Dr. Donovan A. Collins This is Me

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1. 1. Who is Idahosa Edokpayi?

   whoisidaho.blogspot.com/2002_0 - [Cached]

   Published on: 4/15/2004   Last Visited: 12/10/2004

   Donovan Collins, the deputy chief of the Dallas Independent School District got up next to give us the low down on criminal activity in Dallas schools. After telling us that students see substitutes as giant "pork chops", (comforting indeed) he instructed us on how to manage violent situations in the classroom.

2. 2. The Dallas Weekly - No.1 in the African American Community

   www.dallasweekly.com/archive/3 - [Cached]

   Published on: 10/19/2001   Last Visited: 7/19/2002

   In Dallas, all such concerns and responsibilities rest - securely - on the shoulders of Officer Donovan A. Collins, Executive Director/Deputy Chief of Dallas Independent School District's Department of School Safety & Security. For the past five years, he has headed up DISD's division of Campus Services, putting him in charge of security matters for all 220 schools in the district. He has a total of 16 years with DISD's safety and security unit.[Continue ]
   
   B R I E F S
   
   DISD Superintendent Says Things Are Getting Better But More Improvement Is Needed
   
   Councilman Hospitalized

3. 3. The Dallas Weekly - No.1 in the African American Community

   www.theweeklyonline.com/archiv - [Cached]

   Published on: 9/8/2002   Last Visited: 9/8/2002

   "Every school is run differently because we know we're dealing with kids from all walks of life," said Collins. "Everybody has their own unique problems and the schools deal with them in their own unique way."
   
   Collins' department has been officially designated as the district's police department since 1993. However, he's not necessarily
   
   Donovan Collins, Executive Director of DISD's Safety and Security Department
   
   zoned in on strictly making arrests and catching bad guys. He works to execute a two-tier concept of
   
   enforcement and prevention, putting more emphasis on the latter element as much as possible.
   
   "We try to do a lot of one-on-one with the kids as much as we can," said Collins. "That's prevention at its highest."
   
   Collins and his unit conducts the arduous tasks of helping keep students in line. That also means dealing with matters ranging from truancies to dropout prevention and drugs and guns in schools.
   
   "We try to keep the outsiders out and the insiders in," said Collins, who brings extensive experience to his position. We has worked in all phases of school security, including working in middle and high schools, overseeing many of the district's sports and social events and heading up the task force that installed and implemented the metal detectors in Dallas' secondary schools in 1995. Collins actually served as chief briefly in 1998 before current chief Manuel Vasquez was appointed.
   ...
   "It's been a good 16 years," Collins reflected. His crew of 117 officers (40 of them certified to make arrests) are based in 33 Youth Action Centers spread out through designated schools across the district, usually based in a middle or high school. Some of his schools are also located outside Dallas city limits, in locations like Farmers Branch, Seagoville, Addison and Cockrell Hill.
   
   Collins expressed strong pride for his force, with whom he's managed to establish a loyal working relationship with. Some of them have provided security for DISD for up to twenty to thirty years, possessing significant intricate knowledge of those who work at the various schools and of many of the families who live in the residential areas.
   
   "He's a great guy to work for," said Lt.
   ...
   With prevention being is key objective, Collins has proactively prepared his officers with special training to offset anything similar to the recent string of school shootings around the country. Molding his officers to be role models in the community, he encourages them to be positively interactive in the schools.
   
   "Not only do we do a lot in the schools, we do a lot in the community as well," said Collins, a 1983 Kimball High School graduate. "Some of these officers I've got in the Youth Action Centers has spent over thirty years in the same school. They're educating the grandchildren of who they first knew. So, we kind of got an in-house Community Policing."
   
   Collins spoke of how many of his officers reach out to help troubled students from dysfunctional families receive the support needed to keep them from straying out in a negative direction.
   
   With that kind of loyal relationships, Collins' officers are able to attain both direct and anonymous information from members of their school's neighborhoods to prevent most potential criminal activity from erupting in their establishments. Knowing that their first concern is school security as opposed to making arrests, people in the community are more open to communicate with them.
   
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