Spanish Fork Police provide radios to schools

Spanish Fork’s Chief of Police, Steve Adams, presented direct com- munication radios to the Nebo School Board of Education for every school in the district.

“It was stated in a news article and I con- cur, ‘In the race to protect American stu- dents from shootings, one of the simplest and most affordable up- grades authorities can make is to put a two- way police radio inside every school,’” Adams said. “Clear and direct communication speeds up the response to life-threatening emer- gencies.”

The Spanish Fork Police Department approached the Op- erations Board of the Central Utah Dispatch

Center and asked how to implement this di- rect communication link through radios in Nebo School District.

Then came a collabo- rative meeting between Spanish Fork Law En- forcement, Superinten- dent Rick Nielsen, and the legal staff. Nebo could see the benefits and without hesitation were on board with the project.

Several generous peo- ple and entities received news of this new direct communication link and expressed a desire to get involved to keep schools safe.

With the help of gen- erous donations from the community and community organiza- tions, Lieutenant Cory Slaymaker quickly purchased the radios for the Spanish Fork schools.

He and Kathy Carling, Nebo District’s Risk Manager, met with each of the school ad- ministrators in Span- ish Fork to train them on the radios as well as policy and procedures.

They continued to hear much gratitude from the school prin- cipals. Carling reached out to the other Public Safety entities to see if they were interested in cooperating with oth- er Nebo schools in the district with this direct communication link.

At this time, all the radios have been dis- tributed and adminis- tration trained. Nebo School District seems to be the first school district in the State of Utah to have this direct communication.