Las Cruces Police get ready for back to school

The Las Cruces Police Department hosted a live podcast with an official from Las Cruces Public School on July 15 to discuss school safety.

The podcast — called ‘Bridging the Badge’ — discussed many topics revolving around school safety including drugs on campus, bullying, and active threat situations.

Officer Holguin, a School Resource Officer at Centennial High School, said that the best way for parents to keep their children safe is to stay connected.

“I think a big part of it is the parents being involved. A lot of the kids that go to school, you talk to them and half the time you call their parents to tell them, ‘hey, your kid had a marijuana vape or an e-cigarette,’ or something the parents have no clue,” Officer Holguin said.

In addition to School Resource Officers, Chief of Operations for Las Cruces Public School Steve Rodriguez said that the schools have new tech to keep people safe. This includes new security cameras at the schools, a better way for school staff to access camera footage, and a weapon detection system.

“I think between our cameras coming in, the buzzers coming in and the weapon detection and all of those different things, it’s really going to help secure our schools,” Rodriguez said.

For active threat situations, Rodriguez said that everyone from the students to the staff will have training on how to deal with those situations.

Rodriguez explained that “at the beginning of the year it is a requirement that we ensure our students and staff understand what this is about and how we do lockdown and how do we defend. How do we do all of these things.”

The next school year starts July 25 for Kindergarten, sixth and ninth grades. Everyone else will start school on July 28.