Cobb schools safety

Top East Cobb stories for 2019: Lockdowns at high schools

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East Cobb school lockdowns

During the first weeks of the 2019-20 Cobb County School District academic year, two East Cobb high schools went on lockdown, and a student at another school was arrested after threatening violence and attacking a teacher.

Those incidents raised concerns by school safety advocates about the district’s measures to handle such incidents.

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A trespasser was quickly apprehended after walking onto the Sprayberry campus with a gun and a Wheeler student was arrested after other students alerted teachers and staff that he had carried a gun on a school bus.

At Walton High School, a student was arrested for making terroristic threats, saying he would shoot up the school when he was taken from a class for having alcohol in a water bottle. He also was charged with battery for kicking a teacher.

An East Cobb parent who helped form a Cobb schools safety group last year acknowledged that the district is taking more concerted steps to ensure safety and communicate better, but still thinks its approach is largely reactive.

She’d like to see the district invest more in mental health counseling and a “social emotional learning” program other school systems have begun.

The Walton incident wasn’t made public for a week, and then only because of news reports, while the Sprayberry and Wheeler cases were made public the day they occurred.

The district has continued to stress its safety resource effort called Cobb Shield, which contains information about its police force, emergency management procedures and code red drills, which are required each semester at all 16 high schools.

District spokesman John Floresta said Cobb schools was “batting 100 percent in the way each incident [at the East Cobb schools] was handled,” from quick actions by school officials to apprehend those posing a threat, to relaying information to the school community.

“We’re being as proactive as any school district I know,” he said.

 

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Cobb schools safety preparations to include unannounced ‘code red’ drills

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Chris Ragsdale, Cobb schools superintendent
Chris Ragsdale, Cobb schools superintendent

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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