MCDONOUGH, Ga. — Henry County’s school administrators are confronting, head-on, the tragic and life-threatening environment disrupting schools and impacting children practically everywhere -- fights, weapons and violent crimes in the classrooms.
The superintendent made it clear at a meeting with parents Thursday night that the next round of security enhancements will include what parents say their children need in order to stay safe.
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It was a genuine conversation about making children and their schools safer.
Fresh on everyone’s minds are fights in Henry County schools that have left students and staff injured; students have been caught with weapons in the schools as well.
One of the parents at the meeting, Shaney Wilson, told 11Alive that a child was caught on Wednesday with a knife, in her daughter’s classroom.
“I just pray,” Wilson said. “I pray for my kids, pray for their safety, pray they get back home.... because I can’t even tell you how many emails I’ve received just this school year from both of my daughters that weapons have been brought into their schools. It’s very alarming.”
So Wilson and about a hundred other parents listened to Superintendent Dr. Mary Elizabeth Davis tell them that by next school year there will be more School Resource Officers -- a total of 32, more than enough to have at least one assigned to every high school and middle school; and she said there will be more security cameras, along with real-time monitoring; and activation of a “door ajar” alert system, among the many enhancements planned.
She said they are working on determining which type of weapon detection technology they should install at each school entrance, but the new system won’t be ready until after the 2023-2024 school year.
She discussed keeping children safe in all of their environments, not just in the schools. She gave advice, such as check your children’s phones. She gave parents a list of 15 apps that she said should not be on a child’s phone.
Then Dr. Wilson and her staff started listening to the parents, writing down every single recommendation that the parents believe will make their kids safer in schools.
Andrina Hires, for example, wants tougher discipline for offenders.
“We have heard of incidents, and students come back to school” into the same classrooms they disrupted, frightening classmates and teachers alike, she said, as if they were never punished. “'Why,' would be my question, why is that allowed? I do not think that children should be allowed to create such a discouraging environment every day for our teachers, and also for their peer students.”
Dr. Davis said she’s ready to respond to all criticisms and ideas.
“We will take every question received,” she said, “and every suggestion that has been given, we will collect it all, we will put it into themes, and we will begin to build our roadmap of improvement as we head into next (school) year. And we’ll continue to report back to the community. We’ll bring this back -- 'we heard this, we did this, and we wanted to bring this back to you.’”
Davis said better school security requires everyone’s involvement, especially the parents’.
There will be another meeting Tuesday, April 25, at 6 p.m., and that one will be at the Henry County Schools Learning and Support Center, 166 Holly Smith Dr., McDonough, 30253.
More than 43,000 students are enrolled in the Henry County school system, attending 52 schools; there are more than 6,000 employees, including some 3,000 teachers.