PRESCOTT, Ark.-Prescott School District Superintendent Robert Poole addressed school safety concerns during a meeting Wednesday in the wake of Monday's campus shooting.
He told the crowd of concerned parents and community members gathered in the high school auditorium that district staff followed protocol to keep students safe and that they would put in additional safety measures in the near future.
"There's a lot of things we're working on, and we want to let you know as a community, we are on top of things," Poole said. "School security and student safety is the No. 1 priority of our school district right now. We are always welcome and open to suggestions you may have."
Shortly before 9:15 a.m. Monday, a 14-year-old student shot another 14-year-old in a hallway near the back of the school. The victim was airlifted to Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock in fair condition. The shooter was arrested and a small-caliber gun believed to be used in the shooting was retrieved later that day from bushes in front of the school. Since then, the district has been offering counseling to students in wake of the attack.
The additional measures include a new phone app that parents and students can use on their phone to report any concerns, including bullying and threats.
"You can notify the school anytime of a bullying situation, a threat, any type of thing that you think the school needs to know about," he said. The app allows users to anonymously report a situation.
"It gives notification to the superintendent, administrator. We get that information and we immediately look into that information," Poole said. "A lot of times you see things that we don't see. You know things that we don't know. We need your help. A lot of things can be prevented by being proactive No matter how small, no matter how big, it will be handled how we need to handle it."
The app should be ready within a couple of weeks, he said.
The district is also considering adding another resource officer. Prescott has two, and Poole said adding an additional officer would give more supervision to the campuses.
He also told the crowd the district has been approved to hold an election Sept. 10 to increase the tax millage to provide additional security measures, including reinforced doors at the elementary, old gym and high school buildings.
"This will make sure we lock down any school building we have in a matter of seconds," Poole said. "Time is precious when you're in a lockdown situation and you have a school shooting response situation. With your help, we can make sure that's possible. What can you do to help make sure our students are safe? We need your support."
He added that the district will also get two-way radios for school buses and offices in about two weeks.
Pool encouraged parents to use the district's notification center to stay abreast of emergency events, including school lockdowns like the one Monday.
"In the situation of a lockdown, here's where we need your help," he said. "The communication level, we trust on you as a parent and parents to trust the school district. We need your trust to make sure you do what we need you to do in these situations. In a lockdown situation, we cannot have you come up here to the school. There's a lot of reasons why you're making things worse when we've got several hundred parents coming to the school district at one time and there may be a shooter on campus."
Prescott Police Chief Joseph Beavers also told the crowd he was proud of how first responders and staff handled the incident and that everyone needs to now look to the future.
"Now is the time to start moving forward and start making plans," he said. "It was a targeted attack. We don't know all the reasons why it happened. We were very fortunate that it was what it was. We were very fortunate and unfortunate at the same time if that makes any sense. Lessons are learned from every school shooting in the past. We as law enforcement, as administration, we study these and we learn from them. Each time we have one of these, we learn something different and we pass it along."
Parents can access the school/parent communication system on the district's web site, www.curleywolves.org.