Mountain Brook Schools seek to further enhance student safety

Mountain Brook Schools Superintendent Dicky Barlow presented an update on school safety adjustments and a request to add a School Resource Officer (SRO) to Mountain Brook schools Feb. 11 at the Mountain Brook City Council meeting.

Barlow said he met with current Mountain Brook SRO Bryan Kelley the day of the Sandy Hook Elementary shootings in Connecticut to discuss how he could improve the safety of students.

Barlow cited that Hoover and Vestavia have added SROs and police officers to all of their schools. He felt that the best scenario for Mountain Brook schools would be to add an SRO. Officer Kelley is currently in charge of protecting all six of the Mountain Brook schools.

Barlow’s plan would house Officer Kelley at Mountain Brook High School and an extra SRO in Mountain Brook Junior High School. The two SROs would split the duties of protecting the four Mountain Brook elementary schools.

Barlow asked to add a SRO as soon as the City Council could provide the position.

The estimated cost for an extra SRO was presented to City Manager Sam Gaston by Mountain Brook Chief Ted Cook. The salary for the SRO would be $65,000 and a vehicle $35,000. Benefits, staff developments, uniforms and other equipment completed the total cost for the SRO at $144,700.

Along with the plan to add an SRO, Barlow listed improvements he and the school board have made to Mountain Brook security since the Sandy Hook Elementary shootings on Dec. 14, 2012.

Mountain Brook elementary schools already have outside doors locked according to Barlow, but he said implementing a locked door policy to the secondary and high school wasn’t feasible.

“We can’t lock the outside doors to our schools,” Barlow said. “Our schools are too crowded already for that to work, and we don’t want to create an environment for our students that makes them afraid to go to class.”

The main focus of the security guard at Mountain Brook High School used to be preventing students from leaving the school. That has since changed to keeping unknown persons from coming in the school and making sure they have appointments, Barlow said.

Barlow added that the classroom door locks have all been checked and replaced since a plan to improve safety was implemented in December of 2012. In Mountain Brook elementary schools, students have been taught to not open any of the locked doors to strangers.

“In the future, we want to install an automatic locking system to our doors for lock-down situations,” Barlow said. “If someone robs the Regions Bank or something similar happens close to our school grounds, we can automatically lock the doors to prevent anyone from coming in.”

As another long-term goal, Barlow mentioned putting card readers on all doors to schools to keep track of who uses the door and when it is used. He also wants to have security cameras installed in all Mountain Brook elementary schools, a precaution now taken in both the junior high school and high school.

The Mountain Brook Police Department has always patrolled school parking lots, but now has been given access to school grounds and added a patrol through Mountain Brook schools.

“The new patrol route offers random police protection,” Barlow said. “We don’t know when they’re going to be there, but we know they will be a few times a day.”

Lock-down drills have also changed for Mountain Brook schools. The police department now sends a number of officers to monitor the bi-semester drills and presents new scenarios to school principals so students and faculty will be ready for a variety of dangers.

“What we’ve learned from the Connecticut tragedy is that it’s not always best to lock everyone in a room,” Barlow said. “Many circumstances call for everyone to be evacuated from the school to a safe location quickly.”

Barlow has allowed the Mountain Brook Police Department to use schools for police training. He said it creates a win for the police department for their training and a win for the schools since the officers will be familiar with the layout of the school grounds.

Other items covered in the City Council meeting:

• Representatives of Brasfield and Gorrie LLC presented adjustments and costs to the plans for a new fountain in front of the Mountain Brook Municipal Complex. The adjustments were totaled at $121,175. After a $7,942 bond, the total estimated cost for the new fountain is $386,117.
• The Council discussed ALDOT’s plan to improve conditions to Highway 280 with members of Cherokee Forest Neighborhood. The city council expects the plan to be rejected.

• The Council approved a contract between the City and Allcom Wireless for the installation and relocation of communication antennae system to the Office Park department location. The option chosen by the council is an eight antenna system plus relocation services, totaling $26,923.
• The Council approved the execution of a letter of conditional approval to lease Crown Castle of an additional 831 square feet of space adjacent to the existing communications tower site located at the City Public Works facility.
• The Council approved a public hearing for March 11 at 7 p.m. to consider an ordinance amending the Planned Unit Development plan for the Lane Parke development (Ordinance No. 1871 adopted May 21, 2012).

• The Council approved the creation of the “City of Mountain Brook Flexible Benefit Plan,” a non-interest bearing checking account at Iberia Bank.
• The Council approved an amendment and re-adoption of tree protection ordinance to inform the Mountain Brook Tree Commission of any tree planning to be cut down on public property.