CHARLESTON, W.Va. — School administrators, law enforcement officers, mental health professionals and others were in Charleston Thursday to learn about ongoing efforts to increase safety in West Virginia’s schools.
The 2022 West Virginia School Safety Conference, hosted by Mountain State ESC, was held at the Charleston Marriott Town Center.
Retired Columbine High School Principal Frank DeAngelis was among the featured speakers at the event. He described the 1999 mass shooting at his school and the lessons he’s learned since then.
State Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Rob Cunningham was a police officer at the time of the Columbine shooting. He said a lot has changed since then when it comes to response times.
“The training for law enforcement has evolved since then. Now, we’re not waiting on the SWAT team. If you’re the only one there, you go take care of it,” Cunningham told MetroNews.
Frank DeAngelis, retired Columbine High School Principal, is speaking in Charleston today at the at the 2022 West Virginia School Safety Conference. What are a few things he wants school people to know about? He joins @HoppyKercheval. WATCH: https://t.co/yCFQ3nDJuy pic.twitter.com/bfpmW2kunV
— MetroNews (@WVMetroNews) October 27, 2022
A number of vendors were at Wednesday’s conference to promote their safety enhancement products to West Virginia’s education leaders.
Morgantown-based Rank One Computing offers facial recognition technology in cameras that can be installed at school building entrances. CEO Scott Swan said the goal is to be able to identify a person before they step foot in a school.
“They walk up to a door, there’s a camera there, there’s a button and 99 percent of the time they always get buzzed in through that camera. We want to make that just a little bit more of an intelligence system and add extra diligence there,” he said.
The cameras use a color-coded system to alert school administrators and law enforcement of a suspicious person, Swan said.
“We can turn those cameras into smart cameras and allow things to alert to commend centers, employees or people of trust,” he said.
There’s already been some interest from school districts in West Virginia.
“Marion County has been the first out of the gate. We plan to have them deployed with the visitor management system before the end of the year,” Swan said.
Earlier this month, Gov. Jim Justice launched a statewide school safety plan following the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Tx. in May that left 19 students and two teachers dead. The initiative is expected to be implemented in all 55 counties by the beginning of next year.