The Christian County School Board was presented district school safety plans, an update on the implementation of House Bill 331 and a plan to help students engage more at school at Tuesday’s Board meeting.
School District Safety and Title IX Coordinator, Kathleen Carter presented a comprehensive district safety plan to the Board which highlighted instructions set for specific security threats or natural disaster occurrences.
In preparation for the district safety plan, Carter led a collaborative administration and student resource officer retreat to practice safety instructions included in her district plan.
Along with the retreat Carter says she will also hold monthly school safety coordinator meetings to ensure coordinators remain current on school drill procedures. Toward the start of the school year, Carter has an agenda for school drills, such as fire, tornado and earthquake drills for staff and students to exercise.
In regards to drill procedures, Carter is asking schools to implement “Go Bags” which would include necessities in cases of power outages or evacuations, such as information on what medical accommodations a student might need.
Further in regard to emergency preparedness, District Health Director, Megan Kidd and District Athletic Director Kerry Stovall spoke about the implementation of HB 331.
HB 331 focuses on ensuring procedural responses to incidents of cardiac arrest by school nurses, athletic directors, athletic trainers and coaches and inside schools there will be a set CPR response team.
Kidd says at each school there needs to be at least three staff that are CPR trained.
For student athletics on every athletic site, whether it be a daily practice or a weekend event their needs to a be CPR trained adult.
Stovall says CPR response simulations will be conducted at district athletic sites.
Other student safety factors were discussed such as the current presence of permanent and mobile automatic external defibrillators and weather checking before outdoor athletic events.
Student engagement was also highlighted at the Board meeting. Assistant Superintendent Jessica Addison presented a plan to increase student engagement by working toward parent and community outreach.
Addison says engaging parents can lead to better engaging students, so for the district Addison is looking to create a role focusing on parent engagement.
The Parent Engagement Coordinator would host parent education events that would center on student facing topics and possibly conduct at home outreach. Addison says the position does not have clear hire requirements, but a bachelor’s degree and experience working with children and parents is preferred.
Going forward, the board meetings will once again be in-person, with live streams of the meetings not available online.