By Shannon McFarlin WENK/WTPR News Director
Paris, Tenn.—At Tuesday’s school board meeting, Paris Special Schools District Director of Schools Dr. Norma Gerrell presented a comprehensive overview of what the district is doing to ensure the safety of its students and teachers every day.
“Safety is our No. 1 concern,” Dr. Gerrell said. “It’s our core value. It’s not just something we say.”
Board President Richard Edwards said a workshop meeting will be set up soon in which school officials, all of the district’s School Resource Officers (SROs), and board members will fully discuss the issue of safety in the local schools.
“As we all know,” Edwards said, “there is not a school board or parent in this country that doesn’t have safety on their minds. We are constantly doing things to improve on our school safety and we think we are doing a good job.”
Parents are concerned, he said, “and rightfully so. We need to be proactive on our safety concerns and we are lucky to have an SRO in every one of our schools.”
Edwards said that social media “can be a great tool to get the message out to parents, but it also can open a can of worms”. He noted the incident on Friday morning in which misinformation was spread on a local Facebook page—people began posting inaccurate information claiming that the high school was on lockdown and there was a big police presence at the school, which caused parents to become unnecessarily worried.
Edwards said many comment on social media “who have never been in the schools and have no clue what they’re saying.”
“Everyone has a stake in this,” he said. “We want to provide the most safe environment we can.”
Gerrell distributed a list of security measures that are being taken in the PSSD district every day:
–SROs routinely check doors during the school day to make sure they are locked and no entry is accessible other than the front door of each building including PreK.
–The front door of PreK now has a buzzer to alert office staff that someone has entered the office area.
–Buses are turned off during loading and unloading in order to keep students safe as buses are less likely to be knocked out of gear and move when engines are off.
–The district has added Ident-A-Kids to each school office. Visitors must scan their driver’s license and a visitor’s badge is issued. The driver’s license will alert office staff and administrators if the visitor is on the sex offender registry.
–Beginning this school year, all faculty and staff are required to wear badges at all times. Students have been trained to look for PSSD badges or visitor passes and report any adult not having those to a teacher.
–No doors propped open during the school day.
–Active safety committee in each building.
–Cameras are tied to 911 and are constantly monitored by 911 dispatchers.
–Camera upgrades and additional cameras inside and outside, much better view and much better resolution.
–Cameras are used in discipline incidents and have been a deterrent.
–All school and district safety plans are updated for the current school year.
–Principals are conducting safety and security walks with SROS and looking at their safety plans to see what we might be missing. SROs will meet with teachers during planning to go over the findings, revisit plans and answer questions.
–Safety drills are in the rotation of practice for fire, tornado, earthquake, intruder and AED use.
Gerrell will be attending a safety seminar on March 6 and will be following up with safety plans with principals.
Photo: Board President Richard Edwards, center, addresses school safety issues while board members Bill Jelks and Missy Klutts listen. (Shannon Mcfarlin photo).
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