NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Hutchinson USD 308 and the Hutchinson Police Department work together to make sure that schools are secure and safe places for students to learn.
"Being inside the school and connecting with all the students that are in the school, it's a big thing that they do," said Hutchinson Police Chief Brice Burlie. "The second thing is providing security for the school. Being inside the school, they are able to quickly respond to any situations that might happen inside the school and also building that relationship with the faculty and staff at the school is very important, as well."
There are all sorts of drills that schools are required to conduct now on a regular basis.
"We have some soft lockdown drills," said USD 308 Superintendent Dr. Dawn Johnson. "We have evacuation drills. We have active shooter drills. We partner with the police department. Our principals will reach out to the police department and do a crawl, walk, run kind of phase about what a soft lockdown might look like. We'll get our maintenance operations involved, so they can check doors during this time. We have a way to lock down the building at the touch of a button. We exercise those to make sure that those are working."
The police also have keys to every building in the district if they are ever needed after hours.
"They ask for our input," Chief Burlie said. "We'll go do checks on the buildings and then provide them what we saw, advise maybe potential solutions to the problem. They have no problem listening to that and doing the best that they can to make sure their schools are as safe as possible."
An important piece of the School Resource Officer's job is building relationships with kids in the school so if they see something that isn't right, they will come to the officer and be honest. That's the most important thing students can do to be safe is to be willing to talk to the officer if they need to.
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