OXFORD — Talawanda is playing catch-up in the area of school safety and hiring a school resource officer would go a long way toward closing the gap, the board of education was told Monday night.

School safety has been on the minds of parents and school officials around the country in recent years, especially since December’s shootings in Newtown, Conn., and the board heard Monday from the superintendent and a member of the Oxford Police Department that more work is needed.

Superintendent Kelly Spivey told the board that administration and staff have had much discussion on the topic and she attended a conference on the subject last week. All of that has revealed more needs to be done, she said.

A major recommendation is to hire a school resource officer to be present in the schools to help train staff on procedures to deal with myriad emergencies, as well as deal with many issues directly.

Oxford Police Lt. Jon Varley said the ideal would be to have an SRO in each building, but recognized that resources may require hiring one for the district.

“Talawanda is playing catch-up at this point,” Varley told the board and audience. “Other districts have one if not more (school resource officers). In this age, that’s not acceptable.”

He said police response time is quick but seconds count in a shooting scenario as occurred in Newtown.

“School shootings are becoming more and more common. Each shooter wants to outdo the last one and live on in infamy. They plan on dying that day,” Varley said. “When they do it, you have someone killed or wounded every few seconds. If it happens, police can be there in a minute or two. Then, the officer has to exit the vehicle, enter the building and find him. That’s a long time. Even having an officer in close proximity is no guarantee. In Cleveland, there was a shooting across the street from the FBI building.”

Spivey opened the discussion with a power slide presentation outlining the problem and explaining that school shootings are really an extreme emergency situation. Staff members need to deal with a host of situations and the Crisis Management Plan must deal with such things as assaults, bomb threats, earthquakes, fires, tornados, first aid, hazardous materials and the communications system as well.

A school resource officer would be the go-to person for many situations which can come up on short notice — child custody issues being one which often creates problems. The SRO is trained to deal with such issues, which in some cases result in heated emotions and misunderstanding.

Varley said an SRO is a person kids can go to for help dealing with situations including bullying, if they know of someone bringing a weapon to school or many other issues.

“Teachers are not prepared to handle these things,” he said. “An SRO is there not only for extreme situations, but for the ordinary, too.”

Spivey said the district’s crisis management team meets a couple times a year and needs to meet more often to look at a variety of issues including some that research has shown should have changed over time and the district has not kept up. Those included such things as safety drills, staff training and training for emergency operations, communication and technology infrastructure comparing old versus new buildings, evacuation and emergency medical issues.

She cited an example from her days of teaching in which schools used code words to alert staff to emergency situations. She said the code where she was at the time was “Sandy Line 5.” Substitutes and building visitors often did not know about that and were oblivious to the emergency.

She said current research calls for more direct notification, such as an announcement, “Shooter in Media Center.”

Spivey said the district has a good working relationship with the Oxford Police Department and it is willing to do a safety audit of the buildings and procedures. She said they have responded well to past calls on crisis issues but she and Varley agreed having a resource officer on staff in the district would be a better answer dealing with many of the issues which often grow into bigger problems.

Speaking at the public participation part of the agenda prior to the school safety presentation, Talawanda Middle School staff member Lori Gloeckner presented a statement on behalf of the Talawanda Educators’ Association supporting the need for a school resource officer.

“It is a place for kids to report bullying, weapons in school and can address the situation immediately,” she said. “It is a personal connection between the school and community.”

Board President Mark Butterfield followed up the presentation saying, “The last thing we want is to have Lt. Varley come in and say we lack something. Prevention and detection is the way to go. I want to pursue that aggressively.”