Board approves receiving update on LRSD safety

District will prepare report

The Little Rock School Board on Thursday passed a motion to receive a school safety report from district administrators next month.

Board member Jeff Wood, who introduced the resolution, said it’s important to receive a safety and security update so that the board will have the information it needs for further study and conversation after recent mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York. However, he said, the district report would provide board members an update, not require them to immediately enact any change.

“The resolution regarding school security is not a board policy statement on school security or an action step for us to take,” Wood said. “It is a resolution directly to provide us the in-depth report.”

Board member Ali Noland said the district has “long been ahead” of other districts in proactively addressing school security and safety. Noland said these conversations aren’t just happening following tragedies, but are a routine part of her work as a board member.

As the district prepared for graduation ceremonies this year, for example, Noland recalled working with Superintendent Mike Poore and the Little Rock Police Department to ensure students, staff and attendees were safe at the ceremonies.

Noland said she supported the resolution, but she hopes the board will use the information the district provides to make evidence-based decisions that will make students and staff safe rather than make leaders “feel good.”

She said she hopes the report considers strategies like academic and behavioral interventions, social work and mental health services and changing school cultures to addressing bullying and seriously assess threats made on social media.

“Those initiatives are frankly much more difficult and require more resources than hiring personnel,” Noland said. “But a lot of those evidence-based approaches are actually things the district is already in the process of implementing.”

“We also have to remember this — if you want a gun, you’re going to get a gun,” Board Member Norma Johnson said.

She said she supports the resolution to give the district a better idea of what it needs to update and where it needs to make progress, but she said she also believes it’s important for community members to look out for one another.

“We have to make sure that we’ve got something that we can teach the community, teach the children, teach everybody [to] ‘see something, say something,’” she said.

Board member Leigh Ann Wilson also said she’s in favor of receiving the report, as there’s not a single district employee who has not thought about what they would do to protect their students when something happens.

“We need to look at it,” she said. “What are we doing? What can we be doing better? Where are we?”