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Emergency lockdown buckets discussed for Struthers schools
STRUTHERS
Safety buckets and lockdown kits could be the norm in Struthers classrooms within the next year.
One of the superintendent’s safety initiatives for this academic year is to raise money to create safety buckets and triage kits to put in classrooms.
“This would be another tool that an adult in the classroom would have to help kids get through any potential crisis,” said Struthers Superintendent Joseph Nohra.
Nohra said the school’s core team that discusses school safety already met this fall to discuss plans for the safety buckets. He said the school likely will have to host a fundraiser for the buckets. At the moment, though, he said plans for the buckets are in the early stages.
Yvonne Wilson, director of diversion and safety at Struthers schools, said the emergency buckets likely will contain first-aid supplies, sugar for kids who might be diabetic and water bottles, to name a few things. She said the buckets could be “helpful for kids in lockdown situations for long periods of time.”
Wilson added that since the Sandy Hook incident in 2012, the district has been looking at new ways to keep kids safe in case of a crisis.
The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn., was the deadliest mass shooting at a high school or grade school in U.S. history. Adam Lanza, 20, fatally shot 20 children and six staff members before killing himself.
“The issue of violence in schools seems to grow larger and larger each year,” Nohra said. “There’s more violent things happening, so I think people have been getting more passionate about protecting kids in schools. We want to have a fighting chance in case of a crisis.”
Nohra added that almost immediately after Sandy Hook happened, Struthers had a “vague threat” from a former Struthers student who might have taken action in one of the school’s buildings. Though Nohra said nothing happened, he said that was one of the things that pushed the school to look at ways to boost security.
Nohra said the school district had a subcommittee of parents, staff and administration meet last spring and recommend new safety plans for this academic year.
“Naturally, with incidents like Sandy Hook, you go on heightened alert,” he said. “But we wanted to be committed to consistently thinking about safety readiness; we don’t want to get in a too-relaxed state.”