Hutto ISD Safety Services
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As part of our continued commitment to the safety and security of our students, staff, and community, each year, Hutto ISD works diligently to ensure safety planning for the district is up to date, current with best practices, and approved by partner agencies. We have taken many steps over the years to ensure our student's health and safety is our top priority and to prepare for a variety of emergency events.
Hutto ISD has protocols on how to communicate with parents during emergency situations. This includes automated e-mails, phone calls, and updates to campus websites. Parents can sign up for School Messenger to receive important school information and these updates. Also, make sure you have notified your student's school of any changes to address and contact information (phone number and e-mail) and to update your information in Family Access. Parents can also check the Hutto ISD Facebook and HISD Twitter pages for up to date information. Both of these outlets have been used in a variety of situations to help facilitate communication with and between parents.
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Emergency Numbers
Hutto Police Department (emergency) 9-1-1
Non-Emergency 512-846-2057
Hutto Fire Department 9-1-1
Hutto Fire Non-Emergency 512- 759-2616
Williamson County Sheriff 9-1-1
Non-Emergency 512-864-8282
Poison Control Center (800) 222-1222
Williamson County Animal Control 512-864-8282
Oncor Electric 1-888-313-4747
Atmos Energy 1-866-322-8667
Texas Gas Service 1-800-959-5325
Williamson County Crime Stoppers 512-253-7867
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 988
Texas Department Family Protective Services 1-800-252-5400
National Center for Missing & Exploited Children 1-800-843-5678
Hutto ISD After-Hours Emergency Number 512-759-2059
Hutto ISD Transportation 512-759-2105
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Standard (Emergency) Response Protocols
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HOLD
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ANNOUNCEMENT
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HOLD! In your room or area. Clear the halls.
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ACTION
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Students
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Clear the hallways and remain in the room or area until the “All Clear” is announced.
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Do business as usual.
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Adults
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Close and lock the door.
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Account for students and adults.
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Do business as usual
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SECURE
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ANNOUNCEMENT
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SECURE! (Lockout) Get inside. Lock outside doors.
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ACTION
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Students
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Return to the inside of the building
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Do business as usual
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Adults
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Bring everyone indoors
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Lock outside doors
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Increase situational awareness
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Account for students and adults
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Do business as usual
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LOCKDOWN
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ANNOUNCEMENT
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LOCKDOWN! Locks, lights, out of sight.
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ACTION
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Students
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Move away from sight
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Maintain silence
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Do not open the door
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Adults
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Recover students from the hallway if possible
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Lock the classroom door
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Turn out the lights
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Move away from sight
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Maintain silence
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Do not open the door
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Prepare to evade or defend
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EVACUATE
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ANNOUNCEMENT
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EVACUATE! (A location may be specified)
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ACTION
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Students
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Leave stuff behind if required to
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If possible, bring your phone
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Follow instructions
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Adults
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Lead students to the evacuation location
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Account for the students and adults
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Notify if missing, extra or injured students or adults
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SHELTER
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ANNOUNCEMENT
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SHELTER! Hazard and safety strategy.
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ACTION
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Students
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Use appropriate safety strategy
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Tornado – Evacuate to the shelter area
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Hazmat – Seal the room
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Earthquake – Drop, cover and hold
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Tsunami – Get to high ground
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Adults
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Lead safety strategy
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Account for the students and adults
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Notify if missing, extra or injured students or adults
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The Standard Response Protocol
Texas School Safety Center
SRP PDFS
English PDF
Spanish PDF
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School-Based Law Enforcement
SBLE duties include:
Maintaining a safe and secure environment and investigating offenses.
Endorses high moral standards and the use of good judgment and discretion.
Helps resolve problems that are not necessarily criminal matters.
Law-related educator, mentor, and counseling of students.
Provide students with a better understanding of how the legal system works.
Source of support District school-based law enforcement programs
Training students, staff, and parents on crime prevention issues.
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Linewize Monitor
Linewize Monitor is an advanced student threat detection tool specifically made for K12 schools. Linewize Monitor detects risks across 7 different categories, including violence, bullying, suicide, drugs, abuse, extremism, and oversharing.
Unlike many similar systems, it risk assesses the entire screen, including what the student types, provides context to help avoid false positives, and provides details to help decide if intervention is necessary. This approach allows the system to look at more types of data or websites to find threats in more places. It has 24/7 real-time alerts and notifications with higher-level risks being examined and analyzed 24/7 by a real person. Lower risk alerts are sent via email, while higher risk alerts can trigger a real person to call an appropriate District administrator or the District police department. For 6th-12 graders with take-home Chromebooks, LineWize Monitor is active on their Chromebooks at all times regardless of location. Linewize Monitor enables the District to better care for the safety and well-being of students.
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Raptor Visitor Management Alerts
Identification is required by all campus visitors. The visitor management system scans the sexual offender database alerting campus staff to a possible match.
The campus administrator has the final authority as to controlling access on their campus.
Parents or legal guardians of a child or children enrolled in District schools may be permitted on school property or in attendance at school-sponsored activities, even if they are in the database.
If access is allowed they will be escorted by a school employee the entire time they are on campus, and they will have no unescorted access to any common area of the building.
No other person known to be a registered sex offender, based on an offense against a child, will be permitted to be present on school property or at any school-sponsored activity.
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Anonymous Alerts
The Hutto Independent School District is committed to providing a positive learning environment for all students that enhances personal safety and promotes respect, dignity, and equality among students. High standards are expected for both academic achievements and for behavior.
HISD strives to ensure that all of our students and employees are free from bullying, sexual harassment, dating violence, and sexual violence. All charges of bullying, sexual harassment, dating violence, and sexual violence are to be taken very seriously by students, faculty, staff, administration, and parents/guardians. HISD will make every effort to handle and respond to every charge and complaint filed by students and employees in a fair, thorough, and just manner. Every effort will be made to protect the due process rights of all victims and all alleged perpetrators.
In an effort to streamline the reporting process of bullying, Hutto Independent School District is pleased to introduce a new communications tool called Anonymous Alerts®.
What is the Anonymous Alerts app?
Anonymous Alerts anti-bullying and safety app reporting system helps combat bullying and other negative activity in schools by empowering students to speak up. Social and peer pressure are some of the hardest obstacles for students to overcome. Students or parents can submit reports such as bullying, cyberbullying, depression, dating violence, drug or alcohol use, threats against the school, weapons on campus, and more.
The system allows for 1-way or 2-way anonymous encrypted communications between submitters (students, parents, or community members) and district administration and/or school staff. Users of the system have the option to remain anonymous or to reveal their identity when submitting a report.
How does it work?
To use this revolutionary new app, students, parents or other school personnel can simply visit the Hutto ISD website and click on the Quick Links section of the homepage and choose “Anonymous Alerts,” or download the Alerts Anonymous mobile app. Anonymous Alerts II® mobile applications can be downloaded directly from the Apple, Google Play, or Chrome stores.
Hutto Independent School District supplies students a simple username and password activation code, making the app remarkably easy to use and students select which school and contact the message should go to. In addition, informational posters explaining how to use the app will be displayed throughout schools and offices in the district.
To send reports from the Internet go to: https://www.anonymousalerts.com/huttoisd/
To send a report from your phone:
Download the Anonymous Alerts® app for free from the Apple Store, Google Play store, or the Chrome store
Start the App, enter login: hippos and password: hippos
Send important reports to school officials
In an emergency, always call 9-1-1!
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Reporting Child Abuse and Neglect
Anyone who suspects that a child has been or may be abused or neglected has a legal responsibility to report to law enforcement or Child Protective Services (CPS).
Any District employee, agent, or contractor has an additional legal obligation to submit a report to law enforcement or CPS, as applicable. Failure to report suspected child abuse or neglect is a criminal offense. Do not try to investigate suspicions; a trained investigator will evaluate the child’s situation.
You cannot delegate this responsibility to another person. All persons who suspect child abuse or neglect must make their report.
The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) has a central place to report:
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Child abuse and neglect.
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Abuse, neglect, self-neglect, and exploitation of the elderly or adults with disabilities living at home.
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Abuse of children in child-care facilities or treatment centers.
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Abuse of adults and children who live in state facilities or are being helped by programs for people with mental illness or intellectual disabilities. These reports are investigated by HHSC Provider InvestigationsExternal Link, not DFPS.
Anyone who has a reasonable cause to believe a child, or person 65 years or older, or an adult with disabilities is being abused, neglected, or exploited must report it to DFPS according to Texas laws.
A person who reports abuse in good faith is immune from civil or criminal liability. DFPS keeps the name of the person making the report confidential. Anyone who does not report suspected abuse can be held liable for a misdemeanor or felony.
Time frames for investigating reports are based on the severity of the allegations. Reporting suspected abuse makes it possible for a family to get help.
Report Abuse
By Phone: 1-800-252-5400
Online: Texas Abuse HotlineExternal Link
Call our Abuse Hotline toll-free 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, nationwide, or report with our secure website and get a response within 24 hours.
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Fire Emergencies
Schools are required by state law to practice fire drills once a month during any month with 10 or more school days unless approved by the local Fire Inspector.
Hutto ISD has been approved to do 4 drills per school year (2 per semester) approved by the City of Hutto Fire Marshall
Arson means the unauthorized starting of a fire on school property.
The first person to detect FIRE:
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Activate the fire alarm system
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Call 9-1-1
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Radio/call building administrator
Staff and students proceed to the designated emergency evacuation site
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Medical Emegencies
The Health Services Team and designees are responsible for providing health care and emergency treatment until Emergency Medical Services (EMS) or a parent/guardian arrives to assume health care responsibility.
When a student becomes seriously ill or injured, the campus nurse will attempt to notify the parent/guardian immediately. The campus principal or designee will remain with the student and serve as in loco parentis until a parent, guardian, or emergency contact is able to accompany the student. In cases in which immediate medical attention is needed, the Campus Nurse will call 9-1-1.
Parents/guardians who have specific concerns about medical care for their students with pre-existing conditions should notify the campus nurse directly.
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Bat Procedures
Bat season usually runs March through October; however, every campus and facility in the District is subject to the presence of bats at any time of year. Bats can transmit rabies if contact is made with the bat.
Once a bat is reported, it should be assumed rabid. Trained maintenance department personnel and/or animal control should be the only persons allowed to remove a bat. The procedure for removing the bat is as follows:
1. Have the following items available before you approach the bat; a pair of heavy cloth or
leather gloves, a plastic face shield, a metal tong at least 9” long, a small cardboard box
and masking or duct tape.
2. Make sure there are no students or staff around the bat.
3. After putting on the gloves and face shield, grab the bat with the metal tongs, place it in the cardboard box, close the box and tape it shut.
4. Notify the animal control immediately that the bat is secured.
Procedures for Principals:
1. No one in your building is to try to capture a bat. Your role as the Principal or Building
Representative is to protect the students and/or staff in your building by isolating the bat
if possible. If the bat is on a flat surface like a floor or sidewalk, attempt to place a can,
box, bucket, etc. over the bat to keep it from escaping. If it is on a wall or ceiling, do not
attempt to contain it.
2. If a bat is spotted in a room or a large area like a gym or band hall, get all the occupants out of the room and secure the door/doors.
3. If a bat is spotted in a hallway, isolate the hallway, and tell the students or staff in
adjacent rooms to close their doors and stay in the rooms.
4. If a bat is spotted on the outside wall of a building, keep students away.
5. HISD Maintenance should be contacted immediately. The district’s IPM coordinator
and/or designee will be dispatched. If circumstances are such that Maintenance cannot
be contacted (i.e., after hours and or on weekends), then contact animal control thru the
Hutto ISD Police Department and or WILCO/City of Hutto Animal Control Resources
and report the incident. District personnel trained in bat protocol procedures and/or
animal control will remove the bat. The bat will then be turned over to the City and/or
County Health Department for testing.
6. If a rabid bat is found in or around any district facility, the Principal and/or IPM
Coordinator must be notified. Each facility or campus should then notify all staff and
students that a rabid bat has been found on site.
7. If a student or staff member is bitten by a bat and/or handle’s a bat, Principals should
document and report this information to the IPM Coordinator and animal control for further instructions.
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Bus and Transportation-Related Emergencies
If a bus-related emergency or medical emergency occurs appropriate officials are contacted, 9-1-1, transportation, and the campus principal.
Transportation will deploy replacement transportation as the situation demands.
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Sexual Assault
Because of the serious nature of the crime, any report of a sexual assault will be referred to the police for a possible investigation.
School administration will then begin their investigation in coordination with law enforcement. If the incident happens on school property, medical and counseling services will be offered immediately.
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Missing or Abducted Student
A student is missing if they are unaccounted for at school, on school property, at a school activity, or while traveling to and from school.
In the event, that a student is confirmed missing, school officials, parents/guardians, and law enforcement are notified.
