Reports released by the Kentucky Center for School Safety and a team of Homeland Security assessors who visited the county’s schools earlier this year have spotlighted some security issues that members of the Caldwell County Board of Education are now working to address.

School board members discussed the separate reports this week after briefings from Superintendent Carrell Boyd and Assistant Superintendent Quin Sutton.

An assessment team with the Kentucky Community Preparedness Program spent a week in October surveying 16 sites in Princeton and Caldwell County, including the schools, for vulnerabilities to crime, terror attacks and other disasters.

Separately, Kentucky Center for School Safety assessors visited the school near the same time.

Both groups’ evaluations and recommendations were recently released to those in charge of the schools surveyed.

Out of the recommendations for the school complex, “almost every one of them talked about our current monitoring system,” Boyd said.

Security cameras are currently in place at the high school and middle school, but are not constantly monitored.

As one way to counter that lack of monitoring, surveyors suggested the schools lock all their entrance doors during school hours.

Having front doors unlocked, as is the case in the schools now, makes the buildings easily accessible to the public.

The reports suggested the schools convert their main entrances to doors that lock automatically and feature a buzzer system, where visitors can buzz a school’s office employees to gain access.

Administrators said the move was not an effort to shut the public out, but acknowledged that it could be perceived as such.

Purchasing four doors suited for the buzzer system would cost about $15,000, said school Buildings and Grounds Director Larry Curling.

Assessors also suggested the school district provide all its employees with identification badges and mandate their use.

Technology Director Lee Prowell is working on the badges, which should be finished sometime next semester, Boyd said.

The school safety center’s report also contained specific recommendations for the county’s middle and high schools.

The assessors praised the high school’s recognition of high-achieving students, its conversion to a four-lunch period, alleviating crowding in the cafeteria, and its employment of a school resource officer, Sutton said.

The high school report also identified five areas of concern and consideration, he added.

“The schools have seen this report and are starting to work on some of these areas,” he said.

The first mentioned is accessibility. The school features a large number of exterior doors, several of which are propped or pulled open.

The report also called for better supervision of students who cross the school’s parking lot to walk to classes at the vocational school.

Assessors recommended ID badges for every staff member, an update of the school’s emergency management plan and a parent reunification plan (where, in the event of an evacuation of all school buildings, students would be bused to the Butler lot to reunite with parents or guardians).

The middle school, Sutton said, was praised for its frequent practicing of emergency procedures, adequate supervision between classes, having all doors except its front entrance locked, and for collaborating with local emergency officials to number all interior and exterior doors.

Assessors recommended the high school follow the middle school’s lead and number all doors, plus exterior windows.

The surveyors expressed concern about the safety of students being picked up by parents or guardians at the same time buses were loading. They recommended the school hold such students until after the buses leave.

Efforts to improve safety at the schools will be aided by a grant of almost $15,000 given to the school system through the U.S. Department of Education, with the local district in collaboration with 18 others and the West Kentucky Education Cooperative.

The grant will go toward a four-phase project implemented in each participating district.

District emergency operations plans will be reviewed and compared, to try and make the plans similar for each district.

Four-hour training sessions will also be offered in each district, for officials to look at security assessments, become familiar with the incident command system and learn how to do self-assessments.

Separate four-hour trainings will be scheduled with local emergency responders and law enforcement personnel, to act out scenarios pertinent to school safety concerns in an effort to identify the district’s needs for improvement.

Finally, a 30-minute Web-based training module will be developed for school employees.

“It’s a comprehensive approach,” said Sutton. “Hopefully, we’ll plan for this and never have to use it.”

The program is expected to be in place by December 2007.

In other business:

• The board approved the formation of winter drum line and winter color guard programs at the high school.

The programs provide the band’s drummers and color guard members with opportunities for further competition in the off-season.

• The board voted to approve a Cinergy Communications bid to run a fiber-optic Internet line from the Butler campus to the Marion Road school complex.

Installation of the line and a five-year contract with Cinergy will cost an estimated $28,678.20, after a discount.

• Personnel action noted included the resignation of Christine Grindstaff as a CCPS paraeducator and the resignation of Rhett Miller as boys soccer coach at CCHS.

Amanda Taylor was employed as a full-time substitute bus driver and substitute cook and baker.