SCHOOL SAFETY IN MT. LEBANON

A holistic approach to school safety was the topic of the Mt. Lebanon School District’s third annual school safety summit on Oct. 10 at the high school.

“The board has made a commitment to safety and security,” said school board President Michael Riemer, who introduced the evening’s speakers, Superintendent Timothy Steinhauer and Mt. Lebanon Police Chief Aaron Lauth.

Last year, the board earmarked $1 million for school safety.

“Every morning when I wake up, one of the first things I think of is keeping our kids safe,” Mr. Steinhauer said.

“Our thinking about safety and security has evolved over time” to an approach that accounts for both the physical and psychological safety of all students in the district, he said.

That focus includes training for all staff in mental health and well-being as well as trauma-informed care, which helps to promote safety and empowerment.

School counselors are on staff in all of the district’s schools including its seven elementary schools, which is new for the 2019-20 school year.

Additionally, the district has been focusing on social and emotional well-being with a program called Project 13.

Mr. Steinhauer said that with Project 13, students in every grade focus on one or two of 25 different social and emotional well-being factors every year. The goal is to get through all 25 by the time students graduate. The factors consist of topics such as respecting others and learning about each other’s differences.

The district has also made capital improvements with additional bollards and security cameras.

Last year, the district added a school resource officer, Officer Bryan Henley, who is a member of the Mt. Lebanon Police Department but works in the schools.

This year, Mt. Lebanon implemented the Raptor visitor management system. With the new system, every visitor to one of the district’s schools must present a form of stateissued identification, which is then put through the Raptor system and checked against lists like the Megan’s Law offender list.

“One of our main goals was to come up with a consistent process” for visitors to the district, Chief Lauth said.

The district also participates in the statewide program Safe 2 Say Something, which is an anonymous reporting app students can download to their mobile devices.

Chief Lauth said the No. 1 type of tip that comes in statewide through the Safe 2 Say app is suicide prevention.

“A lot of lives have probably been saved,” he said.

Additionally, students and teachers are trained using the ALICE method, which stands for alert, lockdown, inform, counter and evacuate.

“Everything is handled with kids in an age-appropriate way,” Mr. Steinhauer said. “We aren’t looking to scare our kids.”

“Both Aaron and I feel very strongly about our schools and our community,” Mr. Steinhauer added. “We have 5,500 kids who come to our buildings every day, and we’re going to do everything we possibly can to make sure that they are safe here.”

The full presentation is available on the district’s website: www.mtlsd.org.