BARROW COUNTY, Ga. — Two new pieces of security and safety information came out of the Barrow County School System Board of Education meeting Tuesday night.
Families learned about new data on the weapon detection system installed in the district’s three high schools and the results of security surveys they filled out in December.
District leaders learned staff can now scan all students and bags in under 30 minutes each morning.
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“There has been a sense of relief, truly,” Layla Renee Contreras told Channel 2′s Courtney Francisco.
She is an Apalachee High School graduate. Her sister is a student there, and her mother works as a substitute teacher at the school. Both survived the deadly shooting rampage on campus in September.
Sean Shultz was also at the meeting Tuesday night. His son is a student at Apalachee High School. He, too, said the weapon detectors are providing a sense of security.
“The challenge is maintaining the procedure and everyone staying on it like they’re supposed to,” Shultz said.
District leaders decided to install the weapon detectors after staff caught an Apalachee High School student with a gun on campus on Jan. 8. That was four months after the deadly shooting rampage on Sept. 4, 2024.
Initially, the board of education planned to hear the results of a security survey first.
“It’s exhausting. Not a world I ever saw myself in,” Shultz said.
On Tuesday, families did hear the results of the survey.
4,289 Barrow County School system parents/guardians, staff, and students responded.
The majority were in favor of adding school resource officers, mental health enhancements, student ID badges, and weapon detectors.
Staff said they are considering expanding the weapon detectors to other schools now.
“The board was generous enough to give us funding resources that we think we might be able to do that,” said Dr. Matt Thompson.
Thompson told the board that the Barrow County Sheriff’s Office has had challenges hiring student resource officers. The board approved a measure to hire eight more SROs in Sept. However, Thompson said five of those positions are still vacant.
“We are concerned that multiple months in, we are not getting more applicants for this,” Thompson told the board.
The board spent an hour and a half discussing the changes and progress made since the shooting left the community traumatized.
Next week, the board will vote on whether to hire a recovery coordinator and a full-time clinician to help staff at AHS.
Staff said the district could use the Federal Anti-Terrorism and Emergency Assistance Program to pay for it.
The proposed plan would put an Employee Assistance Program contract in place with Northeast Georgia Medical Center.
The board is scheduled to vote on that on Feb. 4.
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