Tuesday, November 13th, 2018
St. Henry school tests student safety online check-in
Exercise meant to test active shooter or other emergency incident
By Sydney Albert
ST. HENRY - In a new school safety exercise, students were asked to check-in online and complete a form verifying they were safe, testing a program that could be implemented in case of an active shooter or other such emergency.
High school principal Eric Rosenbeck said middle school principal Kyle Kunk created a form that was sent out to students via email on Oct. 30.
"Even if only 100 out of 300 check in, that's 100 less parents that we're calling" to verify students are safe, Rosenbeck said at Monday's board of education meeting.
The current approach in the case of an active shooter is to get students as far away as possible. In the aftermath of such an event, if students have scattered, the online check-in would be a faster, easier way to help account for them, he said.
The form can be accessed from phones or Chromebooks. The biggest hiccup administrators faced during the test was some students had trouble accessing their school email on their phone. As the school continues training students and gets more students to comply with filling out the form, he predicted the communication would improve.
"And the students were really good about 'So-and-so and so-and-so are with me.' Like, if they didn't have their emails or whatever, they listed students that were with them," superintendent Julie Garke said.
In other business, Garke told board members she had received a letter from Ohio Sen. Vernon Sykes, D-Akron, asking for policy input. She had a draft ready to send back, with her key points being to allow students multiple ways to demonstrate what they can do. She isn't opposed to testing, but accounting for work experience and community service would give local educators more control.
Board members also,
• approved a contract with Montgomery County Education Service Center for audiology services at a rate of $1.65 per unit for fiscal year 2019.
• approved hiring Tony Homan as a bus driver retroactive to Nov. 5.
• approved maternity leave for Tricia Rosenbeck around Nov. 30 and Jessica Huelsman around Jan. 3.
