Since March, students at Flagstaff Academy Charter School have been showing up early to school, putting on their high-vis vests and heading out to the streets to direct traffic. The volunteers, who are in fifth through eighth grades, are a part of the Dragon Safety Patrol program at Flagstaff.
Tim Rumsey, the safety supervisor at Flagstaff, started and now leads the program which includes traffic patrol in the mornings and afternoons as well as weekly Thursday meetings. He said when it first started the program had 12 participantsl it now has 25.
"For me, it was just an idea to give kids a different path," Rumsey said. "We encourage our kids to go out to college and become doctors and lawyers but for other kids, like myself - I wanted to be a first responder since I was 12, this gives those kids that avenue, that chance to do that."
Rumsey, who has previously worked in military law enforcement and mental health counseling, set up the program to resemble a military platoon. Students have different responsibilities in their ranks and can rise in their rank from sergeant to captain. Rumsey also emphasized that Flagstaff is primarily a commuter school that caters to multiple communities and therefore sometimes sees over 300 vehicles traveling through each day -- making traffic safety a significant part of the volunteers' work.
Student volunteers direct traffic as part of the Dragon Safety Patrol program at Flagstaff Academy Charter School in Longmont. (Courtesy of Scott Dressel-Martin)
Thursday meetings can differ week to week. Rumsey said students have visited Longmont's police department, had a fire truck visit campus, heard from local first responders, been trained in basic first aid and CPR, and learned how to administer NARCAN.
"Some of our kids carry first aid kits as the first responders at the school to help with Band-Aids and those kind of things," Rumsey said. "If we had a true emergency, kids would back off and it would be handled by staff of course, but sometimes a kid will trip on the way out and we'll help them put on a Band-Aid. It just kind of gives them an idea of what it's like to be a first-responder or police officer, directing traffic."
While some may be surprised to hear that children are learning how to administer NARCAN in the event of a fentanyl overdose, Rumsey said it's a problem in the US right now that they can't ignore.
"It's real. We can't get away from it. We're one of the only schools in Boulder County that's a distributor of NARCAN," Rumsey said, adding, "The kids are interested in that because they hear about it as well. Just last year they found fentanyl in a school bus down in Denver, an elementary school bus. So it's here whether we like it or not and rather than stick our head in the sand, we acknowledge it and train kids and help them understand it."
Executive Principal Katie Gustafson said the school hasn't had a situation where they've needed to administer Narcan, but they're prepared if they ever were to need to.
"When kids go to high school it's more prevalent, things change, kids get a little more freedom," Gustafson said. "We want to make sure they leave here with skills that can be applied to the real world and unfortunately, that's our real world right now."
To be able to join and stay in the program, students have to maintain a 2.75 GPA or above and show up to traffic patrol at least twice a week as well as the weekly Thursday. Rumsey said kids have had to leave the program due to poor behavior or low grades, but they have been supported and encouraged to learn from it and reapply the next semester.
"We take it very seriously, there's a code of conduct that kids have to go by, a three strike system," Rumsey said.
Gustafson said she's seen kids take pride in the program and the position they have. Rumsey agreed, stating that he had seen students become more resilient, care more about their grades and show more compassion for each other.
"Tim is involved and invested in these kids, so even when we have kids who make mistakes, that's real world learning there. We make mistakes, we do things that we don't intend to, we learn from those, but to have a strong mentor to help with those challenges and to help walk through those and to have somebody who believes in you, that says, 'Alright, we'll see you after next quarter. I want you to reapply'; that's investing in our kids," Gustafson said.
She continued, "That's the benefit I see of this whole thing. We're investing in the kids and they're investing in the community and its cyclical which just makes it a part of why this school is so special in my opinion."
Moving forward, Rumsey hopes to bring more patrol programs to other schools in the St. Vrain Valley School District.