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VALLEY — At Wednesday’s noon-hour meeting of the Kiwanis Club of Valley, Lt. Sandra Crim and Officer Drew Woodard talked about what they do to help ensure school safety. Both are school resource offices with the Chambers County School District and are constantly on duty at the elementary and secondary schools in Valley.

“Safety is our number one goal, especially when it comes to our schools, the students and the staff,” Crim said. “We all want to make sure we live in a safe environment.”

Crim said that school threats take place all across the country. The East Alabama region is no exception. Opelika got a school threat this week, and Chambers County has gotten its share of bomb threats in the past.

“There are some wackos out there who get a charge out of scaring people,” Crim said.

Every threat is taken seriously. “We follow our safety protocols as closely as we can,” Grim said. “We want to keep everyone safe.”

There are lots and lots of weapons out there, and plenty of chances for students to bring a gun to school. “We are always encouraging parents to keep their guns under lock and key so their children can’t get them,” Crim said. “There are probably more kids on the street today carrying a gun than there has ever been before. How do we stop this?”

The current policy doesn’t make an age difference. If a child in elementary school is ever found with a weapon, they will be treated the same way a high school student will be dealt with if they are found with a gun at school.

Whether they are real or not, guns have no place on a school campus. “There are a lot of toy guns out there that look real,” Crim said. “We do not allow them at school. We used to allow water guns at school. We don’t do that anymore.”

School resource officers can search lockers and vehicles at school. “You never know who might have a weapon and who might not,” Crim said. “We take any possible threat as seriously as we can. We are not perfect people, and we don’t always make the right decision, but I’d never want to be in a situation when a tragedy happened and we are left thinking ‘What could we have done differently to have prevented this?’”

Alabama now requires every school to have some kind of safety drill at least once a month. One month it might be a fire drill, the next month bomb threat drill and the next month a weather-related drill. Some schools have had active shooter drills.

Crim said that she is always moved when she sees videos of the aftermath at Sandy Hook.

“You can tell the children had been trained to walk out that way,” she said. “They calmly walked out in single file. I hope and pray nothing like that ever happens here.”

That shooting took place in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012. A total of 26 people were shot to death that day, twenty of them were children between six and seven years of age. Six other adult staff members were also killed. The perpetrator, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, had killed his mother before driving to the school. As first responders were arriving at the Sandy Hook School, he killed himself with a gunshot to the head.

Crim also referenced the mass shooting of school children in Uvalde, Texas. Nineteen children and two adults were killed at Robb Elementary School on May 24, 2022, in the deadliest-ever shooting at a Texas school.

The shooter was able to get into the school with an AR-15 because someone had left an unlocked back door.

“He walked down the hall trying to open each door,” Crim said. “They’d all been locked except for the last one he tried to open. It was left open, and he was able to get inside the room.”

Had that door been locked, those 21 people might still be alive today. “Every door has to be closed and locked,” Crim said. “Only one door had been left unlocked inside the school building, and that’s where the people were killed. If anything ever happens here, we want to know we did everything we possibly could to have prevented it.”

Crim said that simple mistakes like that have to be avoided to keep kids safe. Having frequent drills can reinforce how important it is to always be on guard.

“We need to train and to put things in practice,” she said. “Many of us have aging parents. How do we help them in an emergency? We want them safe in any weather emergency.”

Crim said she is well pleased with the response Valley Police Department has gotten from its Junior Police Academy. It takes place every summer at Valley Community Center. More than 50 school-age youngsters have taken part in the program every year in recent years. “We want to thank the City of Valley and local businesses that have supported this program,” Crim said. “The kids really enjoy it. They like it when police officers, firefighters and paramedics speak to them. They feel like they have made new friends, and they are excited when they see them out in public in a place like Walmart.”

Crim is also involved in the Sunflower House program at Boyd Circle. This takes place during the summer months. The children take field trips to interesting places and learn basic social skills such as setting the table and proper manners when eating with friends and family.

“Some of these children have never sat down with a family to eat, to dine out in a restaurant or to go with a family member to a movie,” Crim said. “Valley Police Department has an adoption program during the Christmas season. Anyone can adopt a family and get them Christmas presents. Local churches participate in this program, and we appreciate that. You can call me at the police department at (334) 756-5200, and I will be glad to talk to you about it.”