Fewer than 30 parents and community members showed up at a security meeting the Fulton County school system hosted Tuesday night.
Shannon Flounnory, who heads safety and security for Fulton schools, said he’s been getting lots of calls and emails from parents worried about security in the wake of last month’s shooting at a school in Florida.
“We’re reassuring our communities we have fundamental practices in place and to make sure they understand what these practices are,” Flounnory said.
Some of those practices include cameras at high schools, adding additional officers to the school system’s police force, and encouraging a “if you see something, say something” environment.
He said the system is also gathering feedback from the community because there might be suggestions safety professionals may not have considered. Flounnory added security is a “collaborative effort between the schools, the home, and the extended community.”
But the number of people attending the meeting at Banneker High School in south Fulton was small. And many of them were school employees.
Latarsha Wilson works the front desk at a Fulton County middle school and her child is a student at Creekside High School. She said she would like school officials to find a way to check IDs before allowing people into schools.
“Sometimes when the parents buzz the door we just ask, you know, ‘state your reason for the visit,’” Wilson said. “If they say they’re here to check out the student, we buzz them in. And from that point, we then check ID and run it through the machine. So it’s like, after the fact, that we’ve already buzzed them in.”
Wilson also noted how few parents attended last night’s meeting. She said the lack of parent involvement in schools is a “key that’s missing.”
Fulton school officials said they expect a bigger turnout at tomorrow evening’s meeting at Centennial High School. It starts at 6:30.
