Ohio County Schools Awaits Safety Report | News, Sports, Jobs

photo by: Joselyn King

Ohio County Schools Assistant Superintendent Rick Jones speaks to board of education members during a past meeting.

WHEELING — Ohio County School officials believe their school facilities to be safe and secure following upgrades in recent years, but a recent visit by a school security expert has them ready to make changes in protocols.

National school security expert Kenneth Trump visited all facilities in Ohio County Schools the week of Jan. 9 with an eye on how security and protocols could be improved. His report isn’t expected to be ready for about eight weeks, but he provided some initial observations.

“We found many positive things in place that contribute to safety and emergency preparedness in Ohio County Schools,” Trump said. “The district invested bond money in reasonable physical security measures that support educators with safety — including strengthening communications with a significant investment in two-way radio communications, improving access control at entryways with secured vestibules (described locally as ‘man-traps’), and expanding their existing security cameras.”

He termed prevention resource officers from the Wheeling Police Department and Ohio County Sheriff’s Department “very good officers who are very engaged and work well with their school administrators, staff and students.”

“District schools have emergency preparedness guidelines in place and a wide array of social, emotional, mental health, and family supports that are critical for helping reduce school violence risks,” Trump continued.

Additionally, he said he “very much enjoyed and appreciated the opportunity to speak with students who provided practical and useful information on what they see as important about school safety.”

“The first and best line of defense is a well-trained, highly alert staff and student body,” Trump said. ” We spent time at each building answering questions from administrators, PROs and site safety teams about best practices and questions unique to their sites.

“We will be making specific recommendations including ways to strengthen school safety drill protocols, the use of physical security measures, and communications about school safety with students, school staff and parents. These recommendations will be submitted in our final report which we estimated would be around eight weeks from our visit.”

Rick Jones, assistant superintendent for Ohio County Schools, indicated the school district is confident with the physical safety improvements it has made within its school facilities as part of the $42.2 million bond issue passed by voters in 2018.

Trump’s visit was arranged following a “red alert” threat and a lockdown at Wheeling Park High School on Nov. 17. Parents received notification of the “red alert,” then feared there was an active shooter in the school. Many came to the school demanding to pick up their children, and waited a couple of hours outside the front door for their children to be released.

School district officials later explained the “red alert” there had been a threat of security reported at the school, which was later not found to be credible.

They added at that time schools would never be locked down in the event of an active shooter.

“All things we have to improve are procedural, and centered around how do we make lockdowns better? Who should be communicating to the media … and to the parents? We need to put into place the best practices,”Jones said.

“I don’t think anything we will find that is wrong with buildings. (The improvements in protocols) are all based around people.”

He added schools can always prepare and practice for a crisis event, but true learning resulted from a real situation.

“We learned a lot from parents coming to the building and getting kids out of class. There are things you don’t think about – like who is going to update parents and speak to the media?” Jones said.

The next safety plan for Ohio County Schools likely will include actions for communication. These will stipulate who will be responsible for addressing parents, who will address the media, and where this will take place, according to Jones.

“If we have another lockdown — and we’ve only had one in seven years I’ve been here — we will have fixed a lot of things,” Jones said.