In Monday night’s Warsaw Community School Corporation’s School Board meeting Steve Long, a local man who describes himself as a “concerned citizen and father of a Warsaw Community High School student,” addressed the board about if and what safety measures the school system was taking to ensure student safety from acts of violence such as shootings.

“Since 1980 there have been 196 school related shootings, killing about 311 people. Failing to plan is planning to fail,” said Long. “We can’t close our eyes and pray and hope that something like this never happens in Warsaw, Indiana. Odds are it probably won’t ever happen – but it could. So my question is, what are you guys and ladies doing? What measures are you taking? What discussion is taking place to see that it doesn’t happen here?”

According to WCSC Superintendent Dr. Craig Hintz, the school is currently assessing the safety of each school through a series of discussions and evaluations. Hintz stated there are many components that the board is considering on the issue, however, the school does currently have some measures in place to deal with a crisis situation.

“Certainly there are many components when we consider the safety of our students and our staff and our schools,” stated Hintz. “Our building leaders have been trained as school safety specialist in Indianapolis, many of them [have been] through the advanced course as well. Every school has its own individual school safety plan that includes routine drills when we are in a crisis, whether it is potentially someone with a weapon, or a gun, there are measures that we take place to lock down our buildings, we have codes that principals relate with their staff.”

According to Hintz, after inventorying all of the school buildings and evaluating entrances, the school administration did realize that there was work that needed to be done to make entrances more secure. WCSC is currently in the process of installing buzzers on school entrances to monitor who enters the buildings as well as installing panic buttons in the administrative offices in case a crisis situation should arise.

In addition, the school system is provided with Warsaw Police officers for the positions of a full-time school resource officer at the Warsaw Community High School and two D.A.R.E. officers positioned at middle schools who serve the four elementary schools. The school is also provided with a crossing guard positioned on SR 15.

While these measures are in place, Hintz does admit the school is currently speaking with city and county officials if this is truly enough to ensure student safety. Hintz states that this investigation is happening currently and is still on-going.