School Officials, Marion County Law Enforcement Team Up

(TNS) — The shockwaves sent out from the recent tragedy in Uvalde, Texas, have reached Marion County, and the school district is taking preemptive action.

Thursday, school officials teamed up with local emergency responders to start the first of many walkthroughs which will assess security in Marion County schools.

“In light of recent events throughout the country, we’ve noticed that there are some [security] things lacking here,” Marion County Sheriff Jimmy Riffle said. “We’re starting a program this summer and throughout the school year to get into every school, do a safety assessment and find things that can be corrected as well as things that are working.”

The first school walk-through took place July 7 at White Hall Elementary, which is acting as a test for the system and a warmup for Riffle and his team. Being a smaller school with less ground to cover, it made the perfect candidate.

Riffle’s team consists of members from his department, members of Fairmont City Police, Marion County Emergency Management, the Fairmont Fire Chief and local municipal police.

Thursday, White Hall Police tagged along since in an emergency situation, that agency would likely be first on the scene.

“We want to provide an overall safe environment for the students. They have enough to worry about with their learning,” Riffle said. “They don’t need to be concerned about safety.”

Riffle asked that the details of their process not be shared, however, he was able to discuss the overall goals he and the county schools are trying to achieve.

First, the sheriff’s team needs to get into all 27 school properties in the county and conduct an overall assessment of the building’s safety. According to Marion County Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management Executive Director Chris McIntire, there are national standards that buildings such as schools have to meet, and he composed a checklist of sorts to evaluate the status of each building.

After the evaluations are complete, the group will review the data and formulate emergency plans for each location. Some locations have made changes or additions but haven’t had their plans officially updated in years.

“We evaluate and then we plan and then we plan a response. We can’t do any of that unless we evaluate first,” McIntire said. “We’re trying to cut out a lot of steps so that when we do actually plan this and try to prevent things, we know it works.”

These emergency plans are beneficial not just for the direst of situations — such as an active shooter — but are also just a good safety precaution to have in case of more common events such as health emergencies or fires.

Riffle’s goal is to have evaluations finished for the county’s three high schools by the end of summer, then finish the rest of the campuses throughout the school year. Compared to the 15 classrooms in White Hall Elementary, a two-story, 700-student high school will be a different animal.

Unlike Thursday’s walk through, which was announced, Riffle said many of his visits will be unannounced and will also happen while students are in the buildings.

Once the evaluations are completed and plans are made, drills will become a regular occurrence.

For Donna Hage, the school district’s superintendent, this collaboration shows the county’s passion for student safety. She said often school districts tend to work in isolation, but something of this importance calls for all hands on deck.

“Our hope is that something serious never happens here, but if it does, we’re prepared,” Hage said. “We’re certainly relying on collaboration with the experts to develop a unified communication system. We’re planning for it proactively straight down to the service personnel to the teachers to the principals to the county office so that we have streamlined protocols.

“This will help ease the minds of our families, because now they can have that confidence that it has been approved and that we’ve really jumped into making improvements.”

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