KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Olathe Public Schools Board got an update at its Thursday night meeting on the school district's new security system rolled out at the beginning of the 2022-23 school year.
The security system, which features wearable badges with a for all district employees, came in response to a shooting in March 2022 at Olathe East High School.
Jaylon Elmore, a student at the high school, is charged with attempted capital murder in the shooting in a school administrator's office that wounded Elmore, Erik Clark, the school resource officer and assistant principal/athletic director Kaleb Stoppel.
Assistant School District Superintendent Dr. Jim McMullen and Brent Kiger, the district's executive director of safety services, used a PowerPoint presentation to detail how the new system is working.
It went live on the first day of school, Aug.11, 2022, according to the presentation.
The wearable badges have a button that can be pressed to summon help or initiate a lockdown.
Every district employee has a badge, along with substitute teachers.
According to first semester numbers shared with the board, there were 3,396 StaffAlert uses during the first semester.
More than 3,200 of those were at the district's 36 elementary schools.
McMullen told the board that averages out to about three incidents a week at the elementary school level, with some schools have a higher number than others.
The alert system was used 75 times at the district's 10 middle schools and 60 times at its five high schools, according to the presentation.
The board heard 79% of those incidents were related what the district classifies as behavior problems.
In addition, the district added safety specialist at its high schools and improved the video quality of security cameras and its door locks.
The Olathe Public School District is the largest in the metro area.
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