Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1,273, Improving School Security.
This is English as a Second Language podcast, episode 1,273.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Visit our website at eslpodcom.
Take a look at our ESL podcast store that has additional courses in business, daily and cultural English.
This episode is a dialogue between Roberto and Ginny about making sure our schools are safe.
Let's get started.
Alright, let's get started.
I organized this faculty and staff meeting to talk about ideas to improve school security.
But we already have controlled access to school buildings and all of the staff and faculty wear ID badges.
Those measures help to keep people out of our school who don't belong here.
But in light of what's happened at other schools, we need to do more to keep students safe.
You mean in the event of bomb threats and mass shootings?
Those are some of the threats we have to prepare for.
I don't know how we can prepare for those things.
Really?
Really.
We need to develop evacuation plans or procedures for lockdown in the event of an imminent threat.
We live in scary times.
We work in a prison, not a school.
Roberto begins by saying, all right, let's get started.
Roberto is talking to a group of people, and he wants to start the meeting that they are having.
He explains, I organized, or I...
This faculty and staff meeting to talk about ideas to improve school security.
The word faculty F.A.C.U.L.T.Y. refers to the teachers at a school.
It could be a high school.
It could be a college.
I think of the word usually being associated with colleges, but high schools and other schools for children also sometimes use this word to describe the entire group of teachers at that school.
Staff, S-T-A-F-F, can refer to anyone who works at a company or in an organization.
In the case of schools...
Staff could refer to the teachers, but here it refers to everyone who works at the school who is not a teacher.
That would include the janitors, the people in the kitchen, the administrators, that is, the principal and other leaders of the school, and so forth.
The meeting Roberto organized... is all about school security.
S-E-C-U-R-I-T-Y.
The word security can refer to a couple of different things.
Here it refers to keeping people at the school safe.
School security would be keeping the faculty staff and students safe so that there are no injuries and, more importantly, that no one gets killed.
Sadly, in the past several decades there have been several cases where people have died at schools, or usually because people outside of the school have brought guns and killed them, though sometimes it can be students in the school itself.
One of the people at the meeting Ginny, says but we already have controlled access to school buildings and all of the staff and faculty wear ID badges.
The term controlled access A C C E, S S refers to a system in a building where only the people who are supposed to be in certain parts of the building are allowed to go into those parts.
It's another way of saying a system of locks that prevent people who are not supposed to be in certain rooms or certain parts of the building from getting into those places.
Nowadays, many of these locks are electronic, so that you put a number into the lock in order to open it, or you use a special magnetic card that you either put through something called a card reader that allows you to open a door, or you bring near a card reader pad P-A-D that allows you to get into a certain part of a building.
Controlled access might also involve guards people who stand next to doors that allowing people in and preventing people from going in who are not supposed to be there.
Ginny says that they already have this kind of controlled access to the school buildings, and all of the staff and faculty wear ID badges B-A-D-G-E-S.
ID stands for identification.
A badge is usually a small card or piece of plastic that has your picture and name on it.
So an ID badge is something that you wear that tells everyone in the building who you are and that you belong there.
Roberto says.
However, those measures, meaning the things that we do, already help to keep people out of our building who don't belong here, who aren't supposed to be there.
But in light of what's happened at other schools, he says, we need to do more to keep students safe.
The expression in light, L-I-G-H-T, of, means considering or thinking about or because of.
Roberto is saying that, because of what has happened at other schools, their school needs to do more to keep students safe.
Ginny then asks, you mean in the event of bomb threats and mass shootings?
The expression in the event, E-V-E-N-T, of, means if or when something happens.
In the event of rain...
We will not be playing the baseball game today.
That means if it rains, we won't be playing baseball.
Ginny says, M-A-S-S shootings, S-H-O-O-T-I-N-G-S.
A bomb threat is when someone says that there is a bomb in a certain place and you better leave there or you might be killed.
A bomb is a device, a thing that blows up and can kill you or hurt you.
A bomb threat then is sometimes used to scare people, to get people out of a certain place.
A mass shooting is when many different people are killed.
Several people are killed in a short period of time.
Roberto says, Ginny says, I don't know how we can prepare for those things.
I don't know how we can get ready for a bomb threat or mass shootings, she's saying.
Roberto says well, we might consider meaning we should think about security cameras and armed guards to patrol the school.
Security cameras are cameras video cameras that are usually put in the corner of a room or outside of a building to film or make a video of everything happening in that area.
These are more common in other countries, I think, than in the US, especially in Great Britain.
You hear a lot about something called CCTV, which stands for closed circuit television.
These are basically security cameras that film or take videos of everything that is happening in a room or in a certain area.
Armed, A-R-M-E-D, means with a gun.
A guard, G-U-A-R-D, is a person whose job it is to protect a certain group of people or an area.
So armed guards are guards that have guns.
Armed guards typically patrol, P-A-T-R-O-L.
To patrol means to walk around a certain area or drive around a certain area in order to protect it and keep it safe.
Roberto is suggesting that perhaps the school have guards with guns that would walk around the school in order to keep the students safe.
Ginny doesn't think this is a good idea.
She says, really?
She's indicating her doubt by saying that.
Roberto replies, really, meaning yes.
We need to develop evacuation plans or procedures for lockdown in the event of an imminent threat.
An evacuation E-V-A-C-U-A-T-I-O-N is when everyone has to leave a certain place because it's dangerous there.
An evacuation plan would be a plan or a list of steps that would be taken if, in this case, the school had to be evacuated.
Notice there's a verb to evacuate from which we get the word evacuation.
A lockdown L-O-C-K-D-O-W-N is when the doors of a building are locked to stop anyone from going out or coming in.
This might be necessary if, for example, you want to prevent any of the children from leaving the school if there is someone dangerous near the school.
An imminent I M M I N E N T threat is something that is about to happen very soon.
Anything that is imminent will be happening in the very near future, maybe in a few minutes or in a few hours, or perhaps a few days.
Ginny says, this is scary stuff.
Something that is scary.
S-C-A-R-Y is something that makes you afraid, something that gives you fear.
Roberto says, we live in scary times, meaning we live in a dangerous period of history.
Ginny says, it's starting to feel like we work in a prison, not a school.
A prison, P-R-I-S-O-N, is a building where we keep criminals, people who have broken the law.
Another word for prison is a jail, J-A-I-L.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
All right, let's get started.
I organized this faculty and staff meeting to talk about ideas to improve school security.
But we already have controlled access to school buildings and all of the staff and faculty wear ID badges.
Those measures help keep people out of our school who don't belong here.
But in light of what's happened at other schools, we need to do more to keep students safe.
You mean in the event of bomb threats and mass shootings?
Those are some of the threats we have to prepare for.
I don't know how we can prepare for those things.
Well, we might consider security cameras and armed guards to patrol the school.
Really?
We need to develop evacuation plans or procedures for lockdown in the event of an imminent threat.
This is scary stuff.
We live in scary times.
It's starting to feel like we work in a prison, not a school.
Our scriptwriter was once on a university faculty.
Now, she's here writing wonderful scripts.
And we thank her.
Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2016 by the Center for Educational Development.
