As the deadline nears for Kentucky school districts to ensure that a police officer is present on all campuses, the General Assembly’s Interim Committee on Education met Thursday to further discuss its School Safety and Resiliency Act, as well as mental health in schools in Kentucky.
“In light of the tragedy that we saw in Uvalde, we felt it’s a good time for us to have an update about where we are in terms of our school safety and also our mental health awareness and protocols that we’ve done,” said Sen. Max Wise (R-Campbellsville) and chair of the committee, referencing the Texas school shooting that killed 19 students and two teachers.
Jon Akers, the director of the Kentucky Center for School Safety, and Ben Wilcox, the State School Security Marshal, testified on the School Safety and Resiliency Act (SSRA), which mandates that Kentucky have school resource officers (SROs) in place while also ensuring that schools have mental health protocols in place.
“I’ll ask you this question,” Wilcox asked rhetorically. “Do you feel like we’re safer now than we were three years ago? And I’ll answer that question by numbers we are by going in and doing these risk assessments and seeing where the numbers were at and the mandates and how they were being followed through years ago compared to now. Our numbers are very, very good, and that will be shown in our report when it comes out in August.”
While the SSRA mandated SROs, they didn’t set a specific date when this mandate needed to be met or provide a funding mechanism. In the 2022 legislative session, House Bill 63 says that schools must have an SRO in place by August. Akers said they have about 500 SROs in Kentucky but need another 600 to meet the Aug. 1 deadline put in place by HB63.
“An SRO is not going to stop everybody and everything,” said Rep. Kevin Bratcher (R-Louisville), the primary sponsor of HB63. “It’s just there as a preventative measure to hopefully be able to stop a situation like that. It’s certainly better than nothing.”
Wise said he’s never seen a perfect piece of legislation; he asked Wilcox if there’s any Kentucky legislation that would have prevented a situation like the Uvalde shooting.
“What we like to say is that the majority of your time needs to be caring and loving on kids,” Wilcox said. “But when someone comes in that school, you have to become the tip of the spear and take care of business.”
Wilcox brought up that doors need to be closed, but in the Uvalde shooting, cops were shown to enter the school and didn’t react to the shooter, according to records and video obtained by the Austin American-Statesman. In Kentucky, SROs used to be trained to respond to an active shooter with three cops present, but now they are trained to respond with just one cop present, according to Wilcox.
“That means getting rid of what we call the universal key that’s the five-pound rock that sits next to the door that props open as teachers go out and then and making sure that those locks are working,” Wilcox said, referring to a false narrative that the Uvalde shooting was caused by a propped door from teachers.
Another aspect of the SSRA included suicide prevention training and mental health protocols.
Randy Poe, executive director of the Northern Kentucky Education Council, Mike Borchers, the superintendent of Ludlow Independent Schools, and Rhonda Caldwell, the executive director of the Kentucky Association of School Administrators, testified on the update on mental health services in schools.
Poe said they are not asking for any more school laws, but more resources instead.
“I want to tell our story in Northern Kentucky,” Poe said. “I want you to think with us and that today as you were driving into work it was a beautiful day outside. The sun is shining and you’re walking in and you’re meeting friends or others, and they have smiles on their faces.”
He told the story of students rolling into schools, but two out of 10 have been victimized within the past 30 days.
“It’s the students that we don’t know that are quietly suffering,” Poe said, elaborating that educators must know when students are traumatized and know when to get them help when they need it.
Poe said this the number one thing that keeps school administrators up at night is school safety.
“You can’t always measure everything by what the outcomes are, but what are the preventative things,” Poe said.
Caldwell said that she, along with Poe and Borchers, talked with Columbine Principal Frank Deangelis, about a message he wanted to share with the Kentucky legislators.
“Twenty-three years later, we’re still learning many lessons,” Deangelis said. “Our children continue to cry out for help. And their well-being is paramount. Are they healthy? Are they happy? Are they hopeful? These are the pivotal questions that we must ask ourselves and then address to bring any real change.”
