Episode 7: Safety and Security

In this episode, we'll examine how Dothan City Schools ensures the safety and security of students and staff creating a secure learning environment.

Transcript

Meaghan Paramore (00:02.222)
you

Meaghan Paramore (00:15.928)
Welcome to It Means More, the stories behind Dothan City Schools, where we explore the extraordinary dedication and innovation happening in our classrooms and communities every day. I'm Megan Paramore, Digital Media Specialist for Dothan City Schools, and our special guest host today is Dr. Dennis Coe, Superintendent of Dothan City Schools. And today, we're diving into the world of safety and security in our school system. In this episode, we'll examine how Dothan City Schools ensure the safety and security of students and staff.

creating a secure learning environment. Today I'm joined by Steve Parrish, District Safety Coordinator for Dothan City Schools, bringing over 40 years of experience to ensure the safety of all Dothan City Schools students and staff. Next, have Lieutenant Scott Owens, Public Information Officer for Dothan Police Department and a former commander of the School Resource Division.

with 18 years of experience at the Dothan PD. Thanks to you guys for being here today. We're so excited. Thank you for having us. Yeah, thank you. Well, I'll refer and I'll have to catch myself. So I'll just let everybody know up front. I'll refer to him as Lieutenant Owens and Chief Perry. So if you hear me say chief, I've known Steve a long time when we hired him with Dothan City Schools. He was actually retired for a day or two as the chief of police with Dothan City Police Department. And so we're fortunate to bring him on.

to lead this effort for our school systems. Chief Lieutenant Owens, thank you very much for the work that you do each day. I think you'll see as a listener out there today, I think you're gonna see that we're making some awesome progress and really paving the way for the state in the initiatives that we've implemented here in our school system to provide a safe learning environment for our children. So let's start out with this question of what are the key components of a comprehensive

safety and security plan in schools. Well, Dr. Koh, first of all, thank you for the comments. Secondly, you know, I think that that also ties into what are the keys to a comprehensive safety and security plan in our schools. You know, when you were appointed as the new Dothan City School Superintendent, you called me, I believe it was a day after I had announced I was going to retire and asked me what I was plans were. After we had a brief conversation, we met and you gave me your vision.

Meaghan Paramore (02:34.2)
for safety, not only at Doherty City Schools, but what you thought was the future of safety in school systems. you know, not knocking any other school systems, but oftentimes safety was a back burner. The employees employed with the districts, their education, but they focus on education. They focus on teaching our children. We don't really have anybody in school systems that focus on safety. So...

That was your vision to bring in and take safety to the next level. And I think we've done that. And I think some of the key components is first of all, to have the right people in the right place at the right time that have the right relationships. What do I mean by that? I mean like the relationship that I had as the police chief with the City Schools and the relationship that I have as a district safety coordinator with Dothan City Schools with our Dothan.

with our city of Dothan, our city of Dothan Public Safety Division. And I'll let Lieutenant Owens comment a little bit about his view on that. Yeah, you know, like Chief Parrish said, it's more about the relationships that you have with the students. And that's really the hallmark of a school resource officer and their role and responsibilities in a school. A lot of people think that SROs are there to enforce the law, which that's exactly the opposite of what they're doing. They're there to create the relationships and mentor students so that when something happens,

They feel comfortable going to that adult as maybe they're responsible adult they're going to and tell them, hey, I think there's a problem here. And that's really some of the key components is the relationship part and people feeling comfortable sharing their problems with someone in the school that they have a relationship with. So, you know, the school resource officers are all NASRO certified. Most of them are advanced NASRO certified. And that really highlights the relationship building process for us on the Dothan Police Department side.

Talk a little bit about what NASRO is. So NASRO is a national certification for school resource officers and what it does is it goes into a lot of different aspects of being a school resource officer. One of them is going to be the legal part of how you conduct searches and things like that inside of school. And the main part they focus on is being that mentor for the students. You want to guide them in collaboration with the educators that are on the school grounds to get them following the right

Meaghan Paramore (04:58.254)
towards being a successful member of society. And it's really an art that a lot of our school resource officers do really, really well. They're patient, they have active listening skills, and they really try to be there and be seen so that anytime anybody has a problem, they know they can go to them. And NASRO is one of the requirements we have of our school resource officers. I like the way you said the relationship because I mean I'm product of Dothan City Schools and we always knew our SRO.

Like mine was O'Neill. So I mean, just having that relationship built with them, like, well, if I don't feel comfortable going to a teacher, I can go to that officer and say, hey, you know, I don't feel comfortable or I want to go home. Okay, come on, you know, and just kind of treating you like the parent figure if you didn't have one. So that was good for us. Absolutely. You know, school resource officers, if you're educated in criminal justice theories and principles,

The school resource officer is really that perfect blend between problem-oriented policing and community-oriented policing. The problem in that, where are our problems? know, the lunch area time for high schools is going to be a problem where you have a whole lot of students interacting at the same time. How do you get there? You go and you be seen in the cafeteria so that everybody knows that you're around. But then the community aspecting part is we're asking for a partnership between the staff, the students and the parents really to, hey, let's

Let's all work together to make this the safest school environment possible. And let me let me inject this as well. You talk about relationships, that relationships go further than that SRO and the students and the staff within the schools rises up the ranks. From superintendent perspective, you've got to have that positive relationship with city officials. And we've been fortunate in Dothan to have Chief Benny.

Mayor, know, commissioners that are all very supportive of the SRO program within our schools. So those that are out there listening, you know, let's make sure that you nurture that relationship with your city officials, with your county officials, because it does take, you know, when we look at problems that we have, and I think you'll probably echo this, if you're having problems in the community, more than likely you're having those same problems in the schools.

Meaghan Paramore (07:18.442)
because then I've said this often times schools are a microcosm of society. to have SRO program bridge that gap between what's going on out in the community and what's happening in the school I think is critical and we're fortunate here in Dothan to have that partnership. Couldn't agree more. Next question I would have, how do staff, students and parents collaborate to enhance school safety? Dr. Coe, believe, Lieutenant

Owens touched on this a little bit and that was about the collaborative efforts and the relationship. What we've done at Dothan City Schools from day one, since you and I have been here, is talk culture of safety. I think every administrator, every principal, if you ask them what do we mean by culture of safety, that's what they will tell you and that's what you have to create. It's like I've told the principals at meetings,

You know, you've heard me before, it takes a while to turn an aircraft carrier. Okay. You have to do it gradually. You have to do it methodically. And you have to have buy-in. Okay. That's the key component. You have to have buy-in from not only it starts with the staff, it starts with the leadership, but it has to flow down through the administrators and the employees that we have, the directors that we have, and that has to transition to the students who will affect the parents.

So it's creating that culture. It's very slow. As I said earlier, teachers were not hired on to be safety officials. Unfortunately, with the issues that we've had in our country, and I know the lieutenant could probably elaborate on that, the issues that we've had with school shootings in our country, we have to evolve to that. We have to be safety conscious. We have to, you know, to make schools more safe, which

may be at the cost of making it look like it's perhaps a little institutional with fencing and things like that, but it's necessary to keep the kids safe. I couldn't agree more. And I think what you saw is really this evolution of school safety starting in 1999 with Columbine.

Meaghan Paramore (09:36.866)
You know, before then, SROs were mainly just in the parking lot to make sure kids weren't drinking in the parking lot. There was really nothing, no relationships being built in the schools. And after 1999, everybody said, we see a problem. And that problem is active shooter. let's, you know, let's gear our response towards active shooters. And then they kept happening and it really didn't fix the problem. And we kept throwing more money after more money after it. And then really where everything's changed, I think was Yuvaldi.

where everybody said, hey, maybe active shooter training, maybe we can get there before it happens. And that was where both Nazaro and the Dothan City Schools really said, hey, we see a problem that we can fix before it gets to be, we become part of that really terrible community of school shootings. And what the school protection initiative started by Chief Parrish, now that was authored by him. I remember, because I worked with you on the policy, obviously,

accreditation manager at the time was a great start and has now been evolved and really taken and Chief Benny took the ball and ran with it. And again, you know, getting the staff, students and parents to collaborate on school safety, the staff, the school, the parents, the city commission, the police department, everybody in those relationships. Excuse me. And so you've all these where you really saw everybody said, Hey, maybe

Maybe we start putting an officer in every school. And they did a lot of studying and a lot of people who were a part of those. And one of the things that SROs are really good at and that we preached was when there's a threat, you go to the student. Go to the student and at least make contact. There may not always be something that you can arrest for. We try not to. But I think it was 75 % of school shootings were averted just by making contact with a student making the threat. And that was where we were lacking before U-vaulty.

We wouldn't actually go talk to the student if we didn't have criminal charges and we figured out that that was wrong So really this this change in law enforcement perspective Started with Columbine evolved again with you Volody and with people looking at hey school school protection initiative Things like that people are looking us to be the leaders in that and I'll say this too In regard to collaborating with with parents for those that are out there listening

Meaghan Paramore (11:59.742)
to this broadcast. At this very moment, are having disciplinary tribunals on this campus. And the majority of the people that we're seeing come through those tribunals are students who have made some type of threat. And so the language that we're using, you know, I'm going to blow this school up. I'm going to kill you. You know, those kind of things.

That conversation, that correction of that has to start at home. And so we would plead with those of you that are listening, whether your parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, if you're a mentor or a leader or somebody who is influential in the child's life, have that conversation with them. When we talk about collaboration, it's gotta be everybody. They need to understand, they see so many things.

In social media, they see so many things in the games that they play, the television shows that they watch, that we're getting desensitized to the importance of human life. And so I think it's critical for us to emphasize to those of you listening out there that we need to be having that conversation at home with our children. That's got to be the starting point, and certainly the efforts that we have in school.

those relationships, the conversations that we have in school should be the second conversation that the students hear. Hopefully the first conversation they hear is at home. And not just on the speaking of the threat, but if you hear it as well. You know, a lot of people don't want to tattle on their schoolmates for a variety of reasons. know, the conversation should be twofold. It should be,

time-place manner of when you say these things that can be taken out of context and really get you into trouble. But also, if you hear something like this, you need to report it to a responsible adult. You said something about when you were talking about Uvalde and Columbine, active shooter training. I got to go to my first one. Can you talk a little bit more about that with y'all bringing in the high school students to experience the active shooter training? Anytime that you can, I say, expose students to that type of training, all it's going to do is start to build those

Meaghan Paramore (14:10.126)
neural pathways to hey if this actually happens this is what the police are going to do and not so much everybody worries about us giving away tactics and I'm not really that worried about it to that extent but the students that are there they see us performing first aid you know the main phrase of active shooter training is stop the killing stop the dying stop the bleeding and that's kind of your priority of response you want to stop the killing first you want to stop the dying and then you want to stop the bleeding

And when they see us performing first aid medical, when we get in there after the threat's been neutralized, you can't tell me that those kids aren't going say, hey, I saw the officers doing this. I can do that too, which is something as simple as putting pressure on a wound. But they see how fast we can get on scene. They see our response to those types of threats. And I think that actually encourages a more safe environment for them in the schools. They know that if there's a problem,

both from police department is going to be on the scene quick and we're going to go handle it. And if I could, if I could expound upon that a little bit, I know when we first started the idea of active shooter training was when I was at the police department in collaboration with the school. And then when I transitioned to the school, it became a whole lot easier for us to organize that. So I got with the fire department, the police department, this we've done it three years in a row.

And we have what is called the ASHER training, active shooter hostile event response. And the idea behind that is Lieutenant Owens was saying is to have our juniors and seniors, particularly at our high school, with a generalized knowledge of how to put direct pressure on a wound or how to apply a tourniquet, how to do CPR and things like that.

So the first year we did that, Megan, it was kind of interesting because we had to draft volunteers to do that. We had to take students from the health department of the technology center and make them do it. After that first year, 35 students, think Lieutenant was the cap on that, after that first year, we're turning people away.

Meaghan Paramore (16:30.242)
The kids love it. They go to the Wiregrass Public Safety Center. They spend a day with the police department, a day with the fire department. They're hands-on. They wear their physical agility clothing because it's tasking, it's strenuous. And what they do is once they complete that training, Dr. Koh, the chief of police, the fire chief, will present certifications.

If you want to talk about first responders immediately after a school shooting, who is going to be the first responder? It's going to be the students in that classroom who are, who have survived while the police and fire are getting there and deploying and trying to neutralize whatever threat and search for others. These students that we're training that these guys are training are actually the first responders. They're the ones that's going to do that because they, have a working knowledge of how to do it.

So a great program, a great partnership, can't say enough about it. So in that regard, we talk about training and stop stopping bleeding and those kinds of things. Talk about the equipment that we've talked about training. Let's talk about the equipment that we've added that might be unique, that many people may not know exists in our classrooms, in our schools, in our hallways. What are we putting out there?

for staff in the event that we have an emergency. And I think people need to think too, when you, we're not necessarily just talking about shooter. I mean, we have situations where we have students have health episodes or staff that may have health episodes. So it may not be, you know, a violent act that results in that emergency need. So what are some other components that we've added to our schools for safety? Yes, sir. And I'll, and I'll.

I'll start describing some of this stuff and ask Lieutenant Owens to jump in here. One of the biggest things we've done, and he's been exposed to this because the police department's also a partner within this, is our crisis alert system. Okay, in 2021, we implemented a crisis alert system where our teachers wear a badge and they can press a button and it notifies school officials and administrators.

Meaghan Paramore (18:48.714)
If they have, a fight in the hall, a teacher can touch their badge three times, press the button, sends off a silent alarm, let site responders know that, hey, there's a situation in this hall, a map pops up on an app on their phone. First responders can, the police department resource officers are notified. All of them get the location. And also the teacher has the authority to lock the school down, pressing the thing multiple times.

It's very user friendly. We test it periodically. That is one component. And I'll let Lieutenant Owens talk about what he thinks as far as the value of that goes from a standpoint of the resource officers. And then maybe we could talk a little bit about some other things we've done. The value can't be stated. You don't know the value of one of those things until something happens and you really need to use it. And it has been used.

For instance, a kid has a seizure in a classroom. Who do you need to notify? The police department, because we have a one-way right then communication. We don't have to call 911. We can get on the radio and get medical there to help that child or that teacher. And this happened multiple times when I was the school resource officer division commander. And the map on the school.

If you're going to multiple schools or let's say we have an SRO out and we have an SRO filling in, he may not be as familiar with that school. So having the layout of that school immediately for when a fight happens, when there's a medical episode, anytime a teacher locks down a school, there are different responses. know, when there's a fight in the hallway, SROs that are at the school immediately know, they know exactly where to go. Even if it's stated on there, because a lot of schools have radios and you know as well as I do, people...

get a little jumpy and might say the wrong thing. They might think I'm on the 300 hallway and we're really on the 400 hallway. And that map really helps us diffuse that confusion really, really quickly. But even on lockdown, you get a lockdown of the school. We have SROs positioned at all different schools, and it's not just going to be those SROs at that school that are responding. It's going to be the two that are over at this middle and elementary school responding to Dothan Prepper to Dothan High School, as well as all the supervisors. And you're to have five officers on scene probably within a minute.

Meaghan Paramore (21:04.654)
if there's a lockdown of the school. And luckily, most of those have been false alarms, but we're always ready and we treat every alarm as if it's real. That's one of the keys. You talk about a culture of safety like Chief Perry's talked about earlier, is we need to treat the alerts and the drills as if they're real. That's the only way you practice the way you're going to play. And Dr. Kovey, you can comment about the feedback that we've gotten from the teachers as far as how they feel about

having that at their finger. I think from what we hear, there's an extra layer of security for them. They feel more confident that if something were to happen, that they can communicate what's going on in their classroom. They've got the location that people that are responders have the location. And so, you know, when you and I talked about implementing this, one of the key components to that was reducing response time.

And so to be able to respond quickly and knowing before you get there, pretty much an idea of what's going on, who's involved, where it is. And I think, you know, we've even had school lockdown performed by individuals not in the school. And if y'all want to talk about that, I mean, that just talk about the community and the police department being involved. we, we've had times where schools have been locked down.

and no one in the school knows why. Yeah, we had a good example that would be a weather alert. Okay, we can initiate a weather alert. Let's just say you're sitting in your office as superintendent and you're watching the Weather Channel or listening to an EMA briefing and all of sudden you hear there's a tornado in the area of just say West Gate and Headland Avenue. You could lock

You could place a weather alert and initiate the safety procedures of a weather drill from your office at Sling Luff and Oathen High School. And you would do that immediately. And then you would contact the administrators and let them know why you did it. Again, as Lieutenant Owens will say, in time is of the essence when you're dealing with an emergency. And am I correct?

Meaghan Paramore (23:27.566)
response program that we have in place. Was that the same that was in place in the school outside of Atlanta here recently where the school is currently in They used that. They used the same system that we used. And if I understood correctly with that, I think they attributed that program to the fact that there weren't more deaths. Yes. Anytime you have something like what happened in Atlanta, it's not so much of if.

It's how can you limit the damage? And that program goes a long way to get people in a safe spot quickly so that the damage is going to be minimized. So, you know, we've done some other things too. Stop the bleed kits. Yeah, we, you know, we've worked with the fire department on that particular issue, but we have level two trauma kits in every classroom that we purchase with grant funding.

So, and that's another thing, you know, we, talk about all the things we've added and we can talk about metal detectors in a few minutes, weapons detection system, fencing, secure vestibules, all of those things, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of things that we've been able to secure at relatively no cost to the district other than some matching funds because we've received those through grant funding.

over a million dollars worth of grant funds that we've received, not only for things like the stop-bleak kits in every classroom, but secure vestibules in a couple of our schools, upgrading intercom systems, weapons detection systems. You know, the weapons detection systems that we have and people who have been to the football games have seen those in our sporting events. These are not just your standard old metal detector.

These are top of the line systems like you see when you go to an Alabama or an Auburn game or an Atlanta Braves game. These are, you know, when you go to Disney World, these are the same systems that you see. They're not metal detectors, they're weapons detection systems. So we can adjust those and we have turned back people at some of the football games because they, yeah, I got a gun on me or I got a knife on me.

Meaghan Paramore (25:47.498)
You can't bring it in here. So all of the things that we have done, probably a mile or two of fencing at multiple locations, these things are paid for with grant funds with just probably a 25 % match from the school board. We have multiple ways and I'll give a shout out now when I can to Senator Donny Chastain and

And Representative Paul Lee have contributed funds to us recently to update all of our AEDs throughout the school. that's, you know, hopefully you don't ever have the need for those, but we do have access to AEDs on every campus. We're in the process of updating those. A lot of ours were, you know, getting to the point where they were 10 years old or older and the warranty, the new ones are more

modernized, more up to date. And so we have those available at our schools as well as available for travel, for our athletic events or any field trips that we have. You you hope that that never happens, but we've had, you know, here in our immediate area, we've had some unfortunate events where we've lost students at athletic events and surrounding systems where children have died on the playing field. And so to be able to have

those types of equipment available for students. think again, this is just another layer of safety and security that we have. Going based on Dr. Coe, like the, you know, all of the sadness, let's talk about some successes that our security features and safety initiatives have had. Owen, you want to, what are, do you have a success story that you'd like to share about how these new features and initiatives have helped Dothan City Schools?

It's hard to quantify that because what you stop you never know about. Anytime we have a vehicle pursuit or a foot pursuit that involves somewhere around a school, we had one recently over on Eagle, I think, which is right near Jerry Lee Fein Elementary. And the SRO was able, he wasn't even at the school at the time, he was off fixing something for another school. He was able to put that school on soft lockdown, that way the doors locked. They could continue normal operations, they weren't really affected.

Meaghan Paramore (28:09.774)
But nobody's gonna get in at that point. And so you have several stories like that where maybe we stopped something prior to and that nobody ever really knows about. You only hear about the ones that actually succeed. But the system's great. When I was the school resource commander, I could sit in my office and I would get those alerts about all the schools in the whole district. And the way they work, the way the officers could respond to things.

is great. The ASHER training that we're doing is preparing students and luckily we haven't had to use that yet. One of the things they teach you in that ASHER training is CPR. It is so important to have just basic CPR training in case you need it in the schools, at rep use, at home. And that's one of the many benefits of the ASHER training is that these guys get basic CPR instruction and so important. Yeah, and I would like to kind of spin off of that and say, you know, one of the

The technological advances that I've noticed that I'm really passionate about is the stop arm violation program that the school board approved in March of, I think it was 2023. And when someone asked me about that, and I'll ask Lieutenant Owens right here on the cast, how many tickets have you personally ever written for a vehicle passing a stopped school bus?

Me personally, maybe five in my whole career. Five in your whole career. I never wrote any, okay? Because the dynamics of how a bus stops, the issues of if a car passes a stop school bus, am I gonna pass that same stop school bus and am I gonna take a chance of injuring a child? So technology has advanced to the point where that AI cameras can

can detect these violations. And the state of Alabama passed a law in 2016 allowing for the photographic enforcement of school bus violations. Alabama, in Dothan, Alabama, it had the highest violation rate in the state of Alabama, the highest. Now it has the lowest, okay. Since the implementation of the program, those violations have gone down by over 40%.

Meaghan Paramore (30:30.344)
which is amazing statistic. you know, to echo what Chief Perry said, sometimes it's tough for an officer with so many calls coming in, whatever their daily activities are, to follow a school bus around and watch for people running the stop bar on. You know, it's just, it's not something that we get to do all the time. My five, or when I was in traffic, I was directly responsible for traffic activities and I just happened to see it. So the Angel Track system in the stop bar violation arm,

is really a force multiplier for law enforcement, for the city schools to keep kids safe. And that's what everybody needs to understand. We're not do... I'm sure this is not a money-making scheme. It is all about safety for the kids. And if we keep that in mind, A, we won't do it, but B, the people that get caught, well, I shouldn't have ran... I could have put a kid in danger. I could have killed a kid today. Well, when you talk about the revenues, it's not a money-making effort. The proceeds that we collect from

those violations go directly back to Doatham City Schools to support safety initiatives throughout the school. So you're talking about the fencing projects that we have, cameras, the other safety initiatives that we with the police department to, you know, we have an agreement, the board has an agreement to provide some of the funding and equipment for the officers in our schools. And yeah, some of that money goes to that too, so.

as well as to sustain and to expand our Drivers Ed program. We used a lot of that initially to purchase additional Drivers Education simulators so we would have opportunities for more children to take Drivers Ed courses. And then you know the rules of the road and you understand the implications of passing that stop arm. know, that's been on the bus. A lot of people don't realize that, but that's been on the bus for over 100 years.

there's been a stop arm on the bus and it's been a violation to pass that for over a hundred years and so we're thankful that this initiative has taken us from having some of the most dangerous streets in the city for children to some of the safest and so I think that's a great tribute. We talk about cameras a little bit, let me throw this out there too, the work that's going on as a result of the legislation that passed

Meaghan Paramore (32:52.982)
last year. Chief, I know we're working on these things now. Talk a little bit about the ability of the police department now, the work that's ongoing now for the police department to have access to our school campus. Sure. You know, about three or four months ago, the governor signed the Alabama School Security Act. And that act is about eight pages and it defines what schools are.

going to have to do and I'll let you talk a little bit in a second about the report card and the safety component that you told me about at the superintendent's meeting you went to. But the Alabama School Security Act tells districts basically how they're going to do their safety operations. Safety has become such a big talking point

and concern among the State Board of Education, but our legislators and our government, they have created oversight committees, regional inspectors, the Alabama Department of Law Enforcement is going to be one of the components as well as the State Board of Education, and they're going to be auditing school districts and the training and the equipment and the interaction and their collaborative efforts with

local with districts, local public safety representatives is going to be required. I'm happy to say that Dothan City Schools, you could really take that law, that act, you could really take that act and check off everything that's being done that we're doing and we're doing 95 % of it. To your point, one of the things that we had not done

working on is allowing access for the police department and Dothan Public Safety to look at the cameras at all of our schools. So a couple of weeks ago, we had a meeting that is in the works to where the police department will be able to view all of the video at all of the schools and as, it's required by the law. So I'll let you talk a little bit about the, I guess, the report card. so let me just.

Meaghan Paramore (35:14.488)
Finish that by saying upcoming. think most of the parents out there are familiar with the school report card that's released each year. What's coming and what's going to be added to the report card would be a report of safety for each school. So if my understanding of that is it's going to be kind of like a red light, so you're going to have red, yellow, or green indicator that would indicate the level of safety that each campus has. And you know,

Parents need to be aware of that. You know, lot of the schools in the state of Alabama are aging. We've got several here that are 70 years old or older. There are some campuses throughout the state of Alabama that are approaching 100 years old. And so there's going to need to be an effort statewide to provide additional revenues to make our campuses safer. But that indicator will be forthcoming on future report cards.

What message would you want to convey to our listeners today about the importance of safety in schools? Can I add on to that too? We'll do like a two for one question. Include what the work that you do means to you. You know, from the police department's perspective, I think our message would be first to the parents to get involved, know what your child's doing, know what they're saying, specifically their social media accounts. You need to know what they're sending, what they're doing. A child under the age of 18 doesn't have any expectation of privacy in your home. You should know what's going on.

And if you do that, you're going to be more involved and more apt to see something before it becomes a problem. To the students, and I would say we are here to partner with you. We want to help you on your path of education towards getting a degree from Duncan City Schools. We want to make sure that you're safe in the school, that your learning environment is pristine and exactly what it needs to be, needs to be. For the staff, we're there to help you. We're there to partner with you. We want to provide the safest environment for staff and students.

And what the work means to us is if you really want to know where your community is, if you really want to make an impact, it's always going to be the children of that community. If you want to make a long lasting impact, the youth of that community is where you start and where you're going to see the biggest impacts going forward. And then it's a long term goal. Very good. Yeah. I agree to me, Megan, I think, you know what my job here pertains to me is not, it's not about, not about working and drawing a check.

Meaghan Paramore (37:39.55)
It's about purpose. When I retired from the police department, I was gone for a whole 30 days and realized that I wanted to do something else. So being able to have, to continue to have an impact on public safety, but now with a focus on our children is very fulfilling to me. It's rewarding. It's the relationships that I've been able to make and with school.

administrators to understand the workings of how a school district works, to interact with directors at other, in other departments, to work cohesively together to carry out the superintendent's goal of making the school safer and to locating the funds that we need to do at relatively no cost to the school system to make those things happen that will impact not only our students, but our teachers and our community. So we're working together to

create again, as I've said before, this culture of safety in our schools. And if I had one thing that I would want to talk to the people about that is listening, it would be buy into that. Talk to your children or your grandchildren, nieces and nephews about the things that they are exposed to in school, what they think. Go to meetings, get involved with your children, and let's work together to create this culture and to keep it very strong.

I love that. love all the new safety initiatives in Dothan City Schools and how we're just growing and growing. mean, it's different from when I was in high school. I graduated in 2019. So then just from here, seeing all the different aspects that have come together that have worked for our school system and it can only get better from here. So thank you all so much for being a part of this podcast today. Thank you, Dr. Coe for being my guest co-host, the best co-host. Well, it's great. It's easy to talk about these. can tell our folks are passionate about.

providing that level of safety for children. And again, like Chief said, we want you to get involved, whether it's by supporting our schools, sharing your own stories, or simply spreading the word about the incredible work happening here. Join us on our mission to make education more meaningful for every student. Remember that at Dothan City Schools, it always means more.