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In response to the Sandy Hook massacre that
took 26 innocent lives and many other school
shootings across the United States, Illinois is
fighting back. Spawning from the Governor’s
summit on school safety in January, Illinois is
starting the first program in the country to improve
information sharing between the intelligence center,
schools, and law enforcement to improve continued
effort in preventing attacks.
The Statewide Terrorism and Intelligence
Center, known as the
STIC, is the state’s
designated fusion center. It
is a collaboration of state
and federal governments
created to look at all crimes
and all hazards in order to
protect the public. STIC
has been fully functional
since May 2003 as one of
the first round-the-clock
state fusion centers to
emerge
after
the
September
11,
2001,
terrorist attacks.
The School Intelligence
program has established a
School Information Sharing
Advisory Board that will
help identify intelligence
and information requirements, priorities and gaps
that pertain to schools in Illinois, and identify
possible criminal activity and vulnerabilities. STIC,
through partnership with the Illinois Emergency
Management Agency (IEMA) and the Illinois
Terrorism Task Force (ITTF), has hired a School
Intelligence Officer, Maria Ray, who will be
responsible for putting the board’s suggestions into
actions. Ray will be identifying points of contact
within each K-12 public district, private school and
college to start opening the lines of communication.
This unique program will be introduced during a
training held at the University of Illinois at
Springfield May 22 – 24 called STEP (School
Threat Evaluation Program). This specialized
training seminar will include:
An introduction to school K-12 threat
assessments led by Barry Spodak, who has
served for 30 years as a training consultant to
the nation’s elite law enforcement agencies in
the field of threat assessments
Tips on how to do open-source research and dig
into the Internet for information that can be used
to identify and verify threats, presented by
Michael Bazzell, who has been a computer
crime detective for the past 16 years.
Information on how to conduct a school-based
threat assessment under current FERPA,
HIPPA and other related Illinois school laws.
This segment will be led by Ron Ellis, retired
from the Illinois State Police, and his wife, Dr.
Sandy Ellis, an adjunct professor at UIS.
Ray will conclude the seminar by introducing the
new information-sharing program at STIC.
Improving school safety
through information sharing
Illinois Statewide Terrorism and Intelligence Center launches program for schools
Lessons
Learned
To learn more information about this free informational training (worth 10 continuing professional
development units for educators) clic
The conference registration deadline for those needing lodging is May 10 and for all others is May 17. To
register you must have a conference code. Email
to get a code.
