In wake of Uvalde school shooting County Supervisors get security update from WCPS Superintendent Chris Ballenger

At its regular 9:00 am meeting on Tuesday, June 7, the Warren County Board of Supervisors got a detailed report from Public Schools Superintendent Chris Ballenger on security methods, standards, and a recent review and planned upgrades in the wake of the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas. That May 24th shooting by a rifle armed 18-year-old who shot and severely wounded his grandmother before stealing her car earlier that day, took 21 lives, including 19 young students, with 17 other students or staff being wounded. Ballenger lauded the school system’s relationship with the Warren County Sheriff’s Office, which provides School Resource Officers (SROs) to augment physical plant security measures with an armed in-school defensive presence.

After beginning his monthly report with an update on the system’s transitioning from the school year to summer school, planned construction projects, and financing, Ballenger pivoted toward school security: “One thing I wanted to kind of spend time on today was to talk about school safety and security a little bit …

“The unfortunate event at Robb Elementary School, I know that’s on everybody’s mind. Our children are our most precious commodity when it comes to their safety, their security, their education. And of course, that is always on the forefront of our minds on a daily basis at all of our school sites,” Ballenger told the county’s elected board that authorizes funding of significant portions of county public schools, law enforcement, and emergency services budgets.

‘Our children are our most precious commodity when it comes to their safety, their security, their education,’ Warren County Public Schools Superintendent Chris Ballenger told the county supervisors in prefacing his report on schools security measures. School and government buildings across the nation have lowered their flags to half staff in honor of the 21 dead, including 19 children at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Royal Examiner Photos Roger Bianchini

Dr. Ballenger said that he often meets with Sheriff Mark Butler or Major Jeff Driskill on a weekly basis, and rarely goes two weeks without contact with the Sheriff’s Office’s administrative staff, as well as what he termed “constant contact” with lead SRO officer Sgt. Cindy Burke “on a daily basis”.

“So, there’s a lot of communication between the schools and the sheriff’s office related to school security,” Ballenger observed of a joint proactive stance on that front, a front now at the forefront of many people’s minds from coast to coast. The Robb Elementary School shooting is the third-highest school shooting fatality number in the U.S., after Virginia Tech (2007, 32 dead, 17 wounded) and Sandy Hook Elementary School (2012, 26 dead, including 20 children aged 6 and 7).

“We have a crisis management plan that is reviewed on an annual basis and we do have entities that come in to help us,” Ballenger told the supervisors, adding, “And our next scheduled meeting for our Crisis Management Plan update is July 20,” Ballenger said of some timely timing.

In addition to Public Schools and the Warren Sheriff’s Office, the Crisis Management team includes the Front Royal Police Department and County Fire & Rescue, among other organizations like the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that may come in from time to time from other than the local level “making sure that we have a good process in place.”

But closer to home, Ballenger pointed to each school’s in-house staff from all levels, including a Threat Assessment Team made up of teachers from those schools who meet each year to review specifics from an in-class perspective. He also pointed to planned upgrades to some schools’ physical plant security to address individual issues that may be found from school to school.

“We will get with Mr. Livesay and (his) Maintenance Department, and Mr. Buck Smith (assistant superintendent for administration), and we will go through and make the changes that we need to make to make sure that we’re continually updating and securing our buildings,” Ballenger said in describing a fluid and ongoing process.

The Warren Public School System also actively seeks grants applied to security measures through the Virginia Department of Education, Ballenger noted, pointing to the system’s Director of Technology Tim Grant’s recent receipt of a grant (makes sense he got it with that last name) “for technology purposes as in updating cameras.” And Ballenger added Maintenance Director Livesay’s grant application to add card readers to entrance security system-wide as a potential replacement to dependence on keys, which if lost can require a costly re-keying of an entire building, as opposed to simply deactivating a missing access card.

Superintendent Ballenger cited grants received in the past two years, including card readers installed in all elementary schools; security camera additions and updates to (video) systems; an update to the entire intercom system at E. Wilson Morrison Elementary School, including outside speakers; as well as camera system additions at EWM, Skyline and Warren County Middle Schools, Warren County High School, Blue Ridge Tech Center, the Brighter Futures and Diversified Minds program.

In the wake of his report, Dr. Ballenger fielded questions from the county’s supervisors.

Ballenger’s full report, as well as a subsequent Q&A with the supervisors in which a variety of issues were broached including the role of mental health evaluations inside and out of the schools, can be watched on the County video.

Click here to watch the June 7, 2022, Warren County Board of Supervisors meeting.