The day after a mass shooting at a south Florida high school left at least 17 people dead, Cobb County School District superintendent Chris Ragsdale said the district would be re-evaluating safety protocols and continue plans to better prepare staff and students to respond to emergency situations.
At a Cobb Board of Education work session Thursday, Ragsdale updated board members on those efforts, including what he said would be unannounced code red drills to boost preparedness. He said those drills would be “absolutely uncomfortable” for people at the schools that are selected.
Those drills would serve as preparation for the most severe level of emergencies, including active shooter situations.
“Our student and staff safety is our top priority,” Ragsdale said during the lengthy discussion, which was not initially on the board’s agenda. The topic was added after he received e-mails from parents and students in wake of the Florida tragedy, the third-deadliest school shooting in U.S. history.
Yesterday a former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Broward County walked into the building and began shooting with an AR-15 rifle.
The suspect, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, was taken into custody, and at least 14 other people are hospitalized. Some of the dead include teachers and coaches who shielded students from the gunfire.
Ragsdale said all of Cobb’s 112 schools are required to have at least one code red drill per semester. Principals underwent further training in safety protocols in January.
Ragsdale also said all classroom doors in school buildings are marked from the outside for first responders, and current Cobb Ed-SPLOST V funding has been earmarked to continue efforts to improve access control measures at elementary and middle schools.
“The message to our parents, students, staff, and community is that we are not just saying that safety is our top priority, we mean it,” Ragsdale said.
He later acknowledged that “there’s no way to put parents completely at ease.”
During the presentation, which included questions from board members, Ragsdale showed a video detailing an enhanced security alert system called AlertPoint, which is being demonstrated at two schools this year, including Bells Ferry Elementary School.
That system allows teachers and staff to trigger an alert for emergencies, similar to fire alarms.
Ragsdale said high schools pose the most challenging safety issues because they have multiple points of entry. Several Cobb high schools have “buzz in” requirements, already in place in elementary and middle schools but he did not identify those high schools.
After schools have code red drills, the district’s public safety department conducts an evaluation to provide feedback. Another new “suspicious persons” measure would have plain-clothes staffers from the Cobb schools police department enter a school and see how far they can go before being noticed.
Ragsdale said Cobb schools “are doing more” than any other school district in the state to improve safety.
While it’s “impossible” to completely prevent someone from coming in a school with an attack in mind, he said that “what we have to be able to answer is: Do we have in place all the options that we can possibly have to ensure the safety and security of our staff and students?”
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