School Safety Commission to visit Junction City School District

Members of the Arkansas School Safety Commission will visit the Junction City School District tomorrow for a site visit to review safety practices within the district.

The Safety Commission, formed via executive order by Gov. Asa Hutchinson in March, has been performing school visits since then, said Arkansas Department of Education Communications Director Kimberly Friedman.

“The governor appointed this commission several months ago to look at school safety, and part of what they’re doing is they’re traveling around the state and looking at different schools and what their practices they have in place to promote school safety [are],” Friedman said.

A final report detailing the commission’s safety recommendations is due to the governor by Nov. 30.

Junction City School District Superintendent Robby Lowe said he was looking forward to the meeting.

“Any time we can get enlightened on things, we’re certainly going to welcome their comments and suggestions,” he said.

Lowe said Commissioner Ray Montgomery reached out to him about the meeting. He said an email correspondence with Montgomery emphasized a roundtable discussion about the district’s safety procedures. Lowe said the email correspondence also asked for a tour of some of the school facilities.

“If they want to tour buildings, we’ll walk them around. We have nine of them,” he said.

Lowe said the roundtable discussion will focus on school safety measures, particularly focus areas outlined by the commission in an initial report released to Hutchinson in July.

Lowe said specifically, Montgomery said in their email correspondence that the commission would discuss policies and procedures relating to mental health, law enforcement, intelligence and communication, emergency operations planning and physical security, among other topics, with district officials.

Lowe said the district has recently implemented new safety procedures that he hopes to get feedback on. He said most of the changes they’ve made are procedural changes to emergency policies such as lockdown, active shooter and evacuation plans.

Junction City High School also recently replaced their glass doors with new steel ones. Lowe said the changes were based on in-house suggestions and conferences district officials attended over the summer.

Lowe said he hopes the meeting will help the district strengthen its security.

“We want to do everything we can to have as safe a school as we possibly can, so whatever they suggest to us, I’m sure we’ll do our best to implement it,” Lowe said. “[I hope] for them to show us something that we’re not doing that we need to be doing; that we kind of have the ‘a-ha!’ moment.”

The meeting is open to the public. It will take place at 10 a.m. Friday in the Special Programs Meeting Room at the JCSD building at 100 W. Holly St.