Board discusses school safety, accomplishments

After discussing the topic of school safety at the last City Council meeting on Feb. 26, Mountain Brook Schools Superintendent Dicky Barlow spoke again about school safety during the Board of Education meeting on March 12.

He touched on four main areas: facilities, personnel, training and procedures, and maintaining a healthy culture. 

Regarding facilities, Barlow said they are working on a pilot system at Brookwood Forest Elementary to change the door locks within a school. He said the idea is “to keep people out who don’t belong here.” That initial project was something that was started before the shooting at Parkland, Florida, he said. They’re also planning on adding cameras to the elementary schools and upgrading the surveillance system in the junior high and high school.

In the near future, as a way to alter procedures at the schools, Barlow said all visitors will have to be buzzed in to the building and checked in at the front desk. Drills and training also evolve with each year.

The school board is working with the city to employ an additional school resource officer, or SRO, by the next school year.

“After this last event … we just feel like, as much as we hate to say it, that argument, whether there should be an SRO at every school, has long been put away,” Barlow said. “So that’s no longer a topic of conversation, we just need to make sure it happens.”

But, he said, all this is to be done while maintaining a “healthy culture” at the schools. The key is to talk about safety without instilling a sense of fear. “Students can’t learn in a culture of fear,” Barlow said. 

Board members also took the time to recognize some of their schools’ and students’ recent achievements:

• Mountain Brook Elementary, which was recognized as a State School of Character by Character.org. They were one of two schools in the state chosen as such and will soon go on to compete at the national level for the National School of Character title.
• Ellen Dulin and Noelle Thrasher, who were both named part of the 2018 National Council of Women in Technology Aspirations Award.
• The Mountain Brook Schools Debate Team, which placed both first and second in the Policy and Lincoln Douglas Debate format in the district tournament as well as first in Congressional Debate. This qualifies students Pavel Shirley, Jack T. Smith, Ben Harris, Russ Weas, Griffin Darden, Marielle Cornes and Anne Mitchell Welch to represent Alabama in the national tournament.
• Senior Lauren Crabtree, who won the 500-yard freestyle and placed third in the 100-yard butterfly at AHSAA Swimming and Diving Championships in late 2017. She will go on to swim for Queens College in fall 2018. 
• Senior Hamp Sisson, who played football and basketball, has earned the title of 2018 Bryant-Jordan Scholar-Athlete Regional Winner, which comes with a $3,000 scholarship. He will be competing for the state scholarship title in April. 
• Senior Britton Johnson, who was selected as the My68 Mizrano Law Firm Scholar Athlete of the Year. He was chosen from the pool of “athlete of the week” winners for this designation, which comes with a $3,000 scholarship.  
• Junior Trendon Watford was recently chosen as the Alabama Boys Basketball Gatorade Player of the Year and will now be aiming for the National Boys Basketball Gatorade Player of the Year. The award comes with a $1,000 grant to go to the organization of his choice, of which he chose The Exceptional Foundation.

Also during the board meeting, members:

• Approved the minutes of the previous meeting.
• Approved personnel recommendations.
• Approved the sale or disposal of surplus items.
• Approved an amendment to this year’s budget.
• Reviewed this month’s updates of financial statements to the board due to a grant that was awarded to the schools.
• Recommended the textbooks and materials for both World Languages and Fine Arts be tabled for one month to allow for community input.
• Discussed the audit report for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2017. Auditors gave MBS an “unmodified” opinion, which is the highest designation available.
• Reviewed the All In Elementary Conference that took place on Feb. 13. Director of Student Services Dale Wisely said it was a successful conference, with approximately 175 attendees. 
• Reviewed the outcome of the AdvancED visit, from with school board president Elizabeth Dunn said officials described Mountain Brook Schools as excellent, exceptional and collaborative, among other terms.

The next Board of Education meeting will be on April 9.