FAIRMONT – A nationwide survey that went out in the fall of 2023 was the shot heard ’round the campus, as it were.
Parents weren’t shy about voicing their fears in the outreach on school safety fronted then by EdChoice, the nonprofit education advocacy group.
A total of 80% of the respondents, in fact, said gun violence in their child’s school was no longer a “What if?” scenario.
Call it more of the inevitable, and scary, “When?” they said.
As in, when will bullets start flying the main hallway, crowded with students changing classes?
Or, when will someone start shooting at a football game or basketball contest, when bleachers are packed and there’s nowhere to safely run?
In Marion County Schools, teachers, staffers and administrators will soon be wearing alert badges courtesy of Centegix – an Atlanta company that makes the technology designed to quickly alert authorities at the first sign of trouble.
The district purchased the badges last fall at a cost of $348,600, to go in tandem with the outfitting of Safe Schools entrances for 19 of its mostly aging buildings.
Centegix teams are currently outfitting Marion’s schools to accommodate technology, which is in the form of a credit card-sized badge.
Said badges wired with a panic button for 911, and will be clipped in the lanyards already worn for identification by teachers, administrators and staffers.
Training begins next month on how to use the badges.
The technology became nationally known two years ago during a school shooting incident in Georgia.
While the shooting left four dead and nine others wounded, 26 teachers used their badges to summon police 60 seconds after the first shots were fired, which authorities said saved lives.
“This is one of the projects I’ve been working on busily to finish up for before June 30,” Superintendent Donna Heston said during Monday’s meeting of the BOE.
That was in reference to the board’s decision to not renew her contract by a 3-2 vote last week.
In the meantime, the BOE has yet to retool and post a job description, though it said it wants interviews from in-state applicants and new a hire made by May 1, so a new superintendent can be in place by the start of July.
The board meets again at 1 p.m. Thursday in special session to further discuss the matter.
“We’ll talk more on that,” BOE President George Boyles said.
