Attorney general presents 2019 Safe School Award to Shades Mountain Elementary
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall on Jan. 29 presented Shades Mountain Elementary School with the 2019 Safe School Award for District 3 of the Alabama Board of Education.
Shades Mountain was selected because of its strong school resource officer involvement, the commitment to safety training by faculty and staff, close coordination with the Hoover police and fire departments, and the use of innovative technology to keep students safe, Marshall said today.
His comments came in the school gym during a ceremony attended by city and school officials, the student body, parents and teachers, Hoover police and fire officials, state Sen. Jabo Waggoner, Chris Tate of the Jefferson County Emergency Management Agency and other community members.
“You have a superintendent and a board that cares about student safety,” Marshall told the crowd. “They have created within this school system a culture that safety matters.”
For so long, schools were considered a safe haven, but the murder of 12 students and a teacher at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado, in 1999 changed that line of thinking immediately, Marshall said.
“We don’t want to be that headline. We don’t want to be that national story where we see grieving parents and struggling communities,” he said. “We want to be proactive, and we want to be able to say that … school safety is important and that it matters.”
The attorney general’s Safe School Awards are designed to acknowledge greatness and show people throughout the state where schools are doing things well to keep students and faculty safe, so other schools can implement some of the same practices and procedures, Marshall said.
Marshall brought Shades Mountain Elementary’s school resource officer, Rocco Renno, onto the speaking platform to acknowledge his 32 years of service with the Hoover Police Department and two years at Shades Mountain.
“He came to work today willing to risk his life for people that are in this room,” Marshall said. “He was willing to give everything so that you could be safe.”
Having law enforcement officers in schools is important not necessarily so they can take names but so that they can be the eyes and ears that help keep everyone safe, Marshall said. They are in schools so students can develop relationships of trust with law enforcement officers who wear a badge and carry a gun and because their presence adds to the opportunity for young people to learn and thrive, he said.
Marshall praised the faculty and staff at Shades Mountain for their commitment to participate in safety training and exercises. Educators have a lot on their plate already, but those at Shades Mountain realize they can’t educate children effectively if students don’t feel safe and their parents don’t believe they are safe there, he said.
Shades Mountain Principal Melissa Hadder said the staff at Shades Mountain has monthly fire and weather drills and does intruder and active shooter drills at various times during the school year.
They work closely with Hoover police and fire officials to develop safety plans and are always seeking to find better ways to keep everyone safe, she said.
“We just strive to be as proactive as we can,” Hadder said. “We train for as many scenarios as we can.”
The faculty, staff and students at Shades Mountain are honored to receive the Safe School Award, but they also realize they don’t do everything perfectly, Hadder said.
“It’s a constant fear that something will happen outside our control,” she said. “We just try to be prepared and be diligent.”
Hadder said she is thankful the Hoover school system and city of Hoover provide the resources they do to keep Shades Mountain and other Hoover schools safe.
The city of Hoover provides at least one school resource officer for every Hoover school, and the school district provides technology that includes security systems with cameras, secure entrances, and cell phone apps that can lock school doors and alert law enforcement with the push of a button.
Hadder said school officials want to educate children in a safe and family environment.
“We appreciate the trust that the families place in us each day to keep their children safe both physically and emotionally,” she said.
A record 124 schools in Alabama applied for the attorney general’s Safe School Award this past fall, Marshall said.
In addition to Shades Mountain in state school board District 3, other award winners this year included:
- District 1: Pleasant Home School in Andalusia
- District 2: Loachapoka High School
- District 4: Northridge Middle School in Tuscaloosa
- District 5: Prattville Junior High School
- Distirct 6: Austin High School in Madison
- District 7: Forest Hills Elementary in Florence
- District 8: Discovery Middle School in Madison
- Private school: Lee-Scott Academy in Auburn
Marshall’s office also this year gave a Safe School Award of Excellence to the three schools with the top overall scores in different areas of the state. They were: Decatur Middle School in north Alabama, Westlawn Middle School (Tuscaloosa) in central Alabama and Orange Beach Elementary School in south Alabama.
Another 61 schools received a Certificate of Building a Culture of School Safety.