Campbell County High School upgrading safety measures

Campbell County High School upgrading safety measures

By JOSH AULT
6 News Reporter

JACKSBORO (WATE) -- Campbell County High School has seen several troubling incidents in recent years.

In 2005, freshman student Kenny Bartley, Jr. shot and killed Assistant Principal Ken Bruce. Principal Gary Seale and Assistant Principal Jim Pierce were wounded.

Earlier in November, a 16-year-old student was arrested and expelled after a loaded pistol was found in a school locker.

After this latest incident, school officials decided it was time to make additional security changes at the high school.

Keeping students safe at Campbell County High is what Campbell County Director of Schools Dr. Michael Martin focuses on each day.

"It's like all high schools. It's large," Martin said. "Supervision becomes an issue. This, I hope, will provide us another level of supervision in the form of more eyes."

The first step in providing more eyes is adding another school resource officer. "We thought we would have one starting this week," Martin said.

However, they're still waiting on the sheriff's department to assign another officer to the school. The high school will now have two officers on campus.

Another security addition is doubling the number of surveillance cameras, from 24 to 48. Martin says they had already ordered these cameras before the latest incident.

The new cameras will be digital and able to record 24/7. Along with having monitors in a communications room, they'll also be added to administrators' offices at the high school. 

After the fatal shooting four years ago, additional security measures were put into effect, including a security guard at the front of the school. Emergency plans were also re-evaluated.

Even with all these safety measures, some residents still feel more needs to be done.

"More people as students are coming in to school," said Lisa Mason, who works as a hair stylist in Jacksboro, and has a lot of students for clients. "That's when they bring it in, is in the morning. If you get it in the morning, you don't have to wait till one o'clock to find out if a kid's got a gun."

"I definitely think they should install metal detectors in the school," said Amanda Noe, who had a brother and sister at the high school when the shooting happened in 2005.

"You never forget," Noe said. "You just hope it never happens again, and they are doing the right steps to make sure it doesn't."

Martin says they hope to have the additional security cameras before the students come back from Christmas holidays. They're also reviewing emergency plans, to see if they can be improved.