Board talks safety
By Steve Herring
Published in News on February 22, 2018 5:50 AM
Wayne County School Board member Len Henderson Wednesday asked Wayne County commissioners to consider additional funding earmarked for security at the county's public schools.
School board members are looking at some very particular priorities they want to put into place as they begin their planning, particularly for capital outlay projects and things of that nature, he said.
"One of the priorities that I am strong on is security," he said.
Henderson said that a principal at one school recently asked him to try to get security measures in place because of the easy access through the building's doors
Henderson made his comments during a joint meeting of the two board held Wednesday afternoon in the 4-H room of the new Maxwell Center.
Security devices such as fences and lock systems are not normally mentioned when discussing school construction, said Kevin Leonard, executive director of the N.C. Association of County Commissioners.
But those types of things fall into the capital projects category, and would be fundable under a proposed $1.9 billion state school bond issue, he said
"It is another reason to discuss this with your state leaders in your community as to why we need a school bond for school safety," he said.
Commissioner Ray Mayo reiterated concerns about school safety he expressed during the commissioners' Tuesday morning session.
Cameras, metal detectors and other options have been discussed, he said.
"What I am saying is let's get together and do more than what we are used to doing," he said.
Mayo said the speaker at the recent Martin Luther King Jr. breakfast said shootings such as the one in Florida that left 17 dead occur on such a regular basis that people are accepting them as "that is just the way it is."
"We don't need to get there," he said.
Mayo said he is concerned about classroom size, but that perhaps school security needs to be above classroom size for commissioners and school board.
Law enforcement personnel nearly doubled at schools on Tuesday as a response to a Facebook posting threatening a school, he said.
"We don't need to stop there," he said. "Mobile home classrooms are not conducive to school safety. So let's keep that in mind as you look at the big picture in the years ahead."
There are no security cameras in any of the county's elementary schools, Superintendent Dr. Michael Dunsmore said.
A minimum number of 16 cameras would be needed at each school, he said. The cost would $82,000.
"One of the things that we have really struggled with is access at doors," Dunsmore said. "We had this conversation at Meadow Lane because it was so wide open. Without putting a fence around it with one way in and one way out it gets into much more cost.
Mayo said he saw a newscast recently about the most secure school in the county. The cost for that security system was $400,000.
Commissioner Ed Cromartie also expressed concerns about open door access at several schools.
Each school would need to be looked at differently, school board Chairman Pat Burden said.
Whatever is done on the national level will involve gun control, Mayo said.
"Let's take that out of the picture," he said. "It will take decades for them to do anything. We need to protect the schools in our county.
"The way I see it we need to do anything that we can for keeping anyone with an AK-47 to a pocketknife from walking into that front door or any door. So what can we do to catch these people before they get inside the school?"