South Carolina’s top education official wants online digital maps as part of $38M school safety ask

GILBERT, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina’s top education official plans to ask lawmakers for $5 million to put a digital map of every school in the state online and make those maps immediately available on police officers’ mobile devices as they respond to a shooting or other emergency at a given school.

Education Superintendent Ellen Weaver announced those plans Wednesday as she joined Gov. Henry McMaster and law enforcement officials at the state’s newest project to protect students — a closed school now dedicated to training officers, firefighters, paramedics and others to respond to school safety.

Weaver and McMaster joined South Carolina Law Enforcement Division Chief Mark Keel at the Center for School Safety and Targeted Violence, which the division has used for training since 2017 with permission of the local school board, but has since purchased and turned into a training facility.

“If our students and teachers aren’t safe, nothing else matters,” said Weaver, who was elected superintendent in 2022.

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In all, Weaver and McMaster plan to ask lawmakers for at least $38 million for school safety next year. They want a $20 million pot of money that local school districts can pull from for safety upgrades like bulletproof glass, upgraded classroom door locks and renovating entrances.

They also want $13 million to finish the governor’s goal of putting a law enforcement officer in every public school in the state.

The mapping software would not only make the layout of every school in the state available instantly, but would also allow dispatchers to update the maps in real time — marking possible locations of suspects, students who need rescuing or other important data.

The maps would include the names a school uses for its rooms — such as a combination gym and auditorium they call a gymnatorium, or a specialty room — preventing confusion that could cost lives as everyone tries to get on the same page during an emergency.

The agents assigned to the new training center will help schools analyze student behavior and try to determine which children might need help before causing huge problems. They also will set up training every day for police departments around the state and nation.

“We can’t recreate this at the police academy or anywhere else,” Keel said. “We can’t recreate the long hallways, cafeterias, gyms, stairwells.”

McMaster held a ceremonial bill signing at the site Wednesday for the law that created the center.

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