BERRIEN SRINGS SCHOOL DISTRICTS HOSTS SCHOOL SHOOTING SAFETY FORUM

By DEBRA HAIGHT

BCR Correspondent

BERRIEN SPRINGS – With a number of school shootings occurring around the nation this year, school safety is on the minds of many parents these days and one area school district recently reported on their efforts to keep students safe.

Parents and community members got the chance earlier this month to learn more about what the efforts of the Berrien Springs school district. Superintendent Dave Eichberg and High School Principal Ryan Pesce spoke along with Police Chief Paul Toliver and School Resource Officer Rick Smiedendorf.

“You as community members and parents can feel confident that your children in a good place where there’s safety and security,” Eichberg said. “We have a school resource officer in place. We have put measures in place recently to keep buildings safe and secure and we have other projects in the works.”

Eichberg said the Berrien Springs school district is unique among school districts in the county. Not only does it have a true campus where all school buildings are in one area of the community, district officials have been proactive in developing security plans and making the buildings more secure.

Toliver, who is also the school board vice-president, said his department has worked with the district to make all seven school buildings safer. All buildings now have single access points where people can enter and leave, all have security cameras in operation and all will have buzzer systems to let people in by the end of this week.

He said school safety is always a work in progress as people train and learn from what’s gone on in other parts of the country. “We have a playbook but Murphy’s law tells us that nothing goes the way we think it will,” he said. “Our crisis management plan is a living breathing document.  We learn as we go after each incident.”

Pesce said other safety measures include adding lighting to pathways and parking lots and having portable radios for staff members to connect with each other and with other buildings. The high school also does random drug testing for athletes and random searches of the building.

Pesce said all staff have received training and numerous lockdown and other drills take place to make sure both staff and students know what to do. Smiedendorf noted that there are different types of lockdowns depending on where the threat is. For example, there can be perimeter, huddle in corners and shelter in place lockdowns.

“When we hear the word lockdown, our mind automatically goes to a really horrible event,” Eichberg said. “We want to try to help you understand that a lockdown doesn’t necessarily mean chaos. We had a lockdown recently at the high school because we had information that there were a few students with drugs.”

All four spoke about the impact of social media. “You as parents get information from your students that the world is ending before we get a handle on what’s going on,” Pesce said. “At the high school, we have 500 students with cell phones who spread rumors. Misinformation is a big concern.”

The speakers said they continue to work on ways to better communicate with parents. They send out alerts to parents and have plans on dealing with emergency situations. “We all have a job to do,” Eichberg said. “Law enforcement’s job is to remove the threat, the school’s job is to communicate what’s going on and the fire department’s job is to set up the periphery and help with medical needs.”

Improving the school culture and climate is another focus. Smiedendorf said one of his goals is to make students comfortable around him and other officers. He and Pesce said they also want students to feel comfortable to talk with teachers and staff when they see another student in trouble or hear about potential threats.

Eichberg said monitoring the school issued computers students use has saved at least one life. He reported that a student in one of the district’s off-site alternative education programs had been suicidal earlier this year and was saved from actually killing himself when the district caught that he was searching for how to kill himself on the computer and notified his parents and local authorities.