BROWNSTOWN
School safety continues to be a priority for Brownstown Central Community School Corp.
Superintendent Tim Taylor recently shared with the board of trustees that there will soon be three additional school safety specialists, teachers will have access to the SchoolGuard app and he hopes to receive funding for a second school resource officer.
Right now, elementary Assistant Principal Mike Kelley is a school safety specialist and is in charge of the corporation’s school safety plan. The plan is to have middle school Principal Doug McClure take advanced training and middle school Dean of Students Marty Young and high school Principal Joe Sheffer become certified.
"I want to make sure we have at least one person in each building," Taylor said of school safety specialists. "By the end of the school year, we’ll go from one to four people certified."
State statute requires a corporation to have at least one school safety specialist.
"I think we need someone in every building," Taylor said of having others certified. "We have more people who are knowledgeable and are able to bounce ideas off each other. All of us are smarter than one of us."
Taylor said the plan is to have the specialists involved in monthly safety meetings and also get some teachers and school resource officers involved.
"We can sit down and we can talk about safety concerns and strategies and how to address them and other things like that," he said.
The corporation currently has its first school resource officer, Samuel Hughes. Taylor said he should find out sometime in September if the corporation receives grant funding to hire a second school resource officer.
If awarded, the grant would fund part or all of the officer’s salary. Then the officer would have to go through SRO training. The plan is to have the officer in place at the schools sometime in early 2020.
Through a Homeland Security school safety grant, Brownstown also plans to give its staff members an opportunity to download the SchoolGuard app on their cellphones in the event of an emergency.
Taylor said the funding would cover the startup fee. If the corporation finds the app valuable, it could use funding from the school safety grant or make it a line item in the budget to cover the annual fee.
The app has a panic button that can be pushed to notify on- and off-duty federal, state and local law enforcement officers within close proximity to the school in the event of an active shooter or an intruder.
The app simultaneously speed dials 911 and connects the staff member to emergency services. Other staff members in the school with the app installed also are immediately alerted and receive a map of the location of the initial alert, allowing them to react accordingly. Even neighboring schools are instantly alerted of an active shooter emergency.
The app also helps with other situations, such as a medical emergency or when a staff member needs assistance in a classroom or elsewhere in the school building.
The service allows for unlimited downloads per school. The app is portable, effective and invisible to students, so it is out of reach to them to prevent false alarms.
Medora Community School Corp. staff members were given access to SchoolGuard in 2018.