Webb City schools use technology to keep students safe - KOAM TV 7

While the tragic school shootings in Connecticut have made school safety top of mind, area school districts want to assure students and parents the issue has been a top priority for a long time.

Webb City School District Superintendent Anthony Rossetti, PhD is taking a second to reflect on recent events.

"The events of Friday are disturbing and it's going to make us reevaluate just how safe we are," Dr. Rossetti says.

According to Dr. Rossetti the district is constantly reevaluating their systems and updating when resources become available.

In the past year, the district has been working with a local security group to integrate a multi-platform system on their campuses that includes access control to over 300 doors at the high school, middle school and junior high.

"If we were aware that we needed to lock down the facility, instead of having everyone go to a door and lock that door, we would be able to lock all of the exit doors with just the flip of a mouse switch," says Dr. Rossetti.

Even if a door as been open for more than five minutes, an administrator will receive a text from the system.  The high school has more than 80 video surveillance cameras, all of which can be accessed by administrator i-pads at any given time.

"This system provides addition layers of protection, you aren't relying on one system - you have multiple systems that are laying on top of each other so hopefully you don't have that single point of failure," says Brian Carpenter of I3Tech Group.

Eventually, Carpenter says he hopes the school can lock interior doors as well as implement a link to every telephone in each classroom that would notify police of exactly which room any emergency call originated.

But he says due to budgetary restraints it is a process that could take years to complete.

The Webb City School District says its first priority is to keep children safe.  Their next security step is to extend access control to all 11 of their campuses city wide.