Safety Enhancement Survey Open Until Dec. 13
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Safety Enhancement Survey
Thank you for sharing your thoughts about potential school safety enhancements concerning Barrow County School System. This survey will be open from Monday, Dec. 2 until Friday, Dec. 13. Survey responses will be shared with the Board of Education at the Jan. 28 Work Session for their consideration in future discussions. We ask that each person only take the survey once.
Please review each item’s summary before completing the survey. The summaries include a list of considerations that were compiled from research and feedback from School Governance Team (SGT) and teacher leaders.
Click each + to expand sections below
Overview: Metal Detection Systems use magnetic fields to detect things made of metal. Weapons Detection Systems use advanced technology to detect metal and specific weapon shapes, which may provide higher precision than metal detectors and reduce false alarms.
Considerations:
- Visibility that can serve as a deterrent
- Will catch a substantial portion of potential weapons or contraband passing through the device
- Brings peace of mind
- Time (can potentially slow down students entering the building creating potential new safety issues)
- High financial cost
- Number of staff will be needed to process students properly
- Training for staff for use and search procedures
- Detection effectiveness (some tools have high false positive and/or false negative rates)
- Perception/Climate - can create a negative perception among students, families, and staff (prison-like environment)
Watch a video description concerning this consideration:
Considerations:
- Easy and quick to implement
- Financially cost-effective
- Visible measure
- Make it easier for staff to know when a student might have contraband
- Bag checks can be easier and faster than detectors
- Weapons can still be hidden in bags
- No-bag policies are difficult to manage as students do need to bring items to school
- Staff will need to inspect bags
- Bags not durable
- Student lack of privacy
- Band instrument cases, sports team bags, etc. not clear
Watch a video description concerning this consideration:
Overview: Students would wear a photo identification badge that would allow them to scan into approved areas of the building.
Considerations:
- Student entry tracking along with syncing with attendance, media check-outs, lunch accounts
- Campus, building, hall, room access
- Easier to recognize unauthorized visitors
- Build responsibility in students
- Students must always have badges
- Consequences for not carrying or losing badges
- Potential for misuse – badge sharing or discarding
- Privacy concerns
- Small-scale pilot at BCSS had mixed results
Watch a video description concerning this consideration:
Considerations:
- Proactive
- Positive component of school culture
- Helps with increased social-emotional issues in students beyond just safety
- High financial cost
- Availability of qualified applicants
Watch a video description concerning this consideration:
Considerations:
- Visible, physical deterrent
- Expanded partnership with the sheriff’s department and law enforcement
- Emergency preparedness – trained to respond
- Sense of security
- Positive component of school culture
- Possible negative perception from some students and parents
- High financial cost
- Effectiveness is mixed in terms of prevention
- Availability of SRO applicants (positions can be tough to keep fully staffed)
Watch a video description concerning this consideration:
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