Episode 116 Roy Murry - "Shreveport-Bossier: My City, My Community, My Home"

Shreveport-Bossier: My City, My Community, My Home

So many of my guests are people who have been in the trenches, often far removed from the spotlight, doing invaluable work for our community. This week's guest is no exception. You can hear my discussion with Former Director of Security for Caddo Schools, Roy Murry, here (or wherever you get your podcasts by searching "Shreveport-Bossier: My City, My Community, My Home"). Here are the questions I asked:

0:38 1. You were the Director of Security for Caddo Schools for nearly three decades, retiring at the end of April 2023. I want to start with this great quote of yours because I think it will frame the conversation well:

“For a lot of years, I talked about the things that you do to make schools safe and really it kinda boils down to about two things. If you can control who comes and goes on your school campuses and you can supervise people that are on your school campuses then you can pretty much keep schools as safe as you possibly can. But if you can’t do one of those things or if you can’t do either of those things then you can’t keep any school safe.

So pretty much in Caddo what we’ve tried to concentrate on for the last 25 years is to find ways to control who comes and goes on our campuses and to better supervise the people that are on our campuses.”

I want to cover a number of things security-related in our schools. How did you approach mass shootings that occurred around the country and tell me some of the things your team learned from looking at them?

3:32 2. I’ve heard you talk about how important situational awareness is for our teachers and students. Talk to me some about that if you could.

15:48 3. I thought this was an amazing stat that I needed to share. I read in an article from 2020 that when you became director of security for Caddo Parish schools in 1993, your budget for safety was about $490,0000. Today, as worries about possible school shootings increase across the country, the parish spends about $6.7M/year on security for its schools.

How are searches done on students in Caddo schools?

20:20 4. I know that one of your main priorities was access control. Tell me what this means, some of the challenges that Caddo schools face in achieving this, and how we’re coming with limiting point of entry at all our schools.