News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Homeland security officials have spent this week touring White County school facilities as part of a statewide security assessment for public schools.
It marks the first time that the state has has led a comprehensive effort to determine the security needs at each individual school. The recommendation to conduct the assessments came from a school safety working group appointed by Governor Bill Haslam earlier this year.
Director of Schools Kurt Dronebarger said the assessment will identify vulnerabilities that need to be addressed.
“The idea is to point out where those weaknesses might be and where there might be a chink in the armor, ” Dronebarger said. “The various agencies are there to help us through the process, but its’ really kind of self-implemented.”
Earlier this year Governor Bill Haslam announced $30 million dollars in grant funding that would be used to provide additional resources to meet immediate security needs at public schools. Dronebarger said the school system will use the assessment to apply for the grant funding.
“We will submit that information to the state department and start the application process.” Dronebarger said. “There is a very tight timeline to make all of this happen in order to put the money in place.”
As part of the school assessment, Dronebarger and school district leaders from across the Upper Cumberland underwent assessment training last week.
“They walked us through different things that we need to look at. It has everything to do with the proximity to four lane highways, from the proximity of your school to hazardous chemicals, and how isolated the school is,” Dronebarger said.
Dronebarger said the assessment for each facility includes a checklist of 89 different questions and a rubric to help place each school into categories of threat levels.
Dronebarger said he’s starting to notice some things that need to be done, like eliminating shrubbery in front of buildings and access to the buildings from the roofs and vents.
“There is some some eye-opening things that were good for us, even though some of those were not applicable, there were certainly some things that we don’t think about from a school standpoint that were safety measures we need to look at,” Dronebarger said.
Dronebarger said there’s no answer to the school safety problem, but he’s happy that the state legislature is looking at ways to make it better.
“Some people need more SROs, some people need more cameras, and some people need more secure vestibules at their facilities,” Dronebarger said. “There were so many different needs and I think the governor finally determined that if we provide an assessment, we can let local education agencies figure out what their needs are.”
