ARKANSAS, USA — The Arkansas School Safety Commission has now met two times since the Governor reconvened the commission after the Uvalde, Texas school shooting. The commission is working on updating their guidance with enough time to implement some more of their recommendations before the new school year starts.
The governor formed the commission in 2018 that includes 20 people who are educators, law enforcement, mental health experts and legislators. The commission’s focus so far is the progress made on the 30 recommendations and identifying any questions about those recommendations. Since the commission gave their recommendations, more than 60% of those have been adopted in Arkansas schools. Hot Springs Police Chief Chris Chapmond says they want to make practices and trainings more consistent across the state so that more schools will adopt them.
“Putting some sort of training in place that all agencies and responding entities have the same level of training. So, we know how to respond to these types of incidents. Hopefully, we never have one again. But if we do, we all want to be on the same page,” said Chapmond.
Fort Smith Schools are one of the 16 districts that have a police department on their campus. Fort smith Schools’ Police Chief Bill Hollenbeck is on the commission.
“All the hard work this committee is doing and has done in the past is quite frankly for not unless it gets in front of the right eyes. We have to get buy-in from our school boards, with our superintendents, with our staff, with our law enforcement agencies,” he said.
The commission will meet again next Tuesday, June 28. Commission members asked for there to be more parent representation on the committee. They will also be looking at how to put more officers in schools.
The University of Arkansas Criminal Justice Institute will be offering online and in-person school safety programs for school districts. Some of those courses include SRO roles and responsibilities and advanced school threat assessment.