When the most recent shooting to rock the East High School community unfolded, it was reportedly while school administrators carried out the daily task of searching a 17-year-old boy for weapons. The searches were required of him as part of the student’s individualized “safe plan,” Denver Police said.

Shortly after 10 a.m. Wednesday, staff did discover a firearm on the student, police said. A shooting unfolded, sending two administrators to the hospital as the boy fled. Hours later, law enforcement authorities confirmed they discovered the teenager’s car and body in Park County.

Questions remain about why the student – identified by police as 17-year-old Austin Lyle – was on a safety plan. The district will not disclose details of specific students’ safety plans because they are protected by federal law, Denver Public Schools spokesperson Rachel Childress said in an email.

The shooting also brought attention to the overall practice of safety plans as well. A representative of the district’s security team was not immediately available for an interview about safety plans because DPS was focusing on addressing student and faculty welfare in the shooting’s aftermath, Childress said.

Generally, safety plans are one tool administrators can use to address “a variety of behavioral concerns or incidents regarding students and families,” Childress said.

The district declined to provide specific examples of how the plans might be implemented, or why, “due to the broad range in these plans and the individualization of each plan towards each circumstance and student.”

“Each safety plan is unique,” according to a statement Childress provided.

The Cherry Creek School District confirmed Lyle was previously a district student but was “removed” from Overland High School in Aurora for alleged violations of board policy, Denver Gazette news partner 9News learned. District spokesperson Ashley Verville said via email the district will not disclose any additional information about his past enrollment, citing the family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

Verville confirmed the district has students placed on safety plans but declined to provide further information about the district’s use of safety plans.

When a student transfers to another district, their education records transfer as well, Verville said, when asked if a receiving school is made aware of new students’ disciplinary history.

For another metro area district, safety plans are used and also vary by student and by whatever behaviors the plans are meant to address.

Kimberly Eloe, executive director of communications for Jeffco Public Schools, said via email that no one with the district was available for an interview regarding the use of safety plans because schools are on spring break.

“Student searches can be, and are, one component of our safety plans when appropriate and necessary,” the spokesperson’s email said.

When the district decides searches are necessary because they suspect a student may have a weapon, an armed school resource officer and law enforcement agency conduct the search.

“Jeffco Public Schools is committed to protecting the safety and well-being of our students and staff. We understand students learn best when they can attend classes in a secure and welcoming environment,” Eloe wrote.

In all, the district’s security staff is comprised of more than 145 people – an executive director of the Department of School Safety, 75 campus supervisors, emergency dispatchers, officers, a director of safe school environments, threat management professionals and emergency managers, among other security staff.

The district stations officers at each middle and high school, and 25 armed officers patrol the district’s schools 24/7. School resource officers work with each high school “and many of our middle schools,” the spokesperson said.

All elementary and middle schools use “fully secured access points,” which means guests at the school must be admitted through a single entrance and people cannot access the building through other doors.

The district has also nearly completed installing “secure vestibule entrances” at each school. This allows staff to let people into “a secure holding entrance” while they determine why someone has come to campus. If someone has only come to deliver a package, for example, “they can do so without ever fully accessing the school building.”

The DPS Board of Education held a special meeting on Thursday to address school security as the East High School community pleaded for leadership to heighten school safety.

The board voted unanimously to pause a policy that prevented the superintendent from allowing armed officers to be at DPS schools. The board had voted unanimously to cut ties with Denver police in June 2020, following the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police.