FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. (WSVN) - The Broward County Public Schools superintendent has announced changes made since the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland last year.
Broward County Public Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie held a press conference on Thursday afternoon where he outlined the progress and changes made – as well as more changes that are coming.
“Since February 14th, we’ve worked on nothing but security and safety in this district,” Runcie told reporters.
At the conference, Runcie talked about a lengthy progress report consisting of around 100 pages.
The report had portions highlighted in green to note the changes that have already been made.
Portions highlighted in blue indicated that the changes are still in progress.
Runcie said the district took $30 million from its own reserves to make the changes.
The changes were made both across the county and at MSD.
Parents of the Parkland shooting victims weighed in Thursday evening on the superintendent’s announcement.
“These are the things that we’ve been urging the district to do for 11 months,” said Max Schachter.
Schachter, whose son Alex was killed in the shooting, believes the changes took too long to be implemented.
“He knew that it needed to be done February 15th,” he said. “It’s so upsetting that it’s taken 11 months for them to finally act.”
The Marjory Stoneman Douglas Commission discovered many issues with security protocols during the Feb. 14 shooting.
“We didn’t wait for the report to come out before we started to take action,” Runcie said. “We began making changes immediately after the tragedy. Not just at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School or the Marjory Stoneman Douglas zone, but throughout the entire county.”
One of the issues involved the code red policy.
“The MSD Commission recommended that every district have a clear code red policy and that every staff member should have the authority to call code red,” Runcie said.
There’s been over 1,300 code red drills across every school in Broward since the shooting as the district works to improve the policy.
Runcie said “hard corners” were implemented in 60 classrooms at MSD as a test run.
“The commission recommended that safer spaces, also known as hard corners, be designated in each classroom,” Runcie said, “giving students a safe place to hide during an emergency.”
The corners provide an area where students can hide safely and remain out of the line of fire.
The test run started over the winter break and is scheduled to be completed in February.
Eventually, all 20,000 classrooms in the district will have the hard corners.
The Broward Sheriff’s Office will also now have surveillance camera access at all schools.
“We just announced that the school district, just yesterday, signed an agreement with the Broward Sheriff’s Office that gives them access to live videos from our cameras at Broward County Schools,” said Runcie.
Andrew Pollack’s daughter Meadow was also a victim in the shooting. He too was critical of Runcie’s plans.
“They’re talking about access to cameras only when there’s a 911 emergency,” he said. “It’s already too late by then. You gotta look at security at multi-tiers … You also gotta look at the mental health and also the policies.”
He believes programs that keep troubled students like accused shooter Nikolas Cruz in the classroom still pose a risk.
“Those policies are still in place, so parents in Broward are sending their kids to schools with kids similar to him,” said Pollack.
The superintendent also revealed that 82 percent of all schools in the district have just a single point of entry.
The rest will be completed by the end of the year.
A new safety and security office is also in the works.
“We took another step above and beyond the commission’s recommendations and created a new office of school, safety and emergency preparedness,” Runcie said.
Officials are interviewing prospective individuals for a chief position.
They expect to have a candidate within the next few weeks.
Thirty positions are also expected to fill the new security office.
The district said they reached out to the state for more funding in order to complete all of the items on the progress report.
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