School safety panel winds up

Final recommendation puts public report on districts

The Arkansas School Safety Commission finalized recommendations Tuesday during its final meeting, unanimously approving that school districts should be required to include implementation status of the commission’s recommendations in its annual report to the public.

“Having served with some of you on the past commission, it has become a growing source of frustration that not all of our recommendations have been accepted or implemented overall,” said Washington County Sheriff Tim Helder, who proposed requiring the implementation status in annual reports. “This will help create an ongoing culture of school safety.”

The commission also unanimously approved additional recommendations from three of its five subcommittees. The recommendations include:

■ Districts should have corresponding numbers on classroom exterior and interior doors and windows to make it easily identifiable for first responders so they can reference the position of students and intruders.

■ Districts should implement best practices on cyber security preparedness when backing up data.

■ Districts should implement third-party risk management best practices to mitigate cyber threats.

■ Districts should ensure that their IT staff and leadership remain current and up to date on cyber security best practices.

■ Districts should have access to a dashboard or a similar system that would facilitate student data analysis that would help identify students at risk to provide academic and emotional support.

■ The Arkansas School Safety Committee should investigate the feasibility of developing a school safety award/ recognition system for districts to incentivize the implementation of school safety recommendations.

The commission’s recommendations will now go to Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who reinstated the commission in June in the aftermath of several mass shootings across the nation.

Hutchinson has said he hopes school districts will use the updated recommendations when making requests for funding. Leg

islators approved a $50 million grant program during a special session in August that will be used to address recommendations made by the safety commission.

The state’s original school safety commission, created in March 2018, submitted 30 recommendations in its 124-page report. Some schools have implemented portions of the original recommendations, but schools are not required to follow the recommendations.

Under the governor’s executive order, the current commission was charged with reviewing the previous commission’s report and providing an update on the status of school safety across Arkansas.

Commission members said Tuesday that after four months of meetings and discussion, it is important to encourage schools to adopt its recommendations beyond legislators making them into law. Helder’s recommendation is the first step in trying to hold schools accountable for implementing the commission’s recommendations.

“We want to get more involvement with the public and school boards overall to make sure our message gets out,” Helder said.

Schools annually share information with the public regarding academic goals and correction of deficiencies, Helder said, so adding this additional detail to the report makes sense.

“This will allow them to update the public on the progress they have made towards the school safety recommendations or give a reason why they have no progress,” he said.

Commissioners said such a report should be done in a vague way to avoid giving out too many details regarding school security measures.

“We wanted to leave it somewhat vague because it will depend on the school district,” said Courtney Salas-Ford, chief legal counsel for the Division of Elementary and Secondary Education for the Arkansas Department of Education. “Here is the recommendation, here is what we have done, but we didn’t want to require too many requirements for safety reasons.

“The department will be checking in on this stuff through the school safety coordinator and their department, so we didn’t want it all to be at a public meeting.”

Helder also recommended an award system as an incentive to encourage schools to implement the commission’s recommendations. He said he originally thought grading schools based on the safety recommendations might be a good idea, but he said a “shame campaign” probably wouldn’t be as fruitful as allowing schools to be recognized for their accomplishments.

“We decided that a scorecard for school safety might identify schools who were clearly not adopting the recommendations and might notify somebody with ill intent what the easy pickings are out there,” he said. “This won’t identify the schools who are doing nothing, but [will] recognize the ones that go beyond.”

Dr. Cheryl May, director of the Criminal Justice Institute and head of the safety commission, said details about the award and how it will be judged can be discussed at Arkansas Safe Schools Committee meetings.

Helder said he envisions a system that would allow schools to potentially be recognized publicly with a certificate or award.

“It’s sort of like a blue ribbon that will allow them to say we have risen to this level, and it will be a great point for schools to make,” he said.

May said as a group she feels the Arkansas School Safety Commission was able to fill in some of the safety gaps that weren’t addressed in their previous meeting in 2018.

“If the schools follow our recommendations I feel very confident that our kids and school staff will be safe,” she told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. “I want the parents to know that we dedicated the time and effort that we did because we love their children and want to make sure they can reach their true academic potential.”