News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Pickett County Schools are looking for ways to fund a new panic button security system for teachers and staff.
Director of Schools Diane Elder said the system would equip all employees with their own lanyard containing a button to press in case of emergency. Elder said they will be applying for a COPS grant to fund the system as it costs some $100,000.
“And no matter where you’re located on school campus, if you press that panic button it’s going to contact someone,” Elder said. “Emergency services or our SRO or a principal or whomever depending on how you press the button.”
Elder said the system would be part of a larger effort to improve the district’s security that includes items like new signage and posts to stop cars from getting too close to a school building. Elder said they are doing everything they can to prevent the recent rise in school threats from coming to them.
“What our chances are of getting this, I don’t know,” Elder said. “But it might be something that we just need to dig a little deeper and see if we can’t find something else that is available to help us pay for it.”
The system is called Centegix. The system would help officials deal with security threats. Elder said the increased number of false threats made across the Upper Cumberland since school started this year is concerning.
Elder said students who make these threats fail to understand how serious they are, how much damage they do, and the important resources they waste.
“I blame a lot of this on social media,” Elder said. “On being able to send the snapchats and put it all on the social media.”
Elder said it is necessary to press charges against such students so they come to understand the consequences of such harmful actions.
“Anything they do on the weekend that carries over to school on Monday morning, we have to take it serious,” Elder said. “Even though they may not mean it against the school as a whole, but it does carry over into the school and create issues for us to deal with.”
Elder said she frequently talks with Sheriff Dana Dowdy about how they can to discourage students who see the attention these incidents get and consider doing it themselves for the same result.
