While the country is still recovering from a recent school shooting in Michigan, the incident has sparked renewed discussion of school safety both nationally and locally.
Nyah Hamlett is the superintendent of Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools and recently spoke during 97.9 The Hill’s “For ‘Em On The Hill.” She said the district is organizing ongoing assessments to evaluate school safety in the community.
“We actually have a team of folks who are in collaboration with our local police departments who are walking schools over the next couple of weeks before break to do an assessment of transition times or lunch time or who has access to certain areas of a building to really look at what those safety needs are,” Hamlett said.
Hamlett said from these assessments, the district will develop a multi-year plan for how to allocate resources to improve safety measures in building infrastructure.
As part of their own safety efforts, Orange County Schools recently conducted a safety audit. Connie Crimmins, who is the executive director of exceptional children pre-k services for Orange County Schools, said she is already beginning to see changes from that audit implemented. Educators now have to use work badges to enter buildings and the district is emphasizing fixing outstanding work orders.
“If you think about if, if we have a door that doesn’t latch, that’s a safety issue,” Crimmins said. “Simple things like that just to keep our building safe, clean and up to par.”
Chris Gammon, the executive director of curriculum and instruction for Orange County Schools also discussed the importance of infrastructure to school safety.
“[We’re] just constantly looking at the needs of students in the buildings,” he said, “whether its from a mental health standpoint, [a] physical safety standpoint, or working very closely with our law enforcement [and] our school resource officers to make sure that we have that frequent constant presence in schools.”
Meanwhile CHCCS is examining the role of School Resource Officers within its safety protocols. Earlier this year, the school board voted to bring back School Resource Officers after more than a year without them on campuses.
Other safety plans include the renovations of school buildings. Chapel Hill High School recently completed a renovation which included upgrades to create a safer school environment. Some of the safety upgrades included the installation of shatterproof windows and new security cameras.
Hamlett said the district is also creating a task force to determine other facility needs.
“We could certainly do some full renovations on buildings that are more than 25 years old,” Hamlett said. “We could also make some significant improvements along the way. It’s really just kind of that cost-benefit analysis to determine how we really support our schools and our staff to make sure that they have the best learning environments possible.”
To hear more from the K-12 Education For ‘Em On The Hill conversation, click here.
Photo via the Town of Chapel Hill
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