Here's how Alabama school officials are keeping students safe

Additional entry doors were added to Madison County's Buckhorn High School to improve school safety.

As Alabama's children return to school, safety is on the minds of many school officials. Districts across the state used the summer months to add security upgrades to their schools and train teachers and school personnel in new ways of keeping students safe.

"There's more interest in school safety than anything I've seen in probably 20 years," Alabama Superintendent Eric Mackey said.

The intense focus on school safety comes in the wake of the tragic Valentine's Day shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., where a former student killed 17 students and staff. Weeks later, on May 18, a student killed 10 students and staff at Santa Fe High School in Texas.

Though Alabama lawmakers were unable to agree on new laws aimed at improving school safety, they did open up funding earmarked for school technology to be used for school security measures. That $41 million was divided among 137 school districts based on enrollment, with amounts for districts ranging from $24,800 in Linden City Schools to $2.9 million in Mobile County.

Alabama Superintendent Eric Mackey has to sign off on district requests to spend that money. Mackey said districts are spending that money on locks and cameras and other things to secure school campuses. "We are getting requests on those every day," he said.

In addition to building upgrades, Mackey said school officials are asking for help implementing threat assessment programs, which means training for counselors and teachers to identify students who may pose a threat to themselves or others at school. Mental health services are a big part of keeping schools and students safe, he said, and districts are interested in adding those services for students.

Education officials statewide have said having a school resource officer, or SRO, on a campus is a good way to keep students safe, but that costs money that some school districts just don't have. Local law enforcement, government, and school districts often share the cost of having that SRO on campus, and a recent survey by the state department of education found one in four schools doesn't have a security officer on campus.

Mackey said they're working to get more SRO's into schools as well as more money for security improvements, and the Alabama Board of Education's budget request to state lawmakers in 2019 will reflect that increased priority on school safety.

Ryan Hollingsworth recently took over as leader of the state superintendent association in July after being superintendent in Marion County for 10 years. He said school safety is always on school officials' minds. "Your number one priority," he said, "is to assure that parent or grandparent that when we pick that child up in the morning, we get that child back home safe."

Keeping schools and students safe looks different in school districts across the state, he said, because what is needed in a rural school is likely different than what a school located in a big city may need for security.

AL.com asked school officials across Alabama what they are doing to keep students safe this school year.

MOBILE COUNTY

Mobile County Public Schools, the state's largest system with over 56,000 students in 88 schools, has 13 school resource officers (12 in the schools, and one director). The school system has formed a safety committee that includes representatives from state and local municipalities, law enforcement, etc.

Rena Phillips, the school system's spokeswoman, said Mobile County has adopted new safety and security procedures from a group called the ALICE (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter and Evacuate) Training Institute.

She said that administrators from all 88 schools attended ALICE training this summer through a combination of online and hands-on sessions. The administrators are now returning to their schools to train their faculty and students on the new procedures, Phillips said.

ALICE is designed to offer survival enhancing options for more proactive responses to threats of violence and intruders or active shooters, she said. The program is in use by more than 4,000 K-12 schools and nearly 1,000 postsecondary institutions around the country.

"We hope we never have to put this into practice," said Andy Gatewood, the school system's director of security. "However, it is very important that we are prepared. If there ever is an event where we need to put this into practice, we want the kids to know exactly what to do, and for the staff to know what to do."

The school system is also in the process of securing doors, adding security cameras, etc. All of the elementary schools and one middle school have new lock systems that requires visitors to be buzzed in after they are first viewed on camera.

BALDWIN COUNTY

Baldwin County Sheriff Huey "Hoss" Mack said his department recently sponsored the National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO) during a basic SRO certification class.

From that, 24 new SROs from various agencies in Baldwin County graduated. Assignments were made last week to cover all of the county's 46 schools ahead of Monday's first day of school.

"Some campuses may have intermittent coverage until additional officers can be hired," said Mack, in an email to AL.com. "We are working closely with the (police) chiefs and Superintendent (Eddie) Tyler to ensure complete coverage as soon as personnel levels permit."

The School Board, in June, approved spending $1.5 million for a new program that ensured every school in the county had a NASRO-trained school resource officer in place during the 2018-2019 school year.

Baldwin County is the third largest public school system in Alabama, and enrolls more than 31,000 students. It was the first of the largest school districts in the state to commit to hiring and placing a SRO at everyone one of its schools.

SARALAND CITY

Saraland City Schools, with an enrollment of over 3,000 students, is in the processing of training two armed NASRO-certified school resource officers. Two are already trained and are in place for the beginning of the school year.

Saraland City Schools are comprised of an elementary school (grades pre-K to fourth), middle school (grades 5-8) and high school (grades 9-10). It also includes an early education center.

According to Superintendent Aaron Milner, the school system spent $200,000 to upgrade the security at its schools. That includes upgrading the radio system for better communication between administrators, the camera systems at various schools and securing the foyers in each of the facilities.

He said the school district did not have to cut anything from its budget to pay for the upgrades.

BLOUNT COUNTY

Superintendent Rodney Green said the Blount County School System will begin the school year with 10 certified SROs, which is the same number the school district had at the end of the last school year.

"We share SROs," said Green. The school district includes 17 schools, some of which include smaller locations with fewer than 50 students.

He said that hiring five additional SRO's will add the right number to what the school district needs.

"We haven't been able financially to add more than what we have," said Green. "We are hoping to see more money out of the Legislature to add some more."

The school district, which is located north of Jefferson County, did add a new scanning device called "Raptor." He said the new devices scan a visitor's driver's license before they can enter a school.

"We scan it through the computerized machine and it detects the background or a sex offense issue where they do not need to have contact with a child or we try to verify who they are and if school officials know them," said Green.

He said the school district is also adding mental health counseling to four of its schools through Gateway mental health services out of Birmingham.

BIRMINGHAM CITY

Birmingham City Schools, the state's second-largest city school district with just under 23,000 students, has completed many upgrades through the summer. The district placed a renewed focus on school safety after Huffman High senior Courtlin Arrington was shot and killed at school by a student on March 7.

District officials said they are still reviewing school safety plans and have placed school resource officers in all seven of the district's high schools. Security cameras in place in all schools, and metal detectors are used in high schools as a deterrent.

In a statement provided to AL.com, district officials said they have ensured all outside doors to all schools are locked or access-controlled and are in the process of putting alarms on doors at their high schools.

Students are participating in safety drills multiple times a year, including lockdown, shelter-in-place and fire drills. School counselors and social workers are available to support students who are worried or have concerns about tragedies in the community.

Students and communities are encouraged to report suspicious activity and can use the anonymous tip line (1-877-250-2830) to report threats. "If you see something, say something," the statement read.

At a town hall meeting in March to discuss how gun violence impacts students and the community, Superintendent Lisa Herring said even with all of the security improvements they are implementing, the most powerful thing Birmingham City School employees need to do to keep students safe is to build relationships with them.

"[Children] need to have trusting relationships with some adult in the building that if they see something, and they need to say something," Herring said, "that they have someone that they trust that they can say something to." The district is working to improve those relationships, she said.

TUSCALOOSA CITY

"Safety is everybody's responsibility," Tuscaloosa City School Superintendent Mike Daria said. With more than 10,000 students and 1,450 teachers in the district, Daria said, "I think we're moving safety from being a priority of the time based on current events to more of a value of schools that has to run through all of our thinking moving forward."

Daria said around five years ago, the district began focusing on improving student safety and implemented a number of initiatives like adding social workers, using local tax dollars, to support students and putting a bullying awareness program in place that helped school officials develop a protocol for not only reporting bullying but following through with resolving the problem.

In addition to adding security measures like installing a visitor tracking system and putting security cameras in place, Daria said they had to work to remove the idea that reacting to a crisis required an administrative decision.

Daria said among teachers, this message---"You are empowered to make the decisions for the safety of you and your children" ---has become somewhat of a mantra in an effort to move away from a top-down way of thinking about safety.

"We had to move from a mentality, as a culture," Daria said, "that if a crisis occurs, in a building, you have to look for a principal, and then the principal needs to make a decision about going on lock down." That top-down approach was cumbersome, he said, and school personnel thought only a principal could call 911.

Daria said they told educators to call 911, and the district would deal with any negative press that resulted. Getting help on its way to the school was more important, he said. "It's all about time."

Daria said mental health services for students are a priority, too. "We've tried to get unapologetic about removing barriers," he said. The district has a partnership with a local mental health provider and now all 21 schools have a therapist on campus.

Asked if the conversation around school safety has shifted, Daria said in the past, there was an "ebb and flow" to school safety conversations that flared up around shootings at schools. "Now we're staying focused on safety."

JEFFERSON COUNTY

Jefferson County Superintendent Craig Pouncey said his district made great strides in school safety over the summer. "The tragedy in Parkland caused us to take an internal look at where we were and look at some other opportunities that we could have to make our schools safer."

Improving school safety is a continuous process, he said. "We have so many variations of facilities in our school district that you have to look at each one of them individually." Some are easier to modify to improve safety while others are more difficult, like when there are multiple entrances to a school.

Pouncey shared a list of projects aimed at improving security the district completed over the summer. Additional sets of doors were installed in a number of schools to serve as an additional barrier to entry. Visitors must be buzzed into the school before they are able to get into classroom areas.

Night Lock safety devices, which lockdown classroom doors in an emergency, were installed in 32 elementary schools over the summer. The devices will continue to be installed until all doors in all 56 schools are secured.

The district was able to add five SROs, he said, meaning all middle and high schools have a full-time SRO, and Jefferson County Sheriff Mike Hale is working to add SROs at all of the elementary schools.

"It gives parents an extra added security feeling to know there is an SRO there," Pouncey said.

Pouncey said the school community needs to work together to keep schools safe. "If parents see things that concern them, they need to bring it to administrators. I want to encourage the community that support our schools to bring any concerns they have to administrators also."

SHELBY COUNTY

Shelby County school officials are charged with keeping more than 20,000 students safe across 29 school campuses. Through multiple partnerships with local law enforcement in cities and the county, SROs cover all of Shelby County's schools, but some are covered on a rotational basis, district spokesperson Cindy Warner said.

SROs are trained to cover school campuses, and safety training is provided to school administrators in partnership with those SROs, Warner added.

Shelby County officials began the Safe Schools Initiative in 2013 after 20 first-grade students and six teachers and staff were shot to death at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut in December of 2012.

Safety measures like securing entry doors were a part of that initiative according to news reports at the time, but the initiative also included adding mental health services for students that are accessible at school.

That initiative is ongoing, Warner said.

MADISON COUNTY

Madison County Superintendent Matt Massey said making safety a priority for his 18,700-student district is nothing new. "As superintendent, we think about safety all the time," he said. "What are all the little ways we can get better? That's what can keep you up at night."

Massey said the board allocated $750,000 for safety upgrades last November. After that, the district formed a safety task force which included members of the FBI, Army, Homeland Security and the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms division---people who are parents in the school community. The task force recommended upgrades in communications and other areas, which Massey said are underway.

Some of those recommendations included hardening entrances to schools, making it more difficult for those who want to harm students to get into the building. Those upgrades are in progress, he said, and some were completed over the summer.

A system that tracks who is coming into the building, known as "Raptor," is also in place, he said. The system scans visitors' identification cards to determine whether outstanding warrants or previous convictions that could cause concern.

Massey said they hold "surprise lockdowns" that are then reviewed by security personnel to determine what could be done better.

School safety includes more than just protecting students from a mass shooting incident, he said, and officials are working to improve parking lot safety and offer training in advanced CPR techniques to all school personnel.

Massey said he would love to have an SRO on all campuses, but "We feel like that we use 10 [SROs] as well as you can." On campuses without a full-time SRO, the Sheriff's office has a "routine presence," he said.

Massey said he can see government and school officials working to harden schools. "We're putting everything we can into making [schools] as safe as possible," he said.

"My goal as superintendent," Massey said, "is to make sure our schools are not a soft target."

HUNTSVILLE CITY

Huntsville City Schools Communications Director Keith Ward said the district has had a focus on security for nearly 20 years. Security cameras were originally installed in the 1980s, he said, after schools experienced break-ins. Those cameras are now in all schools and have been upgraded to allow for monitoring from a central site every day.

The school district has its own security force, Ward said, that works in tandem with the schools that have Huntsville police officers serving as SROs.

Over the past few years, as new schools have been built as part of the district's $280 million capital improvement plan, Ward said security measures like extra sets of entry doors, and magnetic locks requiring visitors to be buzzed in have been a part of the initial design.

Older schools have been retrofitted to include the latest security measures, he said.

Once a year, Ward said, the district participates in an emergency response training drill alongside police and fire departments, medical and hospital personnel and the local emergency management association. They conduct the drill at a local school and review how it went to see what needs to be improved.

The district has a way for students and community members to report threats and remain anonymous. That system, "Anonymous Alerts," can also be accessed through a smartphone application. The district takes those reports seriously, Ward said.

"Nine times out of 10," Ward said, "it may just be something that someone has done as a hoax or a prank, but it's still going to be investigated."

MADISON CITY

Madison City spokesperson John Peck said the 10,500-student school district in north Alabama is in the final stages of creating a safety and security task force to hire a full-time director of school safety and security.

Peck said a mental health counselor is in place at each of the district's 11 schools, where previously mental health counselors were concentrated at the district's middle and high schools.

A 14-year-old student, Todd Brown, was shot to death by another student at a Madison school in 2010. Superintendent Robby Parker, who was hired as superintendent last year, told AL.com in April the school system has steadily been adding school resource officers since then.

In April, district officials took the unusual step of initiating a $755,500 fundraising campaign to pay the cost of placing an SRO on every school campus. The district currently has nine SROs, Peck said.

As of press time, 176 people had contributed a little less than $22,000. "The campaign still has much to go," Peck wrote in a statement to AL.com, "but the superintendent has said he wants to fill the slots hopefully this year with money he hopes to identify in the budget."

AL.com reporter John Sharp contributed to this report.

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