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Escambia Schools: No More Walking Kids To Class, New SROs, Metal Detectors
August 14, 2018
New safety and security measures in place this year in the Escambia County School District include metal detectors, additonal resource officers, and a new policy banning parents from continuing to walk their children to class.
“Some of this may have parents feeling inconvenienced, but it’s the little price we pay to have schools safe and locked down,” Escambia County School Superintendent Malcolm Thomas said.
Random Metal Detector Screenings
Metal detectors will be used randomly in middle and high schools. Students will watch a video next week explaining the process, and parents will be notified.
“There will single points of entrance on campuses, and visitors and parents will first go to the main office to swipe their driver’s license,” Thomas said.
No More Walking Students To Class
Parents of elementary school students will only be allowed to walk their students to class the first three days of school.
“After the third day, will not allow parents to walk students to class,” he said. “We don’t know who is suppose to be on the campus and who is not unless they checked into the system. We are compliant with the new security requirements signed by the governor last spring. Parents will need a yellow security badge from the main office. Will will question people in the hallway without one,” the superintendent said.
SRO or Armed Security At Every School
There is now a school resource officer at every middle and high school, and armed off-duty law enforcement officers from the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office or Pensacola Police Department on every elementary campus. Last year, Northview High School and Ernest Ward Middle School shared a SRO, but there is now an officer full-time at both schools. The district’s other high schools, which are larger than Northview, have two school resource officers on campus.
First Aid Kits In Classrooms
By next week, every classroom in the Escambia County School District will have a first aid kit that include compression bandage and tourniquets.
“The kits will be there in the event you had a situation to keep the patient stable until EMS arrives, whether it be an accident or an active shooter,” Thomas said.
Pictured: A classroom at the new Kingsfield Elementary School. Courtesy photo for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Comments
14 Responses to “Escambia Schools: No More Walking Kids To Class, New SROs, Metal Detectors”
With this being said why do we still have Portable Buildings? Schools are too overcrowded? Portable buildings on most campuses are not secured by the main building.
Some schools have several gates wide open…. Are those all going to be closed during school hours and reopened at the close of school daily?
This was the norm bk in my hometown 16 yrs ago when my oldest started K
They wouldn’t let you walk them to class after he 3rd day.
There’s really no need to
They need to learn independence and it’s much safer for the children bc all those parents who are strangers to other children don’t need to be in there contesting
The hallways
So to all those complaining about the new safety measures what solutions have you come up with to insure the safety of our children? No,no go ahead take your time I’ll wait…………………….
AMAZED that with all the Security Measures and Real Concerns that “Parents” and others were ever permitted within the corridors of any school.
Who knew if there was a crazy person posing as, or actually, a parent or older sibling?
Sad and Unfortunate but we have indeed cobbled and allowed this society in which we now live and that means Preventing random entry into our schools.
May ALL have a Fantastic and Safe School Year.
Sadly recalling when saying “a Safe School Year” was not even thought of…we knew our kids were Safe at school.
Thanks to Supt Thomas and his Security Advisors and the School Resource Officers for All you do.
Very happy with the movement to secure school buildings. I am still very concerned that school buses are still very vulnerable. It is not even a matter of terrorism, but simple common sense that for hundreds of years unstable people have hurt children in schools. It is not a new problem and there will always be a search for a weak link where the crazies can hurt children. As a grandparent now, I cannot imagine the stress on parents today. My daughter sat my granddaughters down and explained strategic options if an active shooter comes to their school……I was stunned that parents are having these conversations with first and third graders, but they watch tv and know that going to school can be dangerous. Securing buildings is the most important component of safety.
Hopefully the school district plans to teach students and teachers how to properly use the first aid supplies. Without the training the kits are useless.
Marc your comment show your concern for the safety of your child. I and as I’m sure 99% of all parents would put up with any “crap” to ensure the safety of our child. So what you have to now check in with the office, you should have been doing that all along. People send their children to school and assume they will be safe, and if their not they look for someone to blame. I say the school should do whatever it takes to keep the kids safe.
The kids will learn some independence, yea! Heck, I’m so old I would have been shamed by the entire class if my mother had walked me to my homeroom. The school buses were jam packed and not one kid was dropped off in front of the school, where the buses unloaded. At least I didn’t have to walk 5 miles to school the way my parents did, lol.
Though I will miss walking my grandchild to the classroom door in the mornings, I wholeheartedly support this measure. Last school year with random shootings and violence increasing in schools across the nation, I was concerned with so many entrances into the school and wide-open, unchecked access to anyone and everyone before the school bell rang, including people who had no child to accompany. I am assuming that the cost of metal detectors in every school is cost-prohibitive — but I think they are necessary. Domestic terrorism aimed at our children and their teachers — we should protect them at any cost. Sadly, metal detectors aren’t just for government buildings and airports anymore.
Out with parents, God, and prayer. In with metal detectors, armed security, and tourniquets. My, times have changed since the 70s.
I applaud Supervisor Thomas and the ECSO for taking steps to make the schools safer for the kids and staff. It’s a shame that it has come to this, but it is necessary.
Metal detectors and armed security……..such is the world we have created for our kids…………….we should be proud
By action or inaction, we are the ones to blame for where society is today. Now we have to pray that our children will be able to climb their way out of the hole we have dug them
Exodus 34:7
visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.
I’m so very glad I don’t have kids in school anymore. I could barely tolerate the crap then.