PINE BLUFF, Ark. — Safety is top of mind this school year, and the Pine Bluff School District has decided to implement new safety measures on its campuses.
"We're trying to be proactive. As you see active shooters plan out at school districts across the country," said Foster Baker, the Pine Bluff School District Security Director.
Thankfully that's not the case at the Pine Bluff School District, but Baker said his officers are still preparing for the unimaginable just in case.
"We decided as a district, if there was ever a threat on one of our campuses that we need to be able to protect our own staff and our own students," Baker explained.
Now they will be able to do that quicker because about half of their officers will be armed.
"In cases of active shooters, police response is three minutes, up to seven minutes, but if we have armed officers at every campus, we'll be able to attack that threat immediately," he said.
Starting this school year, 13 of the 23 officers will be armed and next year, all of them will be armed.
Baker explained how the offers have had to undergo a pretty extensive training totaling 60 hours.
"They have to clear multiple background checks. The police, FBI, background check, child maltreatment check, the process just to get in is strenuous at best," he added.
As for the community's feedback, he said it's been positive.
"They are happy that we're able to stop that threat and possibly save their child or other children in the school," he described.
Even though they are prepared for the worst-case scenario, Baker said he hopes they never have to use their weapons.
"If there's a threat in our building, we want to keep our staff and students safe. So that was the reason that we decided to go armed at this time," he said.
Within the next three weeks, the district will have an armed officer at every school building.