August 19, 2025 • 29 mins
Tune in here to this Tuesday's edition of Breaking With Brett Jensen!
Breaking Brett Jensen kicks the show off by talking about the recent shooting incident at Palisades High School and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools' (CMS) new safety protocol rollout. Jensen, breaks down CMS’s press conference introducing the "I Love U Guys" safety system, a five-tiered protocol designed to eliminate confusion during school emergencies. Brett explains how the new system replaces the old “lockdown” terminology with clear categories: Hold, Secure, Lockdown, Evacuate, and Shelter. The timing of this rollout is significant, coming less than 24 hours after a bullet was fired into the athletic office at Palisades High School.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Hi, Oh, Let's go oh, Let's go oh.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Let's go oh, Let's go dudes Talk eleven ten and
ninety nine three WBT Brett Jensen here with you on
this Tuesday Wait, Tuesday Night edition, Tuesday night edition of
Breaking with Brett Jensen as we go up until seven
o'clock tonight. Telephone number to get in on the show
as well as to text the show on the Liberty
(00:51):
View at GMC text line that number is seven oh
four five, seven oh eleven ten. Guys, make sure you
follow me on X at Brett on to Score Jensen
for all the latest and breaking news.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
In and around the Charlotte area. And if you follow
me on X and you would have seen some of
the stuff I put out there today about a shooting
that took place at Palisades High School yesterday. And we'll
get into that in a little bit, but I want
to start off with CMS. CMS had their big back
(01:24):
to school press conference today the week leading up to it,
and this is generally for parents to understand what's going on.
So CMS takes all the new rules, like we've got
a new system for this, and we've got a new
system for that, and we're not doing this anymore, and
we've upgraded that, and here's what we need to do
with the buses and whatever. Right, So CMS has gone
(01:47):
out and they've done that, and they've gone out, and
like I said, they tell the media, and the media
the TV stations will go okay, or the shot observer
or somebody will go out there and say, all right,
I really want to focus in on this particular situation.
I want to focus in on AI or I want
to focus in on the new system that parents and
(02:10):
students can use to check grades and homework and classes
and all that stuff. So there's all of that, and
there's a lot of stuff in there about that, but
I want to focus in on what's happening with the
security system. And oddly enough, if it comes, this press
conference comes less than twenty four hours after a shot
(02:31):
rang out inside or shot into the high school of
Palisades High School down there pass Steel Creek near the
bust to boy Bridge. Right. But the new security system
that they're putting in protocols, I say system, But it's
a protocol and it's called I love you guys, And
you're like, okay, why is it called that? Well, it's
(02:54):
called that because a young girl before she was killed
in a school shooting. Her last words were I love
you guys, and so they named it that. And the
old way CMS did things, you had a secure lockdown
(03:14):
and then lockdowns. A secure lockdown would be okay, if
something's going on strange outside the building, we do what's
called a secure lockdown, where we're locking other doors so
no one can get on the inside as something bad
is going in on the inside. We called it a lockdown.
It's been confusing for years and kids would automatically text
(03:35):
their parents, oh my gosh, we're going into a lockdown.
We're going into a lockdown, when in reality there's police
activity three blocks away. So they went into a secure
lockdown in case someone running from the police can't try
to decide to run inside the school. And so parents
were getting upset or worried and kids were always getting confused,
and then nobody could keep it straight. So now they
(03:56):
implement the new protocol I love you guys, and I
love you guys is they like I said, they've got
different things that go with it. So now it's five stages.
Instead of just secure lockdown and lockdown, there's now five stages,
and what they'll do is they'll come in and they'll say,
(04:16):
all right. For instance, Isaac's walking down the hallway in
the high school. He slips on where a guy was
mopping the floor, and he slips and he breaks his
leg and the bone is sticking out of his leg
because he slipped on the wet floor. What they would
do at that point is something called hold. They'll go
(04:39):
over the intercom and they'll say, classrooms, classrooms. This is
a hold. Stay in your classroom. So that's what they'll do.
So it means no one leave your classrooms for but
it's not an emergency. It's not an emergency. They're just
saying stay where you are, and that way doctors or
ambulances or whatever can go and get Isaac who's floundering
(05:01):
like a dead fish in the middle of the hallway. Right,
he's going bouncing up and down because he's got a
bone sticking out of his leg right, which by the way,
are very serious, just in case people are wondering. So
so that's called a hold. Just stay where you are,
not a big deal. Parents will not be notified of
a hold. There's no reason to be notified of a
hold because there's no danger just stay where you're at.
(05:23):
You're cool, all right, and we'll let you know when
you can leave and leave your classroom. The next one
is called secure. Secure is when something is happening on
the outside of the building, but no one in the
building is of any danger, and more times than not,
almost always, parents will not be notified of this. There's
(05:45):
no reason for parents to be notified of police activity
that's two blocks away near a school, so only in
extremely rare situations with the parents then even be notified
of secure, hold and secure A good lockdown. Well, now
we know what a lockdown is, right, attention, classrooms, This
(06:07):
is a lockdown. This is not a drill. This is
a lockdown. At that point, classes going to lockdown. Parents
are then notified by the schools. We all know what
the term Stage number four means. Evacuate, get the hell
out of dodge, run for your lives, get out. Now.
(06:27):
I'm sure they would be done in an orderly fashion
and everything else, but it's like evacuate, get out, get out,
get out. And then the last one is called shelter.
Shelter in place. Things are not going well, it's you
just need to stay where you are. We're in lockdown, shelter.
So a medical emergency, it will be like a hold
in your room area, A thread outside is secure, a
(06:50):
threat inside is lockdown, locks lights and out of sight.
Then like a bomb, evacuate, evacuate obviously a bomb bomb threat,
you evacuate, right. An earthquake, shelter for the earthquake, Okay, shelter.
So it's not always something bad. I mean, yes, earthquakes
(07:11):
are bad, but I'm just saying, or like a tornado,
right you would you know, we don't get really earthquakes
and Charlotte, but we do get tornadoes. Right. Uh, there's
a fire inside, you evacuate, has Matt, there's a chemical
spill or something you shelter for, has Matt. You seal
your rooms. If there's a weapon, lockdown, locks light and
(07:34):
out of sight. And then finally tornado, evacuate to the
shelter for tornado. If you got a tornado, shelters Okay.
So anyways, that's what's going on. That's what's going on
with all of that. So a new system. So this
all comes on the heels of Palisades High School. Yesterday
(07:57):
a shot was fired, went into the bild happened to
go into the office of the Athletic Department. Nobody was
in the office, and an arrest was later made last night.
So when we come back, you're gonna hear them explain
(08:19):
why they just decided to change this new security system
or security protocol called which I Love you guys, why
they decided to go So you'll hear me ask the
question why did you decide to do this and do
all that? And then you're going to hear more questions
about the shots and what actions CMS took when someone
(08:42):
shot a gun into Palisades High School. So all that
returning coming up. When we return, I should.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Say, welcome back to Breaking with Brett Jensen.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
So because I went or actually the break was a
little longer that time, I actually got on time pretty
quickly that time. But so because of that, I'm gonna
play the audio next segment where they're going into great
detail about the I Love You Guys protocol and to
talk about the shooting that took place at Palisades High
School last night or yesterday afternoon. I should say, so
(09:28):
this gives me the opportunity to talk to you guys
about this. All right, Brett, what about the vacancies? All right?
There are eight hundred and fifty eight buses with CMS.
One hundred and five thousand students out of one hundred
and forty one thousand students ride the bus. And that
(09:50):
seems awfully freaking high to me. Awfully high to me.
I mean, I assume it's accurate. I don't know why
they would lie about that, but gosh, that seems like
very very high that three fourths of your students are
riding the bus. That just that amazes me. I, you know,
I just I just didn't see that coming. But there's
eight hundred and fifty eight buses, they are short ninety
(10:14):
seven drivers. They said it will not impact any of
their routes or any of the times now. And they
also want you guys to be out at the bus,
for the one hundred and five thousand of you that
take the bus every day, to be outside at least
this especially this first week, minimum ten minutes before the
bus is due. And apparently there's some bus app that
(10:36):
you can go to and download. And if you're a
parent with CMS and you ride the buses, I assume
you already know what the bus app is. So I
did find this interesting that if Isaac asked me Brett,
how many vacancies do you have for teachers? Let's say
(10:57):
I'm in charge of CMS, and I say, well, Isaac,
we're at a ninety seven point six capacity rate. Ninety
seven point six percent capacity rate. That sounds kind of good, right, Hey,
you're you're at ninety seven point six. But when you're
talking a lot of teachers at a big school system,
(11:21):
we're talking about a situation like, hey, that's really two
hundred and twenty eight. Somebody finally asked, how many teachers
are you actually short? Can you give us a number
instead of the ninety seven point six percent, which sounds good,
But the short two hundred and twenty eight teachers, now
(11:42):
that is fluid. You know, some some go, some leave,
you know, back and forth. And as I'm going through
all my notes here, So with all that being said,
they said that their biggest needs they are short forty
five teachers in A through six. They're short thirty eight
(12:06):
EC teachers. Exceptional children they need I want to say
special needs, but you know what I mean, right, because
a lot of them do have special needs, whether it's
emotional or whatever, learn a learning situation, whatever, Right, So
they're short thirty eight exceptional children teachers and the short
(12:27):
forty five they said K through six teachers. So I
do find that very very interesting. I do find that
very interesting that they're but there's say, hey, but they've
been short every single year. They're always short, and they
make hard pushes to try and then they'll eventually maybe
even rate like, they'll do everything they can to try
(12:49):
and find bus drivers and bus drivers and bus drivers,
and then they'll ask part time uh teachers or part
time you know, people that already work at the school system. Hey,
what do you think about being a bus driver in
the morning? That means I got to get up at
four in the morning. Yeah, I'm good on that. Thanks. Yeah,
I'm good on that. Or that means I'm gonna get
home at seven o'clock at night, six o'clock at night. Yeah,
(13:11):
I'm good on that. Thanks. Yeah, I think I'm good. Thanks.
So anyways, that's some of the stuff going on. Those
are the two big things that you need to know.
Seven hundred and thirty oh and there's seven hundred and
thirty six brand new teachers within the CMS system this year,
but there's still short two hundred and twenty eight teachers.
(13:31):
And even though they said, we got ninety seven six
percent of our teacher positions filled. Yeah, okay, and the
short ninety seven bus drivers. First day of schools Monday.
First day of schools Monday. We'll hav anu. I think two
press conferences next week with CMS, probably on the first
day of school and then usually on Friday, to wrap
(13:53):
up that week's events and say how things went, because
on the first day of school there's always a lot
of kinks, and usually it tends to deal with the
bus drivers. Even if they were a full capacity, there's
a tendency to have issues with the bus drivers. I
still can't get over the fact that one hundred and
five thousand out of one hundred and forty one thousand
ride the bus. I just I don't know why I
(14:15):
find that amazing, but I do. All right. So when
we come back, you are going to hear the audio
from today's press conference talking specifically about the new security
system for all you parents and all your grandparents out there,
the new protocols in place, how they did it, why
they did it, and everything else, as well as you're
going to hear doctor Crystal Hill address the gun shooting
(14:38):
situation happening at Palisadates High School where a bullet ended
up in an athletic office athletic department's office, and thankfully
nobody was in the office at the time as the
bullet went into the office. Welcome back to Breaking with
(14:59):
Brett Jenson to go up until seven o'clock tonight. All right,
So you guys know they had the press conference earlier
today with CMS. I don't know why, but it was
held at CPCC for some odd reason, and usually they're
held at one of the schools, like in the library
or someplace like that to promote the school or something.
So I don't know why we did it at CPCC today,
(15:20):
no idea, no clue, but we did. And so they
did their introductions and then they started to take questions,
and then yours truly came firing out of the gate.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Hi.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
I'm not sure if this is for Tim or doctor Hill.
You talked about the new safety apfter I love you
guys thing. How did you guys come to the decision
to go to that particular safety situation as opposed to
what you maybe previously had.
Speaker 5 (15:46):
Great question, So, first off, the Center for Safer Schools
has been endorsing the I Love you guys as a
protocol for school districts to jump on as a standard
response protocol for quite some time. The Foundation once it
came out, its objective was to be able to provide
clearer communication for students in the event of an emergency,
(16:10):
and so we decided that based off of our need
to be able to help students better understand and parents
to better understand what was happening when a situation does
occur at a school, that this would be a much better.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Standard response protocol. It has clear.
Speaker 5 (16:26):
Instructions for each of the different aspects excuse me, and
so they are hold, secure, lockdown, evacuate, and shelter, and
each one of those commands comes with clear instructions and
also has visuals for students and staff to understand. So
when you have a person who walks into the school
(16:47):
who may not know anything about what to do in
an emergency emergency situation, there are visuals throughout the school
that will help them and guide them to be able
to do that. It increases our response time when substitutes
are in the school buildings and we have other visitors
who were there. So it was a natural for us
to make this progression as an additional layer to our
(17:07):
safety protocol. We feel like it will really help students
be more at ease in schools because there will be
clear instructions when something happens, and if we do have
to institute a lockdown, we will know that that is
a serious event, as opposed to some of the times
when a lockdown is called and it's like a secure lockdown,
but it's an external event that's happening around the school
(17:28):
and it won't alert parents. This will allow us to
be able to better communicate exactly the events that are happening.
Speaker 6 (17:34):
And I'll add just a little bit to that, Brett.
In terms of getting my Michael yes. In terms of
getting to making the selection, we listened. So we have
had a superintendent's We have advisories for lots of different groups,
but one of my favorites is students. And so the
students talk to me about all types of different topics
(17:56):
and this is one of the topics that they talked about.
And so mister Ivy and the team came and presented
the idea to the students and they really enjoyed. They
thought it would be a great idea. Then we then
took it to our superintendent's parent advisory, they provided the
same level of feedback, so that's how we got to
the actual decision.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Evan, Yes, thank you.
Speaker 7 (18:18):
I have some other questions about the systems this year,
in about the preparations, but I just want to follow
up on that question there because I know there's some
changes to both the communication protocol as well as to
what you do, and there are threats on campus. We
are hearing that last night there was a gunshot fired
at one school campus at CMS, and I want to
(18:40):
ask if that is true, did that happen and if so,
is there any communication that you need to make.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
To parents about that.
Speaker 6 (18:50):
Immediately when we became aware of an incident on campus,
law enforcement was contacted, including CMPD and CMS, and so
this is an active investigation. We communicated immediately not only
with the staff of that particular school and the parents
of that particular school, but a neighboring school as well,
(19:13):
just out of an abundance of caution. The police did
make an arrest lot last night in that investigation, but
beyond that, I can't speak to it because it is
an active investigation.
Speaker 7 (19:27):
So I just want to clarify on the communication political parts.
So if there was a gunshot fired on campus, and
you all know that that is not information that you
would share with parents.
Speaker 6 (19:38):
We communicated last night with parents twice. The first time
that we communicated, we let them know that there was
an incident on campus. Everything was still being investigated, so
and we let them know that as soon as we
had more information available, we would communicate with them. Then
last night, around seven thirty ish eight o'clock, close to
(20:03):
seven thirty, we received information. And as soon as we
received information, we communicated that out again, not only to
the staff, because students weren't on campus yesterday, however, there
were scheduled events for students, you know, practices things like that,
we did communicate to the staff of that particular school
(20:26):
as well as the families, and out of an abundance
of caution, we also communicated to a neighboring school. So
the response to your question is, not only do we communicate.
We communicated immediately that something happened, and then when we
buttoned it up when there was an arrest made, we
reached back out and said an arrest has been made. However,
(20:47):
everything is still under investigation. And that's all that I'll
speak to on that topic.
Speaker 8 (20:54):
Ooks, Yeah, I guess. Sort of elaborating on the I
Love You Guys protocol, I was wondering if you could
clear sort of what are some of the main differences
between that and sort of the previous protocols. Did it
used to sort of vary school to school, like how
does it look different than the previous protocol?
Speaker 5 (21:11):
So our previous protocol we would go into variations of lockdown,
so you would have a secure lockdown or a lockdown,
and those two had several different meanings. The term lockdown
was used and because of feedback from students and parents,
what what they were seeing was that was creating some
anxiety in students because you've got the term lockdown being
(21:34):
used overly, so people weren't really understanding what do I
really do in this situation it's a secure lockdown? What's
my protocol? Or is it a real lockdown? What's my protocol?
So what happens with I Love you Guys? Is it
gives us clear instructions for each type of incident. There
are clear verbal and visual instructions for what students are
(21:56):
supposed to do in those situations, and they're audibly spoke
over the intercom, so that everybody has clear understanding of
the actions that they need to take. It also provides
us with the ability to hold students in a classroom
if we need to for just any type of incident.
Let's say that a student were to get sick in
the hallway and we didn't want to move students from
(22:19):
one classroom to the other. We can easily put the
school in hold and not create an alarm in other
students that something is happening, so they'll feel more comfortable
with their environment. We really want our students and our
families to know that when we have an actual lockdown,
that is a serious event that will involve law enforcement
to be there to support and so we don't want
(22:40):
to have confusion about lockdown by having levels of lockdowns.
So again the commands are whole secure, lockdown, evacuate, and
shelter and all that information is found on our website
as well as I Love You Guys Foundation website, which
also has the training is that staff will use and
(23:02):
they're available for you to watch and look as well.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Okay, so that is the whole CMS stuff, So hopefully
you understand more about the security system. While maybe only
three quarters of the students ride the bus to school
every day. Every single parent and grandparent and aunt and
uncle of a CMS student is so this is something
that they will care about and should care about. Okay.
So I was going to be doing an interview I
(23:28):
had with some a leader of community member or community
matters rather and with Tom Lott, and that's going to
have to get pushed back tomorrow because when we come back,
I've got some stuff to get into concerning Caberis County,
the gift that keeps on giving. Welcome back to breaking
(23:58):
with Brett Jensen on this Wednesday night, going up until
seven o'clock. All right, So last night, you guys know
that I was sort of leading the way when it
came to media coverage. Actually not even sort of was
leading the way when it came to media coverage concerning
all the happening is going on in Caberra's County over
the last several months, and specifically basically March going forward,
(24:23):
the month of March, not the physical activity of Marching,
but the month of March going forward. And that's when
they brought in new county manager Seawan Newton. Chris Mesmer
was part of the old board, if you remember, he
was the old chair Seawan Newton, had no governmental experience,
and they brought him in and they used to be
(24:44):
business partners back in the day on a business that
went belly up, and they brought him in to be
county manager after firing the county manager that had been
there a couple of decades, who, by the way, now
is suing Cabert's County. So at that point that started
this whole downward trend. And you know, they also fired
the county attorney and everything else, and that started the
(25:09):
very short and very memorable legacy of Chris Meesmer right
before he got shipped off to the Senate to leave
the folks in Cabara's County alone. Before doing so, he
actually tried to break state law by voting for his
own replacement on the county commission and a judge was like,
not so fast to steal align from college ESPN college
(25:32):
game days, Lee Corso. So anyways, the Cabres County Board
of Commissioners last night voted to get rid of the
county manager, Sean Newton, And it shouldn't have come a surprise.
He got the job under extremely dubious conditions, like, let's
be honest, he had no business in that job, zero,
(25:55):
not for a county the size of Cabrera's county just
didn't Maybe if you want to give it for like
Avery County or Anson County, maybe and that's a big maybe.
But anyway, so it shouldn't have come as a surprise,
but it happened. So the mission to get rid of
the motion to get rid of Newton was brought forth
(26:17):
by Commissioner Lynch Shu and it was also Kenny Wortman
and the new chair Jeff Jones, all were in favor
of it. Not shockingly, Laura Blackwell Lindsay was against it,
as was Larry Pittman. Why were they against it, Well,
because this was put in the county manager was put
(26:40):
in place by their boy, Chris Meiesmer, the former board
chair of the board. So they were upset, as one
might suspect they might be. But you had to have
seen this coming down Main Street. You had to have
known this was coming. Now here's the kicker. The kicker
(27:02):
is this They fired him with cause. Now, as someone
who has covered college athletics for damn near fifteen or
twenty years, yeah, almost twenty years of college athletics, specifically
college athletics. With cause usually means something bad, because if
(27:24):
you fire someone with cause, I have it in my contract,
and as does everyone here at WBT and all TV
stations and everywhere else. With cause means if you're fired
with cause, you do not get a severance, you do
not get a payout. So they fired Sean Newton without
having to pay any severances whatsoever. And it's usually something
(27:49):
pretty egregious or you know, like you are doing pretty bad.
Either you're failing at your job miserably, or you're showing
up to work drunk, you're failing drug tests, you're committing
sexual harassment, you're doing something pretty egregious to be fired
with cause. CMS for the longest time try to find
(28:13):
cause to fire Ernest Winston so they wouldn't have to
pay him out. Is several hundred thousand dollars contract right,
I think it was six hundred thousand, maybe five hundred
thousand from what I was told. They even hired a
private investigator to try and dig up dirt on Earth's
Winston so they wouldn't have to pay him his five
or six hundred thousand dollars true story, because with cause
(28:37):
means I don't have to pay out. So Sean was
fired with cause I don't know what. I don't know why.
I've spoken to several people up in Commaras County today
and even last night. Still haven't found out why. Very
reliable sources, and I hope to have more on this
(28:58):
with you tomorrow and it may be the lead as
I dive deeper into this tomorrow because this is such
a fascinating as the world turns story with Cabaras County.
So again that's what's going on. We'll see what happens
between now and tomorrow when I speak to you guys again.
Hopefully I'll have a lot more information and some interviews
(29:20):
to deal with to present to you guys, because it
is fascinating, all right, let's going to do it for
us tonight. Thanks for everyone who listens tonight and again
also tomorrow i'll have the interview with Tom Lott of
Community Matters. My name is Brett Jensen, and you have
been listening to Breaking with Brett Jensen
Hi, Oh, Let's go oh, Let's go oh.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Let's go oh, Let's go dudes Talk eleven ten and
ninety nine three WBT Brett Jensen here with you on
this Tuesday Wait, Tuesday Night edition, Tuesday night edition of
Breaking with Brett Jensen as we go up until seven
o'clock tonight. Telephone number to get in on the show
as well as to text the show on the Liberty
(00:51):
View at GMC text line that number is seven oh
four five, seven oh eleven ten. Guys, make sure you
follow me on X at Brett on to Score Jensen
for all the latest and breaking news.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
In and around the Charlotte area. And if you follow
me on X and you would have seen some of
the stuff I put out there today about a shooting
that took place at Palisades High School yesterday. And we'll
get into that in a little bit, but I want
to start off with CMS. CMS had their big back
(01:24):
to school press conference today the week leading up to it,
and this is generally for parents to understand what's going on.
So CMS takes all the new rules, like we've got
a new system for this, and we've got a new
system for that, and we're not doing this anymore, and
we've upgraded that, and here's what we need to do
with the buses and whatever. Right, So CMS has gone
(01:47):
out and they've done that, and they've gone out, and
like I said, they tell the media, and the media
the TV stations will go okay, or the shot observer
or somebody will go out there and say, all right,
I really want to focus in on this particular situation.
I want to focus in on AI or I want
to focus in on the new system that parents and
(02:10):
students can use to check grades and homework and classes
and all that stuff. So there's all of that, and
there's a lot of stuff in there about that, but
I want to focus in on what's happening with the
security system. And oddly enough, if it comes, this press
conference comes less than twenty four hours after a shot
(02:31):
rang out inside or shot into the high school of
Palisades High School down there pass Steel Creek near the
bust to boy Bridge. Right. But the new security system
that they're putting in protocols, I say system, But it's
a protocol and it's called I love you guys, And
you're like, okay, why is it called that? Well, it's
(02:54):
called that because a young girl before she was killed
in a school shooting. Her last words were I love
you guys, and so they named it that. And the
old way CMS did things, you had a secure lockdown
(03:14):
and then lockdowns. A secure lockdown would be okay, if
something's going on strange outside the building, we do what's
called a secure lockdown, where we're locking other doors so
no one can get on the inside as something bad
is going in on the inside. We called it a lockdown.
It's been confusing for years and kids would automatically text
(03:35):
their parents, oh my gosh, we're going into a lockdown.
We're going into a lockdown, when in reality there's police
activity three blocks away. So they went into a secure
lockdown in case someone running from the police can't try
to decide to run inside the school. And so parents
were getting upset or worried and kids were always getting confused,
and then nobody could keep it straight. So now they
(03:56):
implement the new protocol I love you guys, and I
love you guys is they like I said, they've got
different things that go with it. So now it's five stages.
Instead of just secure lockdown and lockdown, there's now five stages,
and what they'll do is they'll come in and they'll say,
(04:16):
all right. For instance, Isaac's walking down the hallway in
the high school. He slips on where a guy was
mopping the floor, and he slips and he breaks his
leg and the bone is sticking out of his leg
because he slipped on the wet floor. What they would
do at that point is something called hold. They'll go
(04:39):
over the intercom and they'll say, classrooms, classrooms. This is
a hold. Stay in your classroom. So that's what they'll do.
So it means no one leave your classrooms for but
it's not an emergency. It's not an emergency. They're just
saying stay where you are, and that way doctors or
ambulances or whatever can go and get Isaac who's floundering
(05:01):
like a dead fish in the middle of the hallway. Right,
he's going bouncing up and down because he's got a
bone sticking out of his leg right, which by the way,
are very serious, just in case people are wondering. So
so that's called a hold. Just stay where you are,
not a big deal. Parents will not be notified of
a hold. There's no reason to be notified of a
hold because there's no danger just stay where you're at.
(05:23):
You're cool, all right, and we'll let you know when
you can leave and leave your classroom. The next one
is called secure. Secure is when something is happening on
the outside of the building, but no one in the
building is of any danger, and more times than not,
almost always, parents will not be notified of this. There's
(05:45):
no reason for parents to be notified of police activity
that's two blocks away near a school, so only in
extremely rare situations with the parents then even be notified
of secure, hold and secure A good lockdown. Well, now
we know what a lockdown is, right, attention, classrooms, This
(06:07):
is a lockdown. This is not a drill. This is
a lockdown. At that point, classes going to lockdown. Parents
are then notified by the schools. We all know what
the term Stage number four means. Evacuate, get the hell
out of dodge, run for your lives, get out. Now.
(06:27):
I'm sure they would be done in an orderly fashion
and everything else, but it's like evacuate, get out, get out,
get out. And then the last one is called shelter.
Shelter in place. Things are not going well, it's you
just need to stay where you are. We're in lockdown, shelter.
So a medical emergency, it will be like a hold
in your room area, A thread outside is secure, a
(06:50):
threat inside is lockdown, locks lights and out of sight.
Then like a bomb, evacuate, evacuate obviously a bomb bomb threat,
you evacuate, right. An earthquake, shelter for the earthquake, Okay, shelter.
So it's not always something bad. I mean, yes, earthquakes
(07:11):
are bad, but I'm just saying, or like a tornado,
right you would you know, we don't get really earthquakes
and Charlotte, but we do get tornadoes. Right. Uh, there's
a fire inside, you evacuate, has Matt, there's a chemical
spill or something you shelter for, has Matt. You seal
your rooms. If there's a weapon, lockdown, locks light and
(07:34):
out of sight. And then finally tornado, evacuate to the
shelter for tornado. If you got a tornado, shelters Okay.
So anyways, that's what's going on. That's what's going on
with all of that. So a new system. So this
all comes on the heels of Palisades High School. Yesterday
(07:57):
a shot was fired, went into the bild happened to
go into the office of the Athletic Department. Nobody was
in the office, and an arrest was later made last night.
So when we come back, you're gonna hear them explain
(08:19):
why they just decided to change this new security system
or security protocol called which I Love you guys, why
they decided to go So you'll hear me ask the
question why did you decide to do this and do
all that? And then you're going to hear more questions
about the shots and what actions CMS took when someone
(08:42):
shot a gun into Palisades High School. So all that
returning coming up. When we return, I should.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Say, welcome back to Breaking with Brett Jensen.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
So because I went or actually the break was a
little longer that time, I actually got on time pretty
quickly that time. But so because of that, I'm gonna
play the audio next segment where they're going into great
detail about the I Love You Guys protocol and to
talk about the shooting that took place at Palisades High
School last night or yesterday afternoon. I should say, so
(09:28):
this gives me the opportunity to talk to you guys
about this. All right, Brett, what about the vacancies? All right?
There are eight hundred and fifty eight buses with CMS.
One hundred and five thousand students out of one hundred
and forty one thousand students ride the bus. And that
(09:50):
seems awfully freaking high to me. Awfully high to me.
I mean, I assume it's accurate. I don't know why
they would lie about that, but gosh, that seems like
very very high that three fourths of your students are
riding the bus. That just that amazes me. I, you know,
I just I just didn't see that coming. But there's
eight hundred and fifty eight buses, they are short ninety
(10:14):
seven drivers. They said it will not impact any of
their routes or any of the times now. And they
also want you guys to be out at the bus,
for the one hundred and five thousand of you that
take the bus every day, to be outside at least
this especially this first week, minimum ten minutes before the
bus is due. And apparently there's some bus app that
(10:36):
you can go to and download. And if you're a
parent with CMS and you ride the buses, I assume
you already know what the bus app is. So I
did find this interesting that if Isaac asked me Brett,
how many vacancies do you have for teachers? Let's say
(10:57):
I'm in charge of CMS, and I say, well, Isaac,
we're at a ninety seven point six capacity rate. Ninety
seven point six percent capacity rate. That sounds kind of good, right, Hey,
you're you're at ninety seven point six. But when you're
talking a lot of teachers at a big school system,
(11:21):
we're talking about a situation like, hey, that's really two
hundred and twenty eight. Somebody finally asked, how many teachers
are you actually short? Can you give us a number
instead of the ninety seven point six percent, which sounds good,
But the short two hundred and twenty eight teachers, now
(11:42):
that is fluid. You know, some some go, some leave,
you know, back and forth. And as I'm going through
all my notes here, So with all that being said,
they said that their biggest needs they are short forty
five teachers in A through six. They're short thirty eight
(12:06):
EC teachers. Exceptional children they need I want to say
special needs, but you know what I mean, right, because
a lot of them do have special needs, whether it's
emotional or whatever, learn a learning situation, whatever, Right, So
they're short thirty eight exceptional children teachers and the short
(12:27):
forty five they said K through six teachers. So I
do find that very very interesting. I do find that
very interesting that they're but there's say, hey, but they've
been short every single year. They're always short, and they
make hard pushes to try and then they'll eventually maybe
even rate like, they'll do everything they can to try
(12:49):
and find bus drivers and bus drivers and bus drivers,
and then they'll ask part time uh teachers or part
time you know, people that already work at the school system. Hey,
what do you think about being a bus driver in
the morning? That means I got to get up at
four in the morning. Yeah, I'm good on that. Thanks. Yeah,
I'm good on that. Or that means I'm gonna get
home at seven o'clock at night, six o'clock at night. Yeah,
(13:11):
I'm good on that. Thanks. Yeah, I think I'm good. Thanks.
So anyways, that's some of the stuff going on. Those
are the two big things that you need to know.
Seven hundred and thirty oh and there's seven hundred and
thirty six brand new teachers within the CMS system this year,
but there's still short two hundred and twenty eight teachers.
(13:31):
And even though they said, we got ninety seven six
percent of our teacher positions filled. Yeah, okay, and the
short ninety seven bus drivers. First day of schools Monday.
First day of schools Monday. We'll hav anu. I think two
press conferences next week with CMS, probably on the first
day of school and then usually on Friday, to wrap
(13:53):
up that week's events and say how things went, because
on the first day of school there's always a lot
of kinks, and usually it tends to deal with the
bus drivers. Even if they were a full capacity, there's
a tendency to have issues with the bus drivers. I
still can't get over the fact that one hundred and
five thousand out of one hundred and forty one thousand
ride the bus. I just I don't know why I
(14:15):
find that amazing, but I do. All right. So when
we come back, you are going to hear the audio
from today's press conference talking specifically about the new security
system for all you parents and all your grandparents out there,
the new protocols in place, how they did it, why
they did it, and everything else, as well as you're
going to hear doctor Crystal Hill address the gun shooting
(14:38):
situation happening at Palisadates High School where a bullet ended
up in an athletic office athletic department's office, and thankfully
nobody was in the office at the time as the
bullet went into the office. Welcome back to Breaking with
(14:59):
Brett Jenson to go up until seven o'clock tonight. All right,
So you guys know they had the press conference earlier
today with CMS. I don't know why, but it was
held at CPCC for some odd reason, and usually they're
held at one of the schools, like in the library
or someplace like that to promote the school or something.
So I don't know why we did it at CPCC today,
(15:20):
no idea, no clue, but we did. And so they
did their introductions and then they started to take questions,
and then yours truly came firing out of the gate.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Hi.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
I'm not sure if this is for Tim or doctor Hill.
You talked about the new safety apfter I love you
guys thing. How did you guys come to the decision
to go to that particular safety situation as opposed to
what you maybe previously had.
Speaker 5 (15:46):
Great question, So, first off, the Center for Safer Schools
has been endorsing the I Love you guys as a
protocol for school districts to jump on as a standard
response protocol for quite some time. The Foundation once it
came out, its objective was to be able to provide
clearer communication for students in the event of an emergency,
(16:10):
and so we decided that based off of our need
to be able to help students better understand and parents
to better understand what was happening when a situation does
occur at a school, that this would be a much better.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Standard response protocol. It has clear.
Speaker 5 (16:26):
Instructions for each of the different aspects excuse me, and
so they are hold, secure, lockdown, evacuate, and shelter, and
each one of those commands comes with clear instructions and
also has visuals for students and staff to understand. So
when you have a person who walks into the school
(16:47):
who may not know anything about what to do in
an emergency emergency situation, there are visuals throughout the school
that will help them and guide them to be able
to do that. It increases our response time when substitutes
are in the school buildings and we have other visitors
who were there. So it was a natural for us
to make this progression as an additional layer to our
(17:07):
safety protocol. We feel like it will really help students
be more at ease in schools because there will be
clear instructions when something happens, and if we do have
to institute a lockdown, we will know that that is
a serious event, as opposed to some of the times
when a lockdown is called and it's like a secure lockdown,
but it's an external event that's happening around the school
(17:28):
and it won't alert parents. This will allow us to
be able to better communicate exactly the events that are happening.
Speaker 6 (17:34):
And I'll add just a little bit to that, Brett.
In terms of getting my Michael yes. In terms of
getting to making the selection, we listened. So we have
had a superintendent's We have advisories for lots of different groups,
but one of my favorites is students. And so the
students talk to me about all types of different topics
(17:56):
and this is one of the topics that they talked about.
And so mister Ivy and the team came and presented
the idea to the students and they really enjoyed. They
thought it would be a great idea. Then we then
took it to our superintendent's parent advisory, they provided the
same level of feedback, so that's how we got to
the actual decision.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Evan, Yes, thank you.
Speaker 7 (18:18):
I have some other questions about the systems this year,
in about the preparations, but I just want to follow
up on that question there because I know there's some
changes to both the communication protocol as well as to
what you do, and there are threats on campus. We
are hearing that last night there was a gunshot fired
at one school campus at CMS, and I want to
(18:40):
ask if that is true, did that happen and if so,
is there any communication that you need to make.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
To parents about that.
Speaker 6 (18:50):
Immediately when we became aware of an incident on campus,
law enforcement was contacted, including CMPD and CMS, and so
this is an active investigation. We communicated immediately not only
with the staff of that particular school and the parents
of that particular school, but a neighboring school as well,
(19:13):
just out of an abundance of caution. The police did
make an arrest lot last night in that investigation, but
beyond that, I can't speak to it because it is
an active investigation.
Speaker 7 (19:27):
So I just want to clarify on the communication political parts.
So if there was a gunshot fired on campus, and
you all know that that is not information that you
would share with parents.
Speaker 6 (19:38):
We communicated last night with parents twice. The first time
that we communicated, we let them know that there was
an incident on campus. Everything was still being investigated, so
and we let them know that as soon as we
had more information available, we would communicate with them. Then
last night, around seven thirty ish eight o'clock, close to
(20:03):
seven thirty, we received information. And as soon as we
received information, we communicated that out again, not only to
the staff, because students weren't on campus yesterday, however, there
were scheduled events for students, you know, practices things like that,
we did communicate to the staff of that particular school
(20:26):
as well as the families, and out of an abundance
of caution, we also communicated to a neighboring school. So
the response to your question is, not only do we communicate.
We communicated immediately that something happened, and then when we
buttoned it up when there was an arrest made, we
reached back out and said an arrest has been made. However,
(20:47):
everything is still under investigation. And that's all that I'll
speak to on that topic.
Speaker 8 (20:54):
Ooks, Yeah, I guess. Sort of elaborating on the I
Love You Guys protocol, I was wondering if you could
clear sort of what are some of the main differences
between that and sort of the previous protocols. Did it
used to sort of vary school to school, like how
does it look different than the previous protocol?
Speaker 5 (21:11):
So our previous protocol we would go into variations of lockdown,
so you would have a secure lockdown or a lockdown,
and those two had several different meanings. The term lockdown
was used and because of feedback from students and parents,
what what they were seeing was that was creating some
anxiety in students because you've got the term lockdown being
(21:34):
used overly, so people weren't really understanding what do I
really do in this situation it's a secure lockdown? What's
my protocol? Or is it a real lockdown? What's my protocol?
So what happens with I Love you Guys? Is it
gives us clear instructions for each type of incident. There
are clear verbal and visual instructions for what students are
(21:56):
supposed to do in those situations, and they're audibly spoke
over the intercom, so that everybody has clear understanding of
the actions that they need to take. It also provides
us with the ability to hold students in a classroom
if we need to for just any type of incident.
Let's say that a student were to get sick in
the hallway and we didn't want to move students from
(22:19):
one classroom to the other. We can easily put the
school in hold and not create an alarm in other
students that something is happening, so they'll feel more comfortable
with their environment. We really want our students and our
families to know that when we have an actual lockdown,
that is a serious event that will involve law enforcement
to be there to support and so we don't want
(22:40):
to have confusion about lockdown by having levels of lockdowns.
So again the commands are whole secure, lockdown, evacuate, and
shelter and all that information is found on our website
as well as I Love You Guys Foundation website, which
also has the training is that staff will use and
(23:02):
they're available for you to watch and look as well.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Okay, so that is the whole CMS stuff, So hopefully
you understand more about the security system. While maybe only
three quarters of the students ride the bus to school
every day. Every single parent and grandparent and aunt and
uncle of a CMS student is so this is something
that they will care about and should care about. Okay.
So I was going to be doing an interview I
(23:28):
had with some a leader of community member or community
matters rather and with Tom Lott, and that's going to
have to get pushed back tomorrow because when we come back,
I've got some stuff to get into concerning Caberis County,
the gift that keeps on giving. Welcome back to breaking
(23:58):
with Brett Jensen on this Wednesday night, going up until
seven o'clock. All right, So last night, you guys know
that I was sort of leading the way when it
came to media coverage. Actually not even sort of was
leading the way when it came to media coverage concerning
all the happening is going on in Caberra's County over
the last several months, and specifically basically March going forward,
(24:23):
the month of March, not the physical activity of Marching,
but the month of March going forward. And that's when
they brought in new county manager Seawan Newton. Chris Mesmer
was part of the old board, if you remember, he
was the old chair Seawan Newton, had no governmental experience,
and they brought him in and they used to be
(24:44):
business partners back in the day on a business that
went belly up, and they brought him in to be
county manager after firing the county manager that had been
there a couple of decades, who, by the way, now
is suing Cabert's County. So at that point that started
this whole downward trend. And you know, they also fired
the county attorney and everything else, and that started the
(25:09):
very short and very memorable legacy of Chris Meesmer right
before he got shipped off to the Senate to leave
the folks in Cabara's County alone. Before doing so, he
actually tried to break state law by voting for his
own replacement on the county commission and a judge was like,
not so fast to steal align from college ESPN college
(25:32):
game days, Lee Corso. So anyways, the Cabres County Board
of Commissioners last night voted to get rid of the
county manager, Sean Newton, And it shouldn't have come a surprise.
He got the job under extremely dubious conditions, like, let's
be honest, he had no business in that job, zero,
(25:55):
not for a county the size of Cabrera's county just
didn't Maybe if you want to give it for like
Avery County or Anson County, maybe and that's a big maybe.
But anyway, so it shouldn't have come as a surprise,
but it happened. So the mission to get rid of
the motion to get rid of Newton was brought forth
(26:17):
by Commissioner Lynch Shu and it was also Kenny Wortman
and the new chair Jeff Jones, all were in favor
of it. Not shockingly, Laura Blackwell Lindsay was against it,
as was Larry Pittman. Why were they against it, Well,
because this was put in the county manager was put
(26:40):
in place by their boy, Chris Meiesmer, the former board
chair of the board. So they were upset, as one
might suspect they might be. But you had to have
seen this coming down Main Street. You had to have
known this was coming. Now here's the kicker. The kicker
(27:02):
is this They fired him with cause. Now, as someone
who has covered college athletics for damn near fifteen or
twenty years, yeah, almost twenty years of college athletics, specifically
college athletics. With cause usually means something bad, because if
(27:24):
you fire someone with cause, I have it in my contract,
and as does everyone here at WBT and all TV
stations and everywhere else. With cause means if you're fired
with cause, you do not get a severance, you do
not get a payout. So they fired Sean Newton without
having to pay any severances whatsoever. And it's usually something
(27:49):
pretty egregious or you know, like you are doing pretty bad.
Either you're failing at your job miserably, or you're showing
up to work drunk, you're failing drug tests, you're committing
sexual harassment, you're doing something pretty egregious to be fired
with cause. CMS for the longest time try to find
(28:13):
cause to fire Ernest Winston so they wouldn't have to
pay him out. Is several hundred thousand dollars contract right,
I think it was six hundred thousand, maybe five hundred
thousand from what I was told. They even hired a
private investigator to try and dig up dirt on Earth's
Winston so they wouldn't have to pay him his five
or six hundred thousand dollars true story, because with cause
(28:37):
means I don't have to pay out. So Sean was
fired with cause I don't know what. I don't know why.
I've spoken to several people up in Commaras County today
and even last night. Still haven't found out why. Very
reliable sources, and I hope to have more on this
(28:58):
with you tomorrow and it may be the lead as
I dive deeper into this tomorrow because this is such
a fascinating as the world turns story with Cabaras County.
So again that's what's going on. We'll see what happens
between now and tomorrow when I speak to you guys again.
Hopefully I'll have a lot more information and some interviews
(29:20):
to deal with to present to you guys, because it
is fascinating, all right, let's going to do it for
us tonight. Thanks for everyone who listens tonight and again
also tomorrow i'll have the interview with Tom Lott of
Community Matters. My name is Brett Jensen, and you have
been listening to Breaking with Brett Jensen
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