Decatur school board approves security manager position

Apr. 13—In the wake of a school shooting in Nashville and threats at local schools, Decatur City Schools is hiring a full-time security manager and taking additional steps to harden security measures at each of its schools.

The DCS board approved the new position at its meeting Wednesday after an hour-long executive session to discuss security measures. The Alabama Open Meetings Act allows executive sessions to discuss security plans, procedures, assessments and measures, where public disclosure could be detrimental.

Before they began meeting in private, Deputy Superintendent Dwight Satterfield outlined for the board steps that DCS is taking to improve security at its campuses.

"There's not one formula that you can take or one approach you can take to school safety because we have to deal both with internal factors and external factors as well as the unknown evil that exists out there," Satterfield said. "Sometimes we just have to react."

Satterfield said fences have been added to elementary schools with standalone gyms or activity buildings with a goal of leaving a single secure entrance at each school for use by the public.

Security entrances have been completed at all but one facility, and he said he expects that campus to have a single secure entrance before next school year.

"What we're talking about there is where you have a public entrance, that they're not allowed direct access to the building," Satterfield said to the board. "It forces the public to come in, check in to the office and buzz out into the hallways where they might intermix with students."

Additionally, DCS recently added another school resource officer — a retired policeman — to help in the SRO rotation for elementary schools. While last year's budget approved funding for multiple SROs, the positions are hard to fill with existing Decatur police officers.

"This is not a problem unique to Decatur," Satterfield said. "This is happening all over Alabama and all over the Southeast. There's just simply not ... personnel going into law enforcement.

"We are hopeful that we can add some additional SROs next year, either full-time officers or officers that come back under contract to add to that. ... The number one thing we can do for school safety is provide a school resource officer for our buildings."

He said camera systems are continually being upgraded across schools, and additional cameras are being installed in the high schools.

The district is continuing to install door indicator alerts which will sound when an exterior door is left open for too long.

"That is something we hope by the time we start school (in the fall) is complete," Satterfield said.

Exterior glass doors are also being replaced with metal doors, he said.

"Over the last year, we're probably going well into the 60s or 70s, the number of doors that we have changed out," Satterfield said.

Vape detectors, which pick up vapor from electronic cigarettes, are being installed. They also have emergency keyword detection, gunshot indicators and moisture sensors. Satterfield said the district is about 75% finished with these installations.

Young children and special needs students have the hardest time barricading a door in a lockdown situation, Satterfield said. He said some DCS schools are undergoing safety bolt testing to securely lock interior classroom doors. He said they are also looking at these doors for the new pre-kindergarten center.

In the next week, the district will also begin testing relay communications systems, a military-grade technology that works with internal networks and picks up the three major cell providers to remedy connectivity issues in school buildings.

Satterfield said the high schools have also resumed drug testing.

Board member Dwight Jett said DCS has long been proactive in addressing security issues.

"Decatur City Schools is not reactive to this," Jett said. "This is something we've been doing for years. I do appreciate it, and I know the public appreciates it, too."

Decatur High School received threats of gun violence March 31 from a former student that officials deemed credible. Several teachers received the messages, which prompted a police presence at Decatur High and the adjoining Decatur Middle School. In reaction to the threat, students were dismissed early.

The shooting in Nashville at The Covenant School, a private Christian school, on March 27 left three 9-year-old students and three employees dead.

— audrey.johnson@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2437.