District looks at safety measures
Board told of plans for 2 new schools, next steps for others
The shooting deaths of 17 people last month at a Parkland, Fla., high school caused the Jacksonville/North Pulaski County School Board on Monday to re-evaluate building access and safety features at district schools, particularly those of two campuses now under construction.
The board heard the campus security report at a meeting in which it approved salary schedules for the coming 2018-19 school year. The new schedule includes additional pay for teachers who have master’s degrees plus 30 additional hours of postgraduate work or who have a specialist certificate or doctorate. Currently, the teacher salary amounts are capped at a master’s degree plus 15 hours of postgraduate work.
The board’s discussion on school safety came just days after Gov. Asa Hutchinson announced that he is committing $300,000 for the training of school resource officers and for school security assessments. He also established a school safety commission that will meet for the first time March 13 to consider a wide range of issues related to student and staff safety at schools.
Eldon Bock of WER Architects/Planners, the firm that designed the Bobby G. Lester Elementary and the new Jacksonville High School, described for the board the access systems at the new schools that will keep most doors locked on the outside and can only be opened with card readers or with centrally controlled devices and timers.
Even entry to the front of the schools will be limited, requiring visitors entering the front vestibules to be “buzzed” into the locked school offices to be checked out and, from there, allowed to access the locked main part of the schools.
Parking lot gates controlled by proximity readers or electronic latches also would be used to limit traffic on school grounds at times other than at the start and end of the school day, he said.
Chris Oldham, the district’s director of security, said the Jacksonville/North Pulaski schools already have evacuation plans.
The district is increasing its active-shooter drills for students and staff from one a year to two, he said. All district staff members are to be trained in the coming months on how to respond to active shooters. The district is also in discussions with the Jacksonville Police Department and the county judge for additional school resource officers, who are armed law enforcement officers. Three Jacksonville officers now are working with the district along with nine district-employed campus security officers.
“Panic buttons” that provide direct access to the Police Department and districtwide text messaging system are other existing safety features in the district, Oldham said. Cameras will be installed in all classrooms over the next couple of years, Oldham said.
The School Board asked Oldham, Bock and other district leaders to prepare a list of options and estimated costs for additional safety features — particularly in regard to glass-walled entryways.