Clay Sheriff And Schools Working To Improve School Safety

Clay County Sheriff’s Office and Clay County School System visited each system facility to explore safety concerns.

Sheriff Brandon Boone said that recent events like the tragedy in Uvalde have the two entities wanting to work together to better increase the safety of Clay County students.

“I have new deputies, they have new staff members and we wanted to take a day and go through all three schools,” Boone said. “Let the deputies who aren’t familiar with our schools get familiar with all the entries and exits. We addressed a lot of the security issues with each school.”

Boone said that because several schools were built more than 40 years ago, some of the classrooms aren’t conducive to safe learning spaces in a modern school setting. He said that many schools have more of an open concept with many windows and doors.

Boone said that while they have an SRO officer at each school, they plan on having round table discussions about other ways to improve school safety. He said one of the main things they’re trying to instill in officers is to not wait if there is a sign of danger.

“We’re striving to improve our training, improve the response to each school, and improve the knowledge of each officer,” Boone said. “Knowing what each school, how it’s designed, and how it’s laid out will ultimately improve response time should we have an incident like that.”