the new norm, you know, and people just are you know, they deal with it and they're like, okay, you know So like on parameters and stuff like that, I kind of there were some changes made like for football games, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:39

I mean like this year wasn't there like some security things. Well now the metal or the weapon I can't think I said metal detectors.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:45

I scold I scold people for that. But the weapon detectors are obviously utilized, you know, at every gate, the three gates that you can get into the football field. Yeah. Yeah, and they're manned by DPS and and but didn't they kind of stop some of the parking along the outer parts of the perimeter and stuff like that? You know, I'm not sure. I probably should know.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:05

At the football game?

SPEAKER_04 1:01:06

Yeah, I was thinking there was I don't think you can park like on the road on Ingram and on Ingram, like on the uh be the east side of the stadium, maybe even Abels. Ables. Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:21

I think there was a there was there was a thing put sent out about it.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:24

I mean, like, I th I uh yeah, I don't I I think because people would used to park there and then you know walk in the city. I know what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:30

Yeah, but I didn't know if people just quit parking there or if it yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:33

I think I think there was I think there was a Facebook post made and then I think they may have actually manned that to make sure that there wasn't.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:42

And some of the stuff that I don't I guess have a hand in for lack of a better term, yeah, or things like that. You know, I mean that wouldn't be quite a safety issue, so they're like, we're not gonna bother him with that, so I may not be included in on that, which is fine with me.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:54

Well, either that or they just said let's be proactive and do it. Right, right.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:57

Right, right. So tell us uh obviously, Derek talking about Raptor again, but how how do you how do you communicate with admin teachers, counselors, all the staff and DPS? Kind of how how does all that work together? I mean, is it mainly through Raptor or only through Raptor?

Raptor Platform: Real-Time Incident Response

SPEAKER_03 1:02:15

You mean during an incident? In just in general. Email, you know, just email, text phones, as far as there's nothing going on, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:24

But there do you do you have scheduled dialogue meetings with them? Yeah, I'm sorry. No, no, no, I wasn't very clear with that.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:33

We do have quarterly safety meetings. Oh, okay, you know, and with chiefs, with all the schools, chiefs there, you know. And then we have kind of some breakout sessions, you know, where me and Mr. McGill and a handful of other people will talk about things that don't necessarily need to include the other people, you know, not because we don't want them to know, but it it's not gonna pertain to them.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:57

Right, right.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:59

But we meet then, and then again, anytime, you know, my phone blows up, you know, uh all day long, uh my emails do, which I'm fine with, you know, and I told them to. I said, you know, don't worry about bothering me. You know, if you have an issue, let me know. You know, that's what I'm here for. That's why I get paid the big bucks.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:15

That's right. That's right. So obviously at some level you've got to have you gotta train the staff.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:24

We do. You know, obviously we have annual training, you know, the the week before school starts, we go through all our training, you know, the drills, the fire drills, you know, the active shooter drills. We talk about mental health and you know, suicide risk and things like that. And you know, all the all the safety things, you know. But we go through all that and is is that an is that just annual or that is annually.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:46

Okay, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:48

Probably could be more.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:49

Well, I no, I was just curious. I didn't know how often I didn't know if there was there PD involved that. P D is professional development, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:56

They're probably the active shooter drill, don't they? Do they come in and do that? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:59

Yeah, DPS comes in, and obviously I work with them on that because you know I used to do it for the schools whenever I was working for DPS, so I kind of got I got both sides of it now. So Right, right.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:10

When you along with your coordination with with all the the key with all the key stakeholders, so to speak, obviously the school, uh you know, admin staff, counselors, DPS, obviously the public at some point, if if it's a large enough situation, you have to communicate that. What what is so how does that look? How does that work, so to speak?

SPEAKER_03 1:04:39

Well, then that would go through administration, you know, go through the board office, and then Natalie, you know, would put something out in social media and there's a whole platform for that. You know, uh most of it will go out just like whenever, you know, you don't have a kid in school anymore, and neither do I. But if you did, you know, you'd get, hey, the text message school's out tomorrow. SPSR6, school's out tomorrow, you know, FY, you know, SPS, you know, just a heads up that there's been an incident that occurred off campus, you know, which you see that every now and then, DPS is dealing with it, you know, no students or staff have been affected. We just want to let the public know. So if there was a major event, it'd be the same basic, you know, coordination and communication through that. Yeah. You know, and then of course it's gonna go south from there because depending on what it is, everybody wants to come get their baby. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:27

Oh, oh, I know for sure. Well, how do you when when something like that happens and knock on wood, whatever? Yeah. How do you determine and and frankly this is going on right now? I'm uh it kind of shifting gears here, but like with this Nancy Guthrie, right? The lady that's been missing for a couple of weeks now, right? Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:50

Since the second, I think.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:51

Yeah. How do you share but not overshare? And this kind of probably goes into your line, you know, DPS time and whatever. How do you how do you know what to share so that people are you know, there's some things they understand? How do you how do you choose that?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:10

Yeah, and I've been watching some of the Nancy Guthrie stuff. Oh, yeah. And it uh as a former detective, it it infuriates me because I see some of the news anchors and some of the media, you know, and and citizens are like, well, we gotta know this and we need to know that. No, you don't. You don't need to know that. You know, I mean the bad guy is still out there. Right. And if we give you all of our information, you know, and we're gonna give them a leg up. Yeah, I mean, what are we doing?

SPEAKER_04 1:06:34

You know, I s I'm chasing rabbits here. I saw today, this morning when we woke up, they had they had a vehicle, they impounded it, they put it on a truck, and and and they've detained three or four people now, like early or early this morning or late last night, whatever it was. I I've never seen this before, but they were opening the back of this Range Rover, and they had the FBI was there, probably some forensic people and whatever, and then they had two sheriffs, and I always don't know their sheriff's deputies had sheriff on the back of their Pima County or whatever. They opened up a tart like. a yellow tarp and held it up where they couldn't see it, where the cameras couldn't see it. Right. And they were you could see them snapping pictures and doing whatever they do. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:22

Well I know like the other day like on the porch when they were trying to get some footprints off of the tin up. Yeah. But I think part of that was to just to cover it. But also it had something to do with like the d whatever device they were using to it was.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:37

Yeah. And obviously they put the tarp up because they don't want media get you know I mean in a high profile case like that when all the media's out there you basically you have to do that. You're like, okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:47

Because they're in public.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:48

We're having to hide our case that we're trying to investigate. Yeah. Yeah. Because we have some amateur detectives back here they're going to see something.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:55

Well that was going on here yesterday in Scott County.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:59

I mean like the you know they were exhuming the body or trying to find the body up there. Oh yeah. Yeah everybody's got an opinion.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:07

Well you know that's the we're going way off track here but that's the the the good and bad with a with a a free society right? Sure. You can film if I'm standing on the sidewalk I can film whatever you're doing. Right. You have to create the privacy which is what they did.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:20

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:20

They held up a so it was a yellow tarp or a sheet or whatever it was. It might have been a towel who knows well they unfolded it looked like a tarp you know and they were holding it so they could do that. And obviously there was something that they didn't want the public to see which is that's when you have a right to film it but and they have a right to create the privacy.

Weapons Detectors: Why And How They Work

SPEAKER_03 1:08:39

Yeah when you're you know when you have an investigation like that you don't want to see anything really right you know I mean right and to be honest you want to give enough information go back to the schools you want to give information about about the incident you know and the status of the staff and the students because that's that's what they need to know. They being the public and the parents you know that's what they need to know. Now some of the other things that may be still being investigated you know or whatever you don't they don't need to know that. Yeah that that will come out just like in the Nancy Guthrie thing that's going to come out at a later time. Yeah. And then it will make more sense. Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:11

Well I mean an incident talking going back to schools happened just this week in Dexter with the fire that house fire and you know losing a student and they just put out information that they there was a student that would lost his life and that that there was going to be counselors available. Right, right. Those type things I mean that's a great point.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:29

It's very generic you know just like you can't the student's the big thing. You can't start start naming students.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:34

Yeah you you know just like when victims and whatever when SPS puts something out they don't they don't send a text out that says DPS is in a foot pursuit with a senior Johnny Mitchell you know it's off campus right now but Johnny's ran into a house. You know so there's an incident off off campus, no one's in danger, you know no student or staff are in danger, you know, blah blah blah just an update.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:55

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:55

The end. Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:56

So yeah there are there are some I I'll try to keep my some folks that try to want to try to continue to glean knowledge and at this point it's not necessarily relevant to it's we don't need to know right at that exact time. As you said it'll come out soon enough.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:13

But we but we're human and we want to know oh yeah no I get it. I mean I get it you know I get and I have the uh I'm I'm all about ready to like look Guthrie I'm I'm ready I'll watch a documentary on it in a minute. Yeah. When it's done I mean I'll I'll love to watch it.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:28

Yeah. Oh yeah I I feel sorry for that family man. I've said some prayers for them. I I know the the lady I I don't I don't know her but I can I can just imagine me as a loved one gone and not being able to know and oh yeah. Oh no it's it's the worst. It's well it's wild and they're not you don't really know if they're asking for money because they I don't know that they've really said that that's a true I mean it's a true letter but they're not sure it's from the people that are actually doing it. Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:00

It may be somebody just trying to get money themselves.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:01

You know what I mean like they're well they're thinking now it may be a a revenge kind of deal is what somebody said now because they said kidnappers and ransom man they want that lickety split like give us the money and we're out kind of thing and this is dragging on and yeah I've true true ransom notes and true kidnappings and I'm I'm not a professional in that you know I'm an expert in it but I know enough to know that just like you said if there's a ransom I'm wanting my money now you're going to give me information about here's how much I want here's where I want it sent here's when I want it sent and if it's not sent this is what's going to happen.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:37

Right. You know you can't just blanket and go, I want money you know you know there's been you know there's showing no proof of life or anything like that. You know that's what I mean. If you generally had somebody you would you know you'd send them a picture or a two second video you know I'm okay you know and then see she's alive send me my money and here's where to send it to and send it by this time. But if you don't have that you've really got to I mean I put that way down here you know as far as as far as evidence goes or legitimate you know it and it may be exactly that but that would be one of the first Right right yeah it's it's a it's a awful situation.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:15

I really feel sorry for that fabulous so how long were you with DPS? So you let me let me jump back a minute. You were in you were in the Air Force for a while how well I was six years actually and then I retired okay so through reserves. Okay there we go. And then you were how how long were you in DPS? About 18 years. Okay yeah okay so you're there I didn't realize it was that long yeah okay and then now you're with the school so how do you think your time kind of in and and what were you in the Air Force were you MP? No I was actually a weapons loader.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:51

Oh okay yeah why did I think called missiles and stuff like that oh cool stuff. Yeah yeah it that's cool but when you get out and you're like hey uh do you have any jets I can put uh missiles on you know that that job doesn't translate that's around you go to the job service your local job service and they're like so what do you what are you good at? I'm like well nothing nothing you have yeah I can put I can put a missile on there yeah so I guess the next stop was hey cops have guns and bullets so let's go there.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:22

Right so right yeah so how how do you think that time as as a DPS officer detective how do you think that's helped in his current role and well you know as an officer I was also an instructor in like 10 different things you know so actually Chief McMillan and I were the defensive tactics instructor for several years.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:44

The mace you know or OC spray is what they call it tasers asp which is that expandable baton yeah less lethal munitions you know so pepper balls you know beanbag rounds all that so we trained a lot of our people and we went to other departments in the counties and we trained them because we were certified in it. So I kind of knew the teaching role at to a point. Now having said that teaching students and day one standing in front of teenagers. Oh boy I got twenty five I was sh I'll tell you what I'd rather get in a shootout. I'm telling you what so you're you're so relaxed in teaching you know other cops you know I mean you you know you guys are bros you know I mean you're on you're all on the same page there you got their attention already. Yeah I've got their attention already you know you're speaking the same lingo and then you get you get day one in front of these kick these students and I'm telling what they were looking at me like what you got old man's clown what's up what's up what are you gonna teach us what you what what's going on? Right. It scared me to death. Oh my God No I mean I mean terrified just you know and I don't get nervous really you know so to speak but I was shaking in my boots.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:58

Oh my gosh that's funny. Yeah so how do you how do you I don't know win them over is not necessarily the right word. How do you how do you gain their interest there we go there we go.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:08

Well I've one of my favorite quotes and every teacher's heard it and probably everybody's heard it but and it goes for coaching too is that they don't care what you know until they know that you care. That's a Theodore Roosevelt quote yeah so you know and that there's a lot of weight on that. You know they really don't you know so you know of course I love my job you know I mean I I yeah I I literally wake up smiling every day I'm like because I'm going to teach what I know about. Right. You know I'm going to teach what I know about. Right. And all of my students want to be there.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:39

That's the interesting thing about an elective so to speak right that they have literally like okay I think this is something I want to pursue there there. Again I'm not knocking any of the other teachers I mean because but I mean you know I didn't want to go into math right as a banker. I know that sounds silly or I I didn't want to be a scientist, so to speak, right? But I had to take science. Not that I didn't enjoy it.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:02

Right. But no I mean you actually took the words out of my mouth is you know I have students every year who are maybe not failing but really struggling in a lot of their core classes and they've got an A in my class and it has neither to do with me being an amazing teacher or their teacher in these core classes not being a good teacher. They're interested they're interested in and that's all they're all in on it you know so you know I I always tell them they'll they'll come to me can you help me with my calculus or something? Nope. You need to head on down the road. That's the math teacher so yeah you know and there are those you know and I I'm gonna use this word there are the weirdos who love algebra or whatever. You know I mean uh I call them weirdos because they're good at it and I can't do it. So that's what you know that's exactly that's why I call them names.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:54

So if if if I was in your class what are some of the things that I can kind of halfway expect to learn.

Mental Health Supports And Proactive Safety

SPEAKER_03 1:16:59

Ah well you know that's that's a great question. And uh you know we we always have tours that come through uh from sending schools you know before they take yeah like like last this last week we had a a big large group of sophomores from Bloomfield East Prairie Port Isville you know all the schools will come through a year long class or semester classes oh I'm sorry you said that yeah yeah yeah but sorry about that yeah yeah but yeah they're not not all the programs are two years but a lot of them are well they've criminal two years or his can be two years right Henson's I think so graphics design yeah yeah but they come through and uh to answer your question and the big hang up I had the first couple of years is I you know the first couple of years and students would get out and talk about my class or whatever and I'd see other students and they're like Mr. Caton I mean I I would have taken your class but I didn't want to be a cop I'm like well it's not the law enforcement academy it's criminal justice you know so any anything that falls under the umbrella of criminal justice you know so you want to be an attorney you want to be a social worker probation and parole corrections officer you want to be a conservation agent you want to be an FBI you know agent you want to be a crime scene investigator you know any you want to be a stenographer you want to be a court clerk you know anything that falls under the criminal justice umbrella and so I I literally have I have students who are lawyers now you know because I've been teaching for 12 years they've graduated law school I've got canine handlers uh I've got several corrections officers I have several officer or several students that are officers here you know phason is one of them Austin I didn't realize he took your class yeah what a yeah fine fine young man oh man it's awesome you know I mean so you know we're kind of paying it forward you know I've got I never thought about social work yeah oh yeah absolutely I've got a few that are social workers I've got some probation and parole workers you know so I've got one guy who's a conservation agent oh really you know up around Boomville yeah so I mean you know I got another Austin Stafford I think is still a still a sheriff's deputy at Boone County I believe Austin but I mean they're they're all they're all over the place. That's awesome. Yeah so anything like that you know you you'll you'll learn how to process a crime scene just like I did you know when they called me out somebody got shot at two o'clock in the morning so it's not a watered down version I teach you how to process a crime scene collect the evidence photograph it sketch it and and everything that you see on TV you know and exactly how you would do it in real life. So and I've often you mentioned corrections I mean like that's a big employer in Mississippi County especially you know you know I have a ton of my students that are doing that right now because one of the hiccups that I have with my class is that to be a certified peace officer in the state of Missouri pretty much anywhere you have to be 21 years old. When you graduate you're 18. Yeah you're like and they some of them get outline won't be a cop wanna be a cop now the ones are going to college and go the law school route you know or stuff like that that's a different story. You know they're they're just continuing on but those who want to go strictly into law enforcement they hit the speed bump of their age. Now at the Maxim Security Prison Southeast Correctional Center in Charleston what Micah's talking about 18 years old you can go over there. Oh you know so you're still in that that realm of you know public safety law enforcement yeah and then have that under your belt and then when you turn 20ish or whatever go through the police academy and by the time you graduate you're 21 and you can kind of segue into well there's some things I didn't like I guess Sykeson's actually doing a program now where they're doing their own academy.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:33

They are yeah that's a pretty neat deal oh no I don't know that I knew that they are they've got their own they just started another one so I I and I won't say any names but I know of some young men. One of them's in it yeah I I I okay I didn't realize he was in that I knew he was doing some fire stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:50

Yeah matter of fact he was on Chief McMillan as the Chief with and they were on their component Chief Cap and Tep.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:57

There we go shout out that's right that's right all get together one of these days.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:02

That's right that's right that's right so they're I so who teaches that?

SPEAKER_03 1:21:08

Several people Zach Haskins is one of them. Uh DPS employees oh yeah whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa yeah Devin Worsham is another one who's who's who's heading it up yeah I'm not sure who all's involved uh they reached out to me to ask me to teach sections of it you know whatever so they they were actually at the at the school the other day utilizing my firearms training simulator do you have the fat system?

SPEAKER_04 1:21:35

Uh-huh yes I didn't realize I thought you can come by you gotta come by and do that thing I would love to it's really neat it's I'd like to firearms training system it's called FATS yeah that's the acronym right and it's essentially I saw that so I was on the DPS advisory board years ago and they had it we had it one time just to look at it but it's for lack of a better term it looks like a video it's not a video game it's a screen essentially right and you're going through a scenario and you've got a obviously a fake weapon.

Controlled Access, Badging, And Cameras

SPEAKER_03 1:22:06

Right. I'll give you I'll tell you real quick yeah so it's it is that's what you said it's a fast machine firearms train simulator some people call it a shoot don't shoot but it's not it's a little more than that. So the officer will go into a room I have a see see-through glass that I can see obviously it's a 200 inch projection screen and there's thousands of different scenarios and in those scenarios it will tell you out of the gate what you're doing you respond to a hospital for a disgruntled employee or whatever you know the dispatcher you know on the audio will tell you what you're going so you know what's going on so once they get into the scene the camera does the moving for you you just kind of stay stationary and as the scenario goes on as things happen Ike have branching options so say somebody comes around the corner with a knife and starts approaching you if the officer slash student is just standing there with their arms crossed, you know, like like what do you what are you doing here? And we're going, why do you have a knife? You know and I can say attack officer and then it shows it shows the officer getting stabbed. Is that I didn't realize it was that now if the officer pulls his gun out says hey you need to drop you need to drop the knife put the knife down I can put suspect drop knife and so then the suspect goes okay man all right trying to put your hands behind back. Okay. You know so I hit all these buttons as long as they're doing what they're supposed to be doing and trained to do then the scenario goes just fine and nobody ever gets hurt. You know but it's it's when they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing and somebody's got their hands in their pocket of their hoodie or whatever and I'll put pull pull gun out of pocket and hoodie you know because they're kind of relaxed and they're not given the verbal commands. So and it kind of feels odd to them at first talking to a screen yeah but that's what I'm looking for and that's what I tell them. So I see I did not realize that it was that interactive right yeah yeah yeah there's all kinds of lessons learned on that. I did not realize it was that interactive we've got the rifle too the M4 that goes along with it yeah and we need to do that sometime and also we upgraded here this year. Thank you Mr King and and and the board yes that you may not even know that you but I have but it's a uh it is a hostile fire addition. So in the corner now I have a camera and it is basically a paintball deal that has a camera on it paintball gun but it doesn't shoot paintballs it just shoots little little yellow foam nerf balls at you at a kind of a high velocity kind of a high velocity so whenever you do get in one of these shooting situations like I said there's thousands of scenarios so when he's got that sniper machine that that so I can move around and you know when you're running down a court and they Yeah those guys fall down.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:47

Yeah you get the current right so I can shoot back at them. What?

SPEAKER_03 1:24:51

So it kind of you know your heart rate's already going though it's just a screen or whatever but it to add a little more realism to it you can I can shoot back you know so what I'm actually going to have and I've not reached out to these people so please please help me out but I'm gonna reach out to Mr. Mayo and some of the other guys at STTC and have them build me like a fake wall or something that I can put on casters you know that can be used as cover. So whenever we'll go through the scenario because that's what you're gonna do in real life you know if you find somebody starts shooting at you you're gonna get behind something to something that is stopped a bullet so anyways. Yeah it's it's it's pretty fun the kids wear me out all day long. They're like can we do the simulator because I'm like well we got to learn about the Fourth Amendment. And then we'll go then we'll go play a video game.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:35

Right? You know so oh that's cool.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:37

So they're learning and you know I mean yeah that's exactly I mean I can't believe they pay me you know please keep paying me by the way that's like a great thing.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:46

I mean it sounds like been beneficial to a lot of kids I try not to get we don't want to be and I I don't we don't get political on here but I've seen that system and I don't know if it was a Fats and I and I'm talking about a video that there I've seen people that are critical of law enforcement come do that and then they walk away with like whoa yes like that's not what I think at all how that should have gone down. Kind of kind of the oh why didn't you shoot him in the leg kind of thing or shoot the gun out of his hand kind of like the Lone Ranger kind of thing. Right. I I've seen people change their whole perspective after doing that because they're thinking oh boy that's a tougher job than I thought.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:29

Yeah I've had groups of people in the community you know whether it be members of the chamber or whatever come in you know all kinds of people come and tour facilities because we got a lot of cool stuff as we're talking about you know and let me just say this and I've said it before and I mean this and it's not just because Andy's here or one of my friends or whatever SCTC I wish it weren't but it is a hidden gem that is a gold star for our district.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:55

I'm hoping that the SCTC on part two is going to be visible and people will it what we I say we just because I once I'm part of the school district so to speak and I'm a alum is a hidden gem it really for our for our kids and I'm not just saying that. It goes to it. If you don't believe me yeah go watch it go through it. Mr King they'll set up they'll let you go look at everything.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:22

One of the welding is such a big deal oh yeah for our kids way off subject here but but but just to stay on that real quick it's it's great and unfortunate at the same time that I have people I had somebody the other day said so you still at the PD? I'm like I retired from there 12 years ago I said I'm a school teacher now really what are you teaching? I said criminal justice said criminal justice I said yeah I've got criminal justice one and two at the Criminal Technology Center they're like I know I didn't know that I didn't know we had that.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:48

I know you know and I hate that we I hate that we have that you know I mean I'm glad I love that we have it the program but I hate that more people don't we almost need to come together and put a commercial together of like we've man it it we've talked about it and it just at a like a high level we need to do a better job of of telling our own story.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:07

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:07

I know we know how great we are we just let her need to let everybody else know you want to do it you know I don't want to break my arm pat myself on the back kind of thing but we in general it's not a knock. Listen Natalie to her not even a little bit I think in general we the the school system we have so many good things going on we need to do a better job and not just this but in and and we do a good job with that. Let me here I'm trying I don't feel like I'm trying to cover my tracks but I mean we do a good job with in a lot of things that we we have we're too humble.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:41

We just never had I agree we're too humble there's a lot of we're you've never had to we've not lived in a world where that was necessary to do that.

Balancing Security With A Welcoming Campus

SPEAKER_04 1:28:49

I mean right yeah but it is becoming it is it is I mean like I've seen Cape have commercials on Cape is Chuntux we watched that yesterday we were where in the heck were we sitting I was sitting at lunch yesterday and a a commercial for Cape Central Public Schools came on and I'm thinking Really? Yes on KF E S. Mm hmm We were sitting there at lunch yesterday and there was a TV on. Oh wow. And I went, and I kind of you know what's funny? I need to kind of thump myself in the head. We kind of smirked and we're like, well, why are they doing that? That's kind of silly. Why would you advertise a public school? Well, here we are sitting there talking about it, right? Yeah, because people, when you move into a an area, you you Well, especially for Cape, and I'm not knocking Cape or lifting them up or whatever, but they've got Cape, then you or you go right to Jackson. Right. You got Saxony, Notre Dame. Right. You know, they got a bunch of different choices. They're not the only game in town. Eagle, I forgot about Eagle Ridge.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:47

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:47

Yeah. They're not the only game in town. Yeah, you're right. So anyway, in general, you know, and maybe that's something we need to consider. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. Here I'm learning something every day. Every day. That's that's really cool. I uh and I agree. I if you want to come by, man, oh yeah, go by and see all that we do there.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:05

Oh yeah. I had yeah, Mr. King brought he was texted me and said, Hey, the Portersville principal and staff are here, can they come down and play them? You know, and I'm like, Are you kidding? You know what I mean? That's like asking the kid that plays video games all day, hey, do you care uh to show me how to play this? Uh please do. Come on.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:23

Exactly, exactly. That's awesome. So we've talked about your day job, talked about your part-time job. Right, right. So and you you've so you've coached football too, not just I did track. You coach football for a while. Now you're coaching track junior high track. Yes, sir. What do you what do you what what event or what things you're doing? Sprinters. Oh, they're sprinters. Okay. Sprinters. Okay. So that's the That was more my forte.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:48

I had these guys that were running all these miles, and I'm like, man, you look so tired. I'm I'm an I'm an A to I'm an A to B guy.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:55

You mean both?

SPEAKER_03 1:30:56

They're like A to Z, and I'm like, that is. I don't I don't want the whole alphabet. I want here to here. And I will go as fast as I can from here to here.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:03

Right. Maybe not very fast, but it's as fast as I can go.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:06

It's gonna be over quick.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:07

Right. You know. So that's the what, the hundred? Is it hurdles to it?

SPEAKER_03 1:31:12

Okay. Hurdles, and there's the relays, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:16

Oh, the four by one, four by fours.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:18

Four by four, yeah. Okay. All the relays.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:20

So it's pretty good. And and how long have you been coaching track?

SPEAKER_03 1:31:24

Last year was my first year.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:25

Oh.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:25

Yeah. Deeds reached out to me and is he the head junior high coach?

SPEAKER_04 1:31:29

Okay. That's doesn't I think Travion helps too, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:31:33

He does. Travion, Ryan Mitchell, yeah. And his wife, Sarah Mitchell.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:37

Yeah. So she did did she throw discus or something? Or she did, yeah. She did something in college, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She's really good. That's what I I I recall that now. That's awesome. Where do you how does this how do you build relationships there? You're able to build them, obviously, in your classroom because as you said, the kids have chosen to be there, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:32:01

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:01

Is that is that something similar in in track? I mean, they kind of choose to be there too, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:32:05

It is, you know, and of course it's junior high kids, you know. I mean, so they're they're gonna be how junior high kids are, you know. And you just you mentor them, you know. I mean, there's you know, there's there's a hundred of them, you know, when you first start, because everybody wants to run track until you gotta run.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:23

Right up right up until they realize they're not fast. Right. Right up until that running part gets them everything.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:29

All right, we're gonna run a mile. Yeah, I'm okay. I won't want to.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:34

I'll just show up and be here.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:36

Yeah, exactly. I want to I want to be with my friends.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:39

You mean I gotta train to do that? Yeah.

Communication, Training, And Quarterly Drills

SPEAKER_03 1:32:41

So we lose a lot, you know, out of the gate, just like anything else. But you know, once you get down to the core of them, you know, you start mentoring them just like you would the football players or your students or anything else. And, you know, more than anything, just the basic stuff, you know, manners and uh, you know, respect, you know, and discipline and listening. And I'll give you one quick example. When I was coaching football, I had a kid come into my office or he knocked on the door. He said, I need a mouthpiece. I said, I'm sorry. Mouthpiece. I said, I don't I don't understand it. Mouthpiece? I still I don't what you're saying. Of course I knew what he'd be saying. I kept waiting for him to put a mouthpiece. So this went, this went eating it about ten times. I said, Are you wanting a mouthpiece? Yeah. I said, Okay. I said, so uh today's lesson. I said, if you want something, I said, how do you ask? He said, Can I get a mouthpiece? I said, You're close. I said, You are so close. You're gaining one. Yeah, you're so close. I said, What do you say after you want if you really want something and you ask for it, what word do you use to finish that sentence? And he said, Can I get a mouthpiece, please? You know, with a question mark. I'm like, that's it. You nailed it. And I said, I grabbed, I grabbed the mouthpiece out of the box next to my desk and I said, I said, here you go. And uh he started to walk away. I said, Whoa, whoa, whoa. I said, We're not done. We're almost done. We're almost done. I said, now you asked nicely for something, you received it. Once you get that, I said, now what do you say? He goes, Thank you. I said, absolutely. I said, You're very welcome. You know, so I mean, you know, you took 10 minutes out of your day, but I'd tell you it was the it was the next day he came in. Hey coach, can I get a new chintrap, please? I'm like, absolutely. Here you go, thank you. Lesson learned. You know what I mean? So it's it's baby stepped, you know, but it's little things. Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:32

So right. Well, you you've seen it in all sorts of your of your career and and and the things that you do. Not all kids are able to get that level of uh for lack of a better term, we call it home training. Right. They're they're not able to well uh somehow are in unfortunate, unfortunate situations, and it does start at home, but if they're not able to get there, it's they're fortunate to have you and other folks like you that are spending their time to not only teach them something about track, right? Right. No, the track, track kind of a you know secondary kind of secondary. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:11

I mean that you know, and uh kids are sponges, you know. Yes, they're just sponges. Yes. They you know they and they can soak up the good stuff or they can soak up the bad stuff. Oh, for sure. You hope that they soak up more of the good stuff than they do the bad.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:24

Yep, exactly. So if there if there was one thing that you could tell I'm I'm gonna kind of steal your okay. Well, you you ask it. That's your question. So we as a community, how can we help you? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:38

We just talked about it. At home. You know what I mean? At home.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:42

Or even even help like with our keeping our school safer, stuff like that too.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:46

Well, you know, I looked at I looked at that the other day and I'm thinking, man, we're doing it. You know, I hate I hate to be that guy, but just keep doing it. You know, all the the church is donating clear backpacks, you know, the food pantry, you know, the bulldog pantry, you know, all these things, you know, it I don't know that we want for anything. You know, we we're getting what we want, you know, just continue support. I've never seen anything like it. I I cannot think of a time where the school district has asked the community for something and we hadn't gotten it.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:17

You know what? This wasn't even on there, but uh, I need to do this more, and we've talked about it. And personally, now Micah Micah's from he's from Sea Town, he went to Charleston. Oh that's right. That's right. We I gave him grief. And you're you're from Portageville, so you have a different perspective. I was a different bulldog. That's true. Blue Bulldog, but it's but it was a bulldog in general. So you've been here a long time, and obviously your kids went to school here, so you you do have that perspective. But uh from your perspective as a student in high school and coming from and outside, how does our school, how does our community support rate to other areas that you've seen? You you kind of hit on it a while ago.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:56

Yeah, it's amazing. You know, you know, you go places and it, you know, whether it be at the Hearns Center for a state championship game or cheerleading competition or what have you, you know, you hear we are sexon, you hear that chant. We are Sykston, you know. And you can see all the other schools like, I'm gonna bomb it. You know what I mean? But the the truth of the matter is is that we are Sykston. You know, I mean, it's just we come together, and I I've I've honestly never seen anything like it, you know. Portageville, uh love them, they they're they're great too. You know, I mean, it reminds me a lot of it, to be honest with you. Awesome. Because, you know, I at Portageville, we'd go to other schools when I was in school, and I'm like, man, nobody's here. You know, I mean nobody's what's going on, you know. You know, and we'd be in a state championship football game, and you know, our whole town would be at the away game, you know, everybody's there. Turn the light off when you leave. Yeah, exactly. You know, so a lot of parallels, you know, I mean, just you know, thank you for that perspective. Yeah, I mean, you you guys travel, you know, you go to these games, you know, you see how many home people are there. You're like, where's all their fans? You know, what's going on? Right. And not just fans, you know, support, support in the classroom, you know. You can just get on social media and I pull my phone up right now, and there's gonna be 20 things about the school, you know, that things that we're doing and things that the community is doing to help the school. So I mean it's just there's something going on a wing today.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:19

I don't maybe it's probably why uh is that over? It was this morning. Maybe YMCA basketball. Is that over that? Oh, is that what it was? Okay, maybe is it a safety issue?

SPEAKER_02 1:38:30

No, no, no, I was just saying though, like there's something going on there.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:33

Like, yeah, maybe maybe YMCA basketball. And that may be it's probably winding up here pretty quick, I would bet. Yeah. I would bet. Well, we're so I I didn't send you these other questions because we c I call them lightning round. Okay. And they're like almost like a this or that, and they're like a one or an eight, and it's it's it's not really putting you on the spot. Kind of is, but it's not, it's not too bad. One word that describes your daily job. Awesome. Okay, awesome. I love that coffee, energy drink, or pure stubbornness.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:11

What time of day are we talking about?

SPEAKER_04 1:39:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:16

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:17

Are you a coffee guy?

SPEAKER_03 1:39:18

I am coffee guy.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:19

Okay, yeah. I couldn't remember if Leah told me you're a coffee guy.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:22

I'm a coffee guy, I'm a Diet Mountain Dew guy.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:25

And I'm a stubborn guy.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:26

So all the above. What's the most important trait for a safe school? Awareness, relationships, or consistency?

SPEAKER_03 1:39:37

Awareness. And I'm gonna I'm gonna get off of the the one-word answer real quick. Yeah. Uh one of my favorite lines from a movie, and even my youngest daughter, Haley, told me this, you know, when she was in school. And because I said something about make sure you do this and make sure you, you know, watch out because this could happen, you know, or whatever. And she said, Dad, your job as a cop's made you paranoid. And if you remember the movie Taken, Liam Meeson's daughter had told him that, and his response was, No, my my job's made me aware. So awareness, you know, I mean, again, it goes being proactive. You know, you don't have to go, you don't have to, you know, be paranoid, but you need to be aware. You know, I mean, we go to a restaurant, my wife knows that I'm not gonna sit with my back to the door. You know, because I want to see who's coming and going. You know, that's just you know, ask any police officer.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:25

That's I mean, that's just unless you're sitting in a subway, you've got to sit in the subject.

Sharing Info Without Compromising Cases

SPEAKER_03 1:40:28

Yeah, and then and and you'll know when I'm in that situation because I am like this. I'm not my head's on swivel. So but yeah, but yeah, just awareness. Yeah. 100%. Sorry.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:38

No, no, that's fine. That's fine. What's your favorite part of teaching?

SPEAKER_03 1:40:45

The mentoring. The students. Yeah. I love it. You know, I mean, I had I had kids reaching out to I've been teaching for 12 years daily. There's not a day that goes by that I don't have a student reaching out to me, texting me, or on social media asking me something or telling me some accomplishment that they did.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:03

Really?

SPEAKER_03 1:41:03

So, you know, it's just I love that. Yeah, it's amazing.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:06

Obviously, you're making an impact with those kids, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:41:09

I I feel like I am. I you know, obviously, you know, I would I don't want to do my, you know, like you said, pat yourself on the back. But I think when you love your job. Oh, it shows. I mean, it yeah, I I'm just telling you, I just literally I love it. Yeah, I freaking love it. That's great.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:24

That's great. So what is uh what's the hardest part of school safety and stuff.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:39

Probably getting everybody on board as far as, you know, because a lot of people have the mentality, unfortunately, is it's not gonna happen here. I mean, you look at any school of tragedy, whether it was a tornado or an active shooter or what have you, 100% of the time they're gonna interview people in the community or parents or staff or whatever, and 100% of the time, what are you gonna hear in one of those interviews? I never thought it was gonna happen here. You know, I'm can't believe it happened here. I can't believe. You know, you hear about it here, but I never thought here.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:12

You know, so preparedness so is prevention.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:15

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:16

I mean like even planning for it is determined to the person that's gonna do it.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:22

A hundred percent.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:24

Awesome. Last one one thing you wish every parent would do this week.

SPEAKER_05 1:42:33

Talk to other children. Yeah. Communicate.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:38

Yeah. Get involved, know what they're doing.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:41

Yeah, for sure. For sure. For sure. That's I agree with you there. All right, we're I got one last thing for you. Okay. Give us three people that you would suggest coming on the podcast. I forgot about that. I think I told you that one. You did.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:00

I'm gonna get in trouble for the first one. I already had this one in my mind. Chad King would be a good one.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:06

I knew that was coming. I did not.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:08

We talked about how great SCTC is. He's the uh he's the driving force behind that. They can give you all the 411. That's information for those who don't know what 411.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:21

Next time I'll watch uh Andy Griffith, I'm gonna have to call you when Andy or when uh Barney starts spouting off all those 1022s and the 411s and whatever.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:28

Yeah, yeah. Just give me a shout. All the 10 codes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:31

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:32

Uh Chief McMillan. Yeah, I don't know if you've had him on or not.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:35

I have not. I've talked to him. I need to get him on here. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:38

He'd be good. Man, let me think.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:42

Okay. Take your time. Hey, we're recording, we got all the time we need. Right. Let me think.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:53

You could get uh why am I drawing a blank? Well we'll draw a blank with his name.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:09

Oh. I'll let you off the hook and you can tell me afterwards.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:11

How about that?

SPEAKER_03 1:44:12

Yeah. Yeah, because you can tell me his name. All right. Well, I'll tell you what he does and you can you can tell me who he is.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:18

Well, I won't put you on the spot like that. We'll do it, we'll do it off the air. That sounds good. All right. Well, we're we're um a little over hour ten. That's about what I figured. So what we talked about. We figured we're about right. About right. Any anything that we we talked about, we talked about obviously all the stuff today. Anything more you want to talk about, Raptor? Anything you want to mention about that? I mean, is there anything that I I mean it sounds like an I mean it's unbelievable system.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:45

It really is.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:48

You don't have to if you feel like I'll tell you something off off air about it. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:51

Not nothing bad.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:53

But just something that has I need to discuss maybe. Yeah, yeah, no problem. No worries. But no, Raptors, I mean it's awesome. You know, and again, the biggest the biggest thing that makes it awesome is that the staff use it's used. You know what I mean? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:06

It could be the best thing since sliced bread if nobody uses it.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:09

I mean, I was like a I you know, I was like a proud dad whenever as a safety coordinator, our first incident, you know, or whatever, and I saw all the teachers and all the staff responding in real time, you know. Uh because you know, you know what everybody's doing, you know everybody's at, you know, you know if people you know if kids are absent, you know, right or whatever. You know, so accountability in live time. So you can't beat that. That's that's great. Yeah, that's great. But no, it's great. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:33

Well, we're Micah, you got anything? I think I'm I think I'm good today.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:39

I think I think he's subdued today.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:41

He's got he's got a bunch of work.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:43

Well, I've got a thousand things possible.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:45

He's got a bunch of work at home. You know, a while ago you mentioned the uh the Bulldog Pantry, and uh that does go into safety. I mean, like food insecurity amongst kids. Absolutely. I mean, I know they provide way more than food, but I mean, like, but I know that's what the ideal started with. Yeah, but clothes and you know, I mean, just stuff like that. So, I mean, yeah, I I appreciate you talking about this.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:08

I'm gonna try I'm gonna try to twist Lynn's arm. I've talked to her before. I'm like, you need to come on as tennis coach. You're like, one of the coaches we haven't had on here. Right. And she's like, Well, I don't know. And I'm like, all right, Lynn, I'm gonna have to twist her arm, get her on her, talk about the pantry and about and about tennis.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:23

And that would go along with mental health too. You know what I mean? Yeah, it it's it you're not getting the food you need, you're obviously gonna be depressed. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 1:46:30

You got Maslow's. I mean, right.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:32

I mean, I get hangry, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:37

As as my dad used to say, I would say, Dad, you ate just a little bit ago. Are you hungry? He goes, No, I'm eating so I don't get hungry. Exactly. That's that's pretty sound logic to me, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:48

Yeah, that's proactive.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:52

He'd always say, he's like, son, he goes, I'm on another diet. I said, another one? He goes, Yeah, I'm on a couple of them. I said, why? He goes, because I couldn't get enough to eat on that first one.

unknown 1:47:02

I'm like, okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:04

That was some that was some epic Bill Tanner quotes right there. That's good stuff. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. All right. Well, thank you for your time. Appreciate you coming on, Tobia. Thanks for allowing you to come over, right? I think she's probably at home cooking right now. Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:20

She's got lunch ready for me, don't you?

SPEAKER_04 1:47:22

I'm sure, I'm sure that's exactly what she's doing. That's what Aaron's doing upstairs, too.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:28

I won't hold my breath.

Teaching Criminal Justice And Career Paths

SPEAKER_04 1:47:29

Exactly. If you're hungry, you better pick it up on the way. I'm thinking about stopping and get some baloney on the way out. There you go. There you go. All right. So for Micah Harris. I'm Matt Tanner. Oh, and by the way, we finish all the episodes and we say go dogs. All right. Go dogs. Go dogs. That's gonna do it for this episode of the Dog House. Thanks for hanging with us and showing love to Sykston, where small town pride runs deep and Bulldog Grit never quits. Don't forget to subscribe, leave us a review, and share this with anyone who bleeds red and black. From the heart of the 573, this has been the Dog House, where Sykston stories always have a home.