Protecting the students: Terre Haute Police Department patrolman Bryan McKinney mans the School Protection Officer desk at the front entrance to Terre Haute South High School on Friday. Staff photo by Joseph C. Garza
On Friday morning, school counselor Monica Tener-Smith taught first-graders at Dixie Bee Elementary about personal safety.
School protection officer Bryan McKinney manned the kiosk at the entrance to Terre Haute South Vigo High School to ensure student and staff safety. Two other protection officers also were on duty.
And Eleni Miller, VCSC chairperson of nursing, worked with other district nurses to make sure South Vigo students had up-to-date vaccinations.
Since 2012, the Vigo County School Corp. has made significant increases in staffing to help ensure the safety, health and wellness of students.
And, despite the need for budget cuts, the district hopes to maintain those services while it rightsizes its budget to adjust for declining enrollment.
In recent community meetings, the public has been asked for feedback on budget cuts, and citizens have indicated they want these services preserved, district officials say.
“Schools have been asked to do more and more, not only to educate the whole child, but also to make sure their basic needs are met,” said Bill Riley, VCSC director of communications. “Worrying about school shootings was not something we did 25 years ago. In recent years, we’ve reached a crisis point with student mental and physical health; the number of students we serve with significant mental and physical health concerns has increased dramatically.”
The district has made an investment in student safety and health by hiring more nurses, a school protection officer in every building and more counselors. “We believe in that investment,” he said.
On Friday morning, Tener-Smith presented part of a state-mandated program to students on child safety, including “stranger danger.” At another time, she’ll focus on child abuse. Child Safety Matters gives children a way to identify and avoid potentially unsafe situations.
“We have a very high rate of child abuse here in the county, infant deaths have occurred ... there is a lot of sexual abuse,” Tener-Smith said, in describing the importance of school counselors. “There are higher rates of mental health issues among children now ... due to traumatic things that have happened before they ever set foot in our school.”
Just about all Vigo County schools now have full-time counselors, with the number of counselors increasing by 40 percent over the past four years. In Vigo, the student to counselor ratio is 350 to 1, compared to the state average of 559 to 1, according to the Vote Yes for Vigo County Students political action committee website.
In class, Tener-Smith told students, “We want you safe everywhere you go.” They talked about various safety scenarios and strategies, such as what to do if a stranger comes to the door and a parent is unable to answer it or if someone in a car attempted to abduct them.
In the South Vigo health office, Eleni Miller worked with other nurses to go through records and meet with students who did not have up-to-date immunizations or records of those immunizations. Fortunately, no students had to be excluded at any of the high schools last week.
But ensuring immunizations are up-to-date is just one of the many duties of school nurses. “We’re seeing more and more students with chronic medical conditions —diabetes, asthma, epilepsy, food allergies is a big one or just allergies in general,” Miller said.
Nurses spend a lot of time training health assistants. “We as registered nurses with our licenses can train and delegate certain tasks,” she said. Some tasks cannot be delegated.
Anytime there is a question, or if there is something out of the norm the health assistants are not trained on — the nurse has to be consulted.
In recent years, the district has doubled the number of nurses, from five to 10. Because of the numbers of students at North and South Vigo, the nurses serving each of those schools are responsible for just one other school.
At South Vigo, protection officers staff kiosks at both the front entrance and a rear entrance, where students in auto body classes must leave the main building and then get buzzed back in when they return.
Typically, there is a third SPO at both South and North. The third can respond to other situations that may come up.
Having an armed SPO stationed near the front door helps deter anyone who might have bad intentions, said Sgt. Matt Rains, one of the three SPOs at the school that morning.
The SPOs deal with many other matters that can arise at a high school, such as minor accidents on a school parking lot, child custody matters, student fights or juvenile crime, Rains said.
Often, students “just want to talk” about a variety of things, he said. Some might be interested in a career in law enforcement, others might have had police visit their home the night prior and have questions. A student about to get a driver’s license might have questions.
“Sometimes they just need somebody to talk to,” Rains said.
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