Dade County Schools looking at ways to increase school safety

DADE COUNTY, Ga. (WDEF) – Dade County Schools Officials and local law enforcement members met with parents to talk about school safety and security on Monday.

“We felt it was good just to pause and have that face time with our parents so that we could ask each other the questions that were really heavy on our hearts at this time,” Dade County Schools Superintendent Jan Harris said.

The school system is just coming off of a week of two on campus incidents that put students behind bars.

In one incident, a student allegedly wrote a threatening comment on a bathroom wall.

And in another incident, Harris said, a student brought an unloaded gun to school and transferred it to another.

“When the female student discovered the threat on the bathroom wall, she immediately ran to tell the principal because she trusted him.  The student who had a weapon on campus, that was discovered by our assistant principal because he knows our student and he sensed that something wasn’t right about that student’s behavior,” Harris said.

It’s that culture Harris said she would like to continue in the schools, where students trust teachers and administrators and teachers and administrators know their students.

Other possible ways to ramp up safety include adding more School Resource Officers, they have two, and increase surveillance through technology.

“State of the art technology to build upon our already stellar surveillance system that the school board put in several years ago.  We have over 275 cameras throughout our four schools,” Harris said.

Harris said they’re moving forward with possibly bringing a third S.R.O. on board.

Those discussions will involve the school board and county commission.