The Oklahoma State Department of Education is making moves to bolster school safety after state board members came away from a meeting dissatisfied with current plans.
State law says schools must conduct four security drills a year to prepare for threats like an active shooter. Each must be at a different time of day and schools can’t hold more than two per semester, but there are no further requirements.
Former U.S. Secret Service agent and Hobart native Lou Sims gave the education department a step-by-step plan to help schools deal with violence, which he says will fill the gap in current safety measures.
Sims said an easy step in his plan is making people feel like they’re helping when they catch wind of a possible threat.
"Getting the atmosphere in each school system so that the students and the parents feel comfortable to come forward when they see something. Now, they’ve got to have a path to do this," Sims said.
Sims said he tried calling two helplines in Oklahoma. One was out of service, and the other asked him to leave a message.
Besides making it easier to report potential threats and partnering with local law enforcement on threat assessment teams, Sims said schools should limit fire alarm activation to faculty and staff because shooters often pull the fire alarm.
"They think their targets are going to be hiding, which they’re trained to do," Sims said. "Guess what we do? All that training we do goes out the window because we pull the fire alarm, and now all the targets are right out in front of them."
The education department is looking for the feds’ help when it comes to heading off school threats. They’re pursuing a grant from the Bureau of Justice Assistance that will help pay for programs and training to stop violence on campus.
The grant is only $250,000, so the entire state wouldn’t benefit right away.
"We would have to begin small and likely look at possibly a county — not necessarily a district — but a county in Oklahoma to begin this kind of training. And so, it would certainly be a pilot worthy of scaling up," said Oklahoma School Security Institute Program Manager Jennifer Newell.
The grant application will be sent off later this month.
