Fort Smith Public Schools police chief talks current and future safety measures
"I don't know if you ever can do enough, but I think it's our responsibility to make sure that we're prudent with this money and make sure that we apply it in the best ways we possibly can to keep our students and our staff safe," Fort Smith Public Schools police Chief, Bill Hollenbeck, said.
The police department is responsible for the safety of approximately 17,000 students and staff within the school district.
Hollenbeck is a former sheriff who also recently served on the Arkansas School Safety Commission that was reconvened following the Uvalde, Texas, school shootings.
He told 40/29 News that many of the commission's recommendations were included in the AR LEARNS Act, which addressed everything from teacher salaries to school choice, as well as school safety.
"From ensuring that all the officers inside the schools attend a basic school resource officers class, then after five years, I believe they have to attend a refresher course. Also, mandatory site assessments to ensure safety issues are being taken care of within the schools," Hollenbeck said. "We were doing probably 90% of the recommendations already here at the Fort Smith Public School District."
Every school in the district currently has secure entryways. It was part of a voter-approved millage increase in 2018 for school safety upgrades.
"That's one of the national standards. It's very important to make sure that that we have controlled access and we funnel the people that are coming inside our schools into the front office where we can do additional checks of the person to make sure that they are authorized inside that school," Hollenbeck said.
The police department is made up of 13 officers and a social worker who conducts threat assessments.
"One of the recommendations with the safe school is to understand behavioral threats. What we want to try to do is identify individuals who might be going on a pathway to violence and divert that pathway of violence," Hollenbeck said.
Money from a Safe Schools grant totaling nearly $600,000 is being used to upgrade locks on classroom doors at schools across the district. The work should be completed by the end of the year.
"They're going to be ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliant, as well as not just teachers who can lock the door, but we're going to ensure that students can also have access to the door to be able to lock them as soon as they close those doors, they will be locked," Hollenbeck said.