Mansfield mayor Tim Theaker, Mansfield city Police Chief Ken Coontz and Mansfield City Schools Superintendent Brian Garverick are taking a proactive approach to school safety by coming together to equip three building administrators with police radios.
Mansfield Senior High School, Mansfield Middle School and Sherman Elementary School principals will all have access to a Mansfield Police Department police radio should an emergency situation occur at one of those schools.
Coontz said he is in constant communication with Garverick on ways to make the school district and the community a safer place for everyone to live.
“We have a very proactive relationship with the city schools and we really appreciate that,” he said. “Part of that (relationship) is trying to provide the best service to the community and the schools. The school administrators are very concerned about what can they do? They are very proactive and out those discussions, we were able to provide the Mansfield City Schools with police radios.”
The police radios are only to be used for critical or crisis situations, should one occur, the police chief said. “We certainly hope none of that occurs within our own community,” he said.
Coontz then pointed out a critical element in the event of an emergency situation – time.
“In a critical incident, probably one of the most important things that you can do is get the police where they need to be as quickly as possible,” he said. “And I’ve think we’ve seen through the years, through the numerous public and school shootings that we’ve seen, we’ve been able to determine that time definitely is a factor.
“We, the mayor, (Gaverick) and I, believe that this radio will accomplish that. If something were to go wrong inside one of the schools, then we would be able to have a school administrator talk directly to the responding officers and police dispatchers to get up to the second information on where to have the responding officers arrive at.”
The Richland County Sheriff’s Office will provide police radios to administrators from other schools in the county as well, Coontz said.
Gaverick said to his knowledge it’s unprecedented for any area school administrator to have first-hand access to police officers working directly in the field.
“To have first responders respond to a crisis in a school building, it’s critical for them to understand where they’re needed most,” he said. “I commend the Mansfield Police Department for their vision, if you will, because I’ve never heard of this happening.”
Eventually, Garverick said, he hopes to have police radios in the remaining five of the eight buildings in the school district.
The high school and middle school were chosen because the building is eight and a half acres under one roof and Sherman Elementary was chosen because it is on the outskirts of the city, Gaverick said.
All administrators have been trained on how to use the radios and are completely furnished by MPD, Coontz said. There is also a GPS attached to the radio and a man down button that can be pushed if they are unable to talk.
“For the police department, we are willing to absorb the cost and maintain the radio and will maintain the maintenance on it as well because it does further the police department’s mission to serve the community,” he said.
Mansfield Middle School principal Jason Goings said school safety is a top priority.
“To have access to the officers in the field is very important,” the administrator said. “In our building, talking specifically about Mansfield Senior High and Mansfield Middle School, that two administrators with each having one of these radios, heighten our chances of being able to effectively communicate with the police in case we do have a crisis situation.”
The police radios are an addition to the state-mandated school safety plan, MSHS principal Brad Callender said.
Theaker commended the cooperation, collaboration and partnership of the city, police department and the city schools.
“The most important thing for the schools and the city of Mansfield is the safety of the kids,” the mayor said. “This is just another tool to help with that safety, in doing this and rolling this out is now being proactive instead of reactive. Heaven help us, we don’t ever want anything to happen to our students, we don’t want anything to ever happen to our administrators or anybody else and this is something that would help circumvent that.”
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If something were to go wrong inside one of the schools, then we would be able to have a school administrator talk directly to the responding officers and police dispatchers to get up to the second information on where to have the responding officers arrive at,” said Chief Coontz.
