The Tamaqua Area School Board will make critical decisions about school safety at its next meeting.

The Tamaqua Safety Commission came up with seven areas of recommendations after its fifth and final meeting earlier this month. These recommendations were shared with members of the school board last week.

The seven different recommendations are titled: policies and procedures, prevention, training, facility infrastructure, confronting an active shooter, triage, and access to facility during an emergency.

“The comprehensive holistic list of recommendations will not prevent a school tragedy. But it will make us a heck of a lot safer than we are now,” said Larry Wittig, Tamaqua Area School Board president. “All of these other recommendations will make a horrific act less likely to occur.”

Policies and procedures

Policies will be consistently evaluated and updated with the latest information related to the safety and security of students and staff. Care will also be taken to be sure policy reflects best practice and abides by all applicable laws.

Prevention

The prevention recommendation says “the TASD assess the needs of students with relation to mental health and welfare and provide activities and programs that support healthy living, a sense of school/community connection and supportive climate.”

Training

The plan calls for the district to evaluate resources and its fiscal ability in order to determine a potential increase in trained staff (guidance counselors, social workers, school nurses) to support the students.

“It’s a comprehensive set of recommendations,” Wittig said. “Everybody is focusing on the arming of staff for obvious reasons. But the safety committee has come up with a many more comprehensive ways of keeping the students safe.”

Facility infrastructure

The facility infrastructure recommendation includes items such as building access, alarms, communication and surveillance.

Triage

This recommendation suggests that the district continues to provide training, support and supplies to be used during a mass-injury situation.

Access to facility

Access to Facility During an Emergency calls for developing a traffic plan that provides a designated path of access or all emergency vehicles and responders, which should be developed in cooperation and input from police and emergency departments.

Confronting an active shooter

The “Confronting an Active Shooter” recommendation states, “The commission believes that a legally and properly trained individual would be of benefit in an active shooter situation.”

“There are many ways to be trained for an active shooter — building specific,” said Wittig.

“Senate Bill 621 defines, in the legislatures infinite wisdom, how that should look. You may or may not agree one way or another, but that’s the law. Anything we do relative to armed personnel will comply with Senate Bill 621, but we are not restricting anyone who wants to do the training. Armed personnel can be staff, it can be hired police officers or security guards, but as long as they comply with 621’s training, we will entertain having them in our buildings.”

Time frame

The board’s next workshop meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. Feb. 11.

“That’s where we will have a robust conversation as to which ones. All of them? None of them? We’ll probably put a number next to them as to how much they will cost from a budget perspective. Then we can move on from there.”

Superintendent Ray Kinder said, “Some things may be able to be implemented quickly. In fact, some things like preventative training are being addressed already. Other items that may be larger in scale, such as infrastructure, will need more time to assess. Cost and securing of services can cause an item to take longer to implement.”