Alabama Panel Addresses School Safety

By Marie Leech

As educators prepare for a new school year, leading their discussions is the issue of keeping students safe, in a time when no corner of the country seems immune to school violence.

Tuesday, the Kiwanis Club of Birmingham hosted a school safety forum with two local superintendents, the president of the Alabama Education Association, a state legislator and the former president of the National Rifle Association. While they differ on how to keep students safe, they agreed on one point: Something needs to be done. In a perfect world, they said, every school would be assigned its own police officer, known as a school resource officer (SRO).

Since most districts can’t afford police for every school, keeping students safe could mean installing metal detectors, adding security cameras or blocking outside entrances. For the more rural and poorer school systems, a new – and controversial – law allowing administrators to be armed under certain circumstances could help.The forum, “Keeping Our Schools Safe: Identifying, Preventing and Dealing with Active Shooters,” featured as panelists Craig Pouncey, superintendent of Jefferson County schools; Kathy Murphy, superintendent of Hoover city schools; Sherry Tucker, president of the Alabama Education Association; state Rep. David Faulkner, whose district includes Jefferson County; and Jim Porter, past president of the NRA.

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