When Practice and Evidence Converge
What the Foxborough case study reinforces about systems-based school safety
Mark Zirtzlaff
MZ Security Consulting
A practitioner reflection on independent evidence, systems alignment, and the conditions that allow safety to be experienced, not merely installed.
When I first developed the philosophy behind MZ Security Consulting and TIRRA+™, I wasn't trying to create another safety program. I was trying to answer a different question:
What makes a school safety system actually work?
My experience had taught me that safety doesn't exist in isolated pieces. Physical safeguards matter. Emergency preparedness matters. But so do adult practice, communication, relationships, leadership, developmental appropriateness, community partnerships, and what happens after an incident.
Those ideas became a part of the TIRRA+™ framework and the way MZ approaches school safety assessment.
That's why the recently published Foxborough Public School case study caught my attention.
Not because Foxborough implemented TIRRA+™. It didn't. And not because the study evaluated MZ Security Consulting. It didn't.
What caught my attention was something much more useful:
Independent convergence.
Foxborough's experience provides a real-world example of several principles that had already shaped the MZ approach to school safety. And I think there are important lessons in that convergence for school leaders.
What Caught My Attention
The numbers in the Foxborough Public School case study are certainly worth noticing.
From 2022-2023 to 2025-2026, favorable parent and guardian perceptions in Safety and Behavior increased from 70% to 84%, while favorable responses among secondary students increased from 68% to 80%.
But the numbers aren't what interested me most, it was how the district approached the work.
Many of the safety practices described in the case study weren't new. What changed was how those practices were communicated, contextualized, informed by community perspectives, and embedded within a comprehensive and layered system.
That distinction matters.
Because it raises a question I believe more school leaders should be asking:
Before we add another safety measure, do we fully understand how the measures we already have are working?
That question sits very close to the philosophy that shaped MZ Security Consulting and TIRRA+™.
Here are the five areas where I see meaningful convergence.
1. School Safety Is a System, Not a Collection of Products
One of the strongest elements of the Foxborough case study is its layered view of safety.
The districts framework brings together safety infrastructure, disciplinary protocols, behavior management, emergency and crisis response, safety practices, community partnerships, mental health supports, and student belonging, with communication, transparency, feedback, and responsiveness surrounding the broader system.
That is important because none of those elements operates in isolation.
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A locked entrance matters.
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Emergency procedures matter.
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Mental health support matters.
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Adult practice matters.
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Relationships matter.
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Communication matters.
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Community partnerships matter.
The question isn't which one matters most. The question is whether they work together.
That systems perspective has been central to TIRRA+™ from the beginning. The Core Framework already brings together all-hazards readiness, predictable adult practice, developmental alignment, recovery, climate and culture, accessibility, community partnerships, and continuous improvement. That's why I see the Foxborough findings as convergence, not validation.
Foxborough developed its approach.
I developed mine.
What interests me is that both point toward a similar systems-level question:
Are the individual parts of school safety actually functioning as a system?
2. Understanding What You Have Before Deciding What You Need
This may be the part of the case study that resonated with me most.
One of the report's recommendations to district leaders is simple: "Start with what you have."
The report notes that many districts may already have comprehensive safety practices. The gap may not necessarily be in what they are doing, but in how well their communities understand what they are doing.
This is remarkably close to the philosophy behind the MZ Safety Systems Assessment.
Understand what you have before deciding what you need.
A good assessment shouldn't start with a shopping list.
It shouldn't begin with the assumption that a district needs another camera, another training program, another policy, or another piece of technology.
It should begin with questions:
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What is already working?
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What should be preserved?
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Where are the gaps?
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Where does written policy differ from everyday practice?
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What do students, staff, and families actually understand?
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Where are systems operating independently when they should be connected?
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And only then: What deserves attention?
The purpose of an assessment shouldn't be to justify a predetermined solution. The assessment should inform the response, not predetermine it.
3. Communication Is Part of Safety Infrastructure
The Foxborough case study makes a statement that I think deserves considerably more attention in the school safety conversation.
The district treated: "Communication as infrastructure, not an afterthought."
That phrase stopped me.
Schools can have excellent policies and procedures, but those systems become fully operational only when the people responsible for carrying them out understand them.
Foxborough used parent letters, FAQs, emergency terminology guidance, visitor procedures, public safety updates, student assemblies, localized emergency response materials, and other communication approaches to make existing practices understandable to the community.
That reinforces something I have increasingly emphasized with TIRRA+™.
Communication isn't complete when a message is sent. It is complete when people understand what it means and what they are expected to do.
There is an important difference between: We told them. and: They understand.
In school safety, that difference matters.
4. Assessment Has Value When It Informs Action
Foxborough also did something with its data that I find especially instructive. The district paid attention to "Don't know" responses.
Rather than automatically interpreting uncertainty as dissatisfaction, the district identified an awareness gap and acted on it through targeted communication and increased visibility of information. The report provides an example of parent and guardian perceptions of School Resource Officers (RSOs): favorable responses increased from 72% to 83% while "Don't know" responses decreased from 24% to 13%.
That's a subtle but important leadership lesson.
Sometimes the problem isn't: people disagree with what we're doing.
Sometimes the problem is: people don't know what we're doing.
These require very different responses.
That's why I am increasingly convinced that the most important part of an assessment isn't the report. It's what happens after the report.
Collecting information isn't improvement.
Identifying a gap isn't improvement.
The value comes from using evidence to determine an appropriate response, acting on it, and then looking again.
Your people should be able to see that their feedback went somewhere. Otherwise, assessment risks becoming an exercise rather than a continuous improvement process.
5. Safety Is Both Conditional and an Experience
This may be the deepest point of convergence for me.
The Foxborough case study describes a district in which many safety practices were already established, yet stakeholders' perceptions and understanding changed over the period examined. That distinction gets to the heart of something I've been trying to articulate through the Dual-Risk approach.
We absolutely need to evaluate the conditions of safety.
Are access points controlled?
Are emergency procedures effective?
Are communication systems operational?
Are protective measures appropriate?
Are reporting mechanisms available?
Are people prepared?
Those are essential questions. But there is another set of questions.
Do people understand those systems?
Do staff interpret expectations differently?
Do students know where to seek help?
Do families understand what will happen during an emergency?
Do relationships support reporting and early intervention?
Does everyday practice reflect what the written plan says should happen?
Those questions examine the human experience of the safety system.
One does not replace the other.
Physical safeguards cannot substitute for the people, communication, relationships, and practices that make a safety system function.
And strong relationships and predictable adult practice cannot substitute for appropriate physical safeguards and emergency preparedness.
Both matter.
That's why I have increasingly come to describe school safety this way: Safety is both a condition and an experience.
Strong school safety systems have to pay attention to both.
The Important Limit
There is one distinction I want to make very clear. The Foxborough Public School case study does not prove that TIRRA+™ works.
Foxborough did not implement TIRRA+™ and the case study did not evaluate MZ Security Consulting.
The improvements reported also cannot responsibly be attributed to communication, relationships, SROs, mental health supports, or any other single component. The report describes a layered approach containing multiple interconnected practices.
I'm not interested in borrowing Foxborough's results and presenting them as evidence of mine. I'm interested in something else.
What can we learn when an independent district experience begins pointing toward principles we already reached through a different path?
That's where I think the case study becomes especially valuable.
An independent district, using its own approach, arrived at practices and lessons that converge with many of the same principles. For me, that's exactly what emerging evidence should do. It shouldn't be used to declare victory. It should make us look harder at our assumptions, compare what we're seeing in practice, and ask better questions.
Before we add another layer of safety, do we really understand the system we already have?
Because the goal isn't to accumulate more safety measures. The goal is to make the safety system work.
When Practice and Evidence Converge
The ideas explored in this article are not simply theoretical. The Sogolytics Beyond School Safety: The Foxborough Case Study offers a compelling real-world example of what can happen when school safety is approached as more than the addition of security measures.
Foxborough Public Schools already had safety practices in place. What changed was how the district used feedback to better communicate those practices, explain their purpose, and build trust within the school community. According to Sogolytics, parent perceptions of safety increased from 70% to 84%, while secondary student perceptions increased from 68% to 80%.
For me, the significance of the case study goes beyond the numbers. It reinforces a central principle of systems-based school safety: having good practices in place is not enough. Those practices must be understood, connected, communicated, and experienced by the people they are intended to protect.