Mark Turner is the superintendent of RSU 87, which serves the communities of Carmel and Levant, Maine. What he loves most about his job is the time he gets to spend in schools. As a busy district administrator, interacting with staff and students each day is so important because he gets to see the important work they do firsthand.

Along with the many responsibilities that come with being superintendent, Turner shared that it was his concerns about emergency procedures and the district’s ability to deal with struggling students that led him to the Maine Department of Education’s (DOE) Maine School Safety Center.

Turner is one of many Maine school administrators who have taken the School Safety Specialist course offered by the Maine DOE’s Maine Schools Safety Center (MSSC). The 8-week course is provided asynchronously through Eastern Maine Community College (EMCC) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and helps fulfill State statute Sec. 1. 20-A MRSA §1001, sub-§16, which states there must be a “designated employee having oversight regarding school safety.”

“We decided administratively to take part in the CSTAG training model, and I decided to take the School Safety Specialist training to better prepare to lead in an emergency,” said Turner. “The training certainly helped me to better see the big picture and update our safety protocols.”

CSTAG stands for Comprehensive School Threat Assessment Guidelines, and it is a comprehensive approach to early identification of students who may be on the pathway to violence by assessing problem behavior and offering interventions before the behavior escalates. CSTAG training is part of the Maine School Safety Center’s larger Maine Safe Schools Initiative.

As part of the CSTAG training, Turner learned about and introduced behavioral threat assessments to RSU 87 teachers and staff members.

“The behavior threat assessments we now use have truly helped us to respond to threats, support victims and aggressors, and create a safer school environment,” explained Turner.

Since Turner took the Safety Specialist training, RSU 87 has also updated its response protocol to the Standard Response Protocol (SRP) model and started a “see something/say something” campaign at its middle schools.

In keeping the RSU 87 school community up to date on these new protocols, the admin team was recently describing their process to a concerned parent when she remarked, “I’m so glad that you guys are so prepared to deal with these situations, I had no idea!”

Turner adds that they also plan to continue using the CSTAG model for behavior threat assessments going forward. He extends a big thank you to the Maine DOE’s Maine School Safety Center for being remarkably supportive throughout these trainings.

The School Safety Specialist course is a program of the Maine DOE’s Maine School Safety Center and is available at no cost to Maine schools. Cohorts start at the beginning of every month and complete in 8 weeks. All work is done asynchronously through Eastern Maine Community College (EMCC) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and takes approximately 20-25 hours to complete. 

For more information, visit the Maine DOE website, fill out an interest form, or reach out to Maine DOE School Safety Training Coordinator Wendy Robichaud at Wendy.Robichaud@maine.gov.