Mississippi superintendents on school safety

The Mississippi Association of School Superintendents is hosting their annual summer convention at the Beau Rivage this week and their focus is school safety.

It is summertime and kids are out of school and having fun while superintendents are planning ways to keep their children safe for the upcoming school year. From February to May this year there were two schools shootings in Mississippi and many shootings around the country. MASS Executive Director Phil Burchfield said, “With the most recent events that’s happened in our country, we felt that we would focus on our convention on student safety so that we can start some conversations back home about what we need to do, how we need to prepare to get ready for that day in case it happens.”

More than one hundred school superintendents from across Mississippi are attending the convention to learn from FBI agents about everything from the behavioral sciences behind an active shooter to how to run, hide, and fight in an active shooter situation.  Christopher Freeze is the special agent in charge of the FBI in the state of Mississippi. He said, “The number one thing is you need to run, you need to have a plan that says how do I get out of here. If you can’t run, you need to find a way to hide and the worst case is you need to be willing to fight.”

These topics are what law enforcement deals with every day, but the FBI says it’s now more important than ever for schools to be trained and educated in the subject as well. “It’s a topic that needs to be addressed. We need to be able to engage the people who are most dealing with our children and saying how can we protect them,” said Freeze.

The goal is to ensure that these superintendents are not just talking about ‘what ifs’, but they are actually exercising their plans to keep their schools safe. Clinton Schools Superintendent Tim Martin said, “It’s the one conversation that keeps you up at night. Of course, our focus is on student achievement and test scores and students learning, but if they’re not safe then they can’t do any of that.”