Concerned parents and community members gathered for a second round of virtual town hall meetings with Superintendent Dr. Grant Rivera, Chief Operations Officer Mike Santoro, and Brian Wallace, the district lead for school safety and emergency management. The first virtual meeting followed the Appalachee High School shooting. These meetings happened after two
separate gun incidents on MCS campuses.
“Tonight’s conversation here is not because of what happened at two isolated schools,” Dr. Rivera said. “It’s about my continued reflection on how do we bring our community into this conversation.”
The town hall meetings that evening consisted of one for MSGA, MMS, and MHS safety, and another for Pre-K and all elementary school campuses. The meetings had three main sections: what measures are currently in place, how would families be notified in the event of an emergency, and what new measures are being put in place for the future.
What has happened?
There were wepon-related events at schools, which in turn left concern in Marietta City families. Following the events of Apalachee High School, a student at Marietta Sixth Grade Academy (MSGA) brought a handgun to the school campus. According to MSGA Principal Keynun Campbell, after dismissal on a Monday afternoon, a parent reported their child saw another student with a gun. The investigation following the report concluded that the student had a handgun in the bathroom before school that morning, and had shown it to another student on the bus that morning. The gun was supposedly left in the child’s locker all day and there was no intent to harm anyone but instead to “show off.” A couple of weeks later, reports surfaced that a child brought a loaded gun to school at the Emily Lembeck Early Learning Center. The pre-k student was looking for their lunch when they found the gun in their backpack and reported it to the teacher. The teacher promptly reported it to the police, who upon investigation found that the student’s regular backpack had broken and the parent had allegedly given them a different backpack with the gun forgotten inside.
What is already in place?
Marietta’s safety protocols are already much higher than other schools. The features start before a student or visitor can even enter the school. The high school only has two points of entry for students in the morning and one point of entry for all visitors who enter the school. The doors leading outside are locked at all times and require them to be unlocked by the attendance office, which then the visitor must check in, and is not allowed entry into the school building unless they are authorized to do so. Throughout the school, each hallway has automatic doors that close and lock in case of an emergency. Each classroom door when shut is automatically locked from the outside. The new protocol from administration requires all classroom doors to be shut at all times throughout the day except for class transitions.
Every year, Marietta conducts multiple evacuation, lockdown, secure, and shelter drills.
Evacuation drills are used to move students and staff from one location to another. They occur when there is a fire in the building, bomb threat or explosion, severe damage to the building due to a natural disaster, or a biological or chemical incident in the building.
Lockdown procedures occur when a threat or hazard is inside the building such as an active shooter or intruder inside the building. Secure is called when there is a threat or hazard outside of the school building. An example of when a secure might be called is for dangerous animals on school grounds, criminal activity in the area, or civil disobedience.
Shelter drills occur when personal protection is needed in times of severe weather conditions, non-emergency incidents in one part of the building, severe damage outside of the building due to a natural disaster, or when a biological or chemical incident occurs inside the building. One of the most important measures Marietta City Schools’ has in place is the use of Crisis Go. The app, which is installed on every teacher and administrators phone and computer, allows teachers and others in the building to send easy communication if an emergency were to occur. If a notice was sent out, the call goes to all School Resource Officers, administrators, and other teachers in the buildings as well as notifies them what the emergency is and where it is occurring.
If something were to happen, what next?
If an emergency were to occur in the building, Marietta City Schools would communicate with families through five mediums: text messages, automated phone calls, emails, social media, and the school and district website. All information would be fact checked and confirmed by the Marietta Police Department before released to the public. As soon as possible, reunification, reuniting students with parents off campus, would occur as soon as possible. The students would be moved to a secure, previously planned but confidential location that would then be communicated to parents.
In addition to the reunification plan in place, much of the preparation happens through student intervention. The model of “see something, say something” is a saying that has found its way through schools across the district. Teaching students what to do if they do hear or see a verbal or written threat is the first layer of intervention and can stop something from turning from a threat to a carried out action. If a student were to report to teachers and administration of a perceived threat, the student’s anonymity would be protected during the school day. The parents and families of those involved would be contacted and the information would stay transparent with them. Parents would have permission to sit in on all interviews or questionings from MPD. As well, counseling resources would be provided to those involved and the school would monitor the child to make sure they are performing well and anxiety and stress levels do not increase.
What improvements should be expected?
A thousand “what ifs” follow the topic of school safety. While families pray for a tragic event to never occur at Marietta, the installation of new technologies to further protect
Marietta are in order. At the end of his virtual town hall, Superintendent Dr. Rivera came before families in sixth through twelfth grade and announced the implementation of three
new features to make Marietta a safer school district. The new features are: metal detectors across Marietta Sixth Grade Academy, Marietta Middle School, and Marietta High
School, artificial intelligence weapon detection for pre-k through high school, and MPD School Resource Officers.
