W.Va Legislative Committee Releases School Safety Report

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) – When you send your child to school every day, you expect it to be safe.

On Sunday, a West Virginia legislative committee learned the status of school safety across the state.

These details were provided in an annual report from the State Board of Education.

The report focuses on how many of the state’s nearly 700 schools are missing key safety features, from traps to resource officers and surveillance technology.

The report also included a price tag of more than $250 million to provide every school with these safety measures.

State Education Chairman Sen. Amy Nichole Grady, R-Mason, said, “The amount they suggested we needed for school safety was astronomical, but we ask them in those reports to give us a number so we knowing what to work towards.”

Grady said at the top of her list are mantras in every school building.

“That extra set of doors where someone is waiting, but they’re not necessarily in the school, but they’re in that little waiting area because that’s in the state code,” Grady said.

In last year’s report, the state Board of Education said fewer than 300 schools still require mantraps. In this year’s report, that number dropped to 272.

According to the 2024 report, the number of schools with a full-time school official has decreased, while the number of schools with a part-time official has increased.

Grady said she believes this is because schools are struggling to fill vacancies.

“They’re short-staffed, and if we think about having a school resource officer in every school full-time, I think that’s a very positive thing, and I would love that, but I don’t think that’s a good thing. happen,” she said.

New in the 2024 report: the number of schools that require a secondary access road for emergency vehicles. That number is more than 175, which is approximately 25% of the schools.

“Ensuring these access routes are available to emergency services is very important for the safety of our children, regardless of the emergency. Whether it’s a medical emergency or, God forbid, like a school shooting or something like that, we need to make sure they can get to the students as quickly as possible,” Grady said.