The Yankton School board is looking at its protocol and safety plans in the aftermath of a shooting at a school parking lot.
One person was injured in last week’s incident, but it’s prompting discussion about school safety.
Yankton School District has received safety training from the I Love U Guys Foundation for years. The foundation focuses on training different entities on crisis response and post-crisis reunification across the country.
Matt Decker is the assistant principal at Yankton Middle School. He said the school and district feel confident in the training done so far.
“We feel right now that we’re really ahead of the ball game, and if an incident occurred, that we would have a reunification plan. Staff and support staff would know what we’re doing and we could handle it,” Decker said.
He said the I Love U Guys foundation is sending people in May to the school’s in-service to provide feedback on the school’s Standard Response Protocol.
Wayne Kindle is the superintendent of the school district. He said amid debates over student cell phone usage in the classroom, situations like this are important to look at.
“One of the first things I told them was get your phones out, and ‘I want you to either text or call your parents and tell them you’re safe, and tell them where you’re at, and we won’t release you until we’re able to do so. And we will update you, and you can update them as we move along.’ And they did. And they shared their phones with others that didn’t have it,” Kindle said.
Board members agreed cell phones allowed for easy communication as last Thursday’s incident played out.
