CMS superintendent recognized for school safety leadership

Cutter Morning Star School District Superintendent Nancy Anderson received the Safe Schools Leadership Award for Administrator of the Year on Wednesday at the 17th Annual Arkansas Safe Schools Conference in North Little Rock.

Anderson said Thursday she felt very honored to receive the recognition, especially in a time when school violence seems to be more prevalent than ever.

“In today’s society — at all times — school safety is the number one priority,” she said. “But with all the recent events, it’s on the top of everyone’s mind and the forefront of pretty much everyone’s discussion — legislatures, school officials, parents, communities, churches. … But for me, it’s been one of my passions since I started in education. I’ve always been very concerned and very passionate about keeping my kids safe and everyone — my teachers, and my faculty and staff.”

According to the Criminal Justice Institute’s Arkansas Center for School Safety, the award is presented to a school administrator who “made a specific, significant contribution to their school resource officer program and school safety.”

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Nominations, which may be submitted by SROs, peers, supervisors, school personnel, students or community leaders, must describe how their nominee “fostered and developed positive relationships with the SROs at their school; demonstrated commitment to enhancing campus safety; supported the triad concept of the SRO in the three roles of educational resource, informal counselor or mentor, and law enforcement officer; and demonstrated dedication to serve with the SROs above and beyond what is expected of their position.”

“It’s always been, I eat, sleep, breathe school security,” she said. “School security — that is my No. 1 concern. Yes, I want our test scores to increase, obviously. Yes, I want our kids to be happy and healthy and I want them to enjoy our extracurricular activities. But my No. 1 thing is keeping them safe because you have to feel safe in the environment for all those other things to happen. You know, physically and mentally you have to feel safe.”

Anderson noted she has been involved with school safety her entire career at some level. It was when she became superintendent at CMS in 2012, however, that she really felt a heavy burden to take a proactive approach to keeping her campus safe. The district, she said, was one of the first in the state to incorporate access control on doors throughout campus nearly 15 years ago.

“At Cutter Morning Star, my board has been very, very supportive of a lot of measures that we have taken,” she said.

Under Anderson, the district developed its commissioned security officer, or CSO, program, which later was replaced with the commissioned school security officer program. The CSSO program allows for the carrying of guns on campus. She was also instrumental in working with lawmakers to help strengthen the state’s grasp on school safety.

“I’ve worked on a number of bills for school safety to allow us to protect our students,” she said. “I actually had to sit in front of a board and tell them how important it was to give us the resources and the necessary equipment in order to protect our kids. And the only thing I can say is — when there’s a bad guy with a gun, the only force that is equal is a good guy with a gun.”

While Anderson respects the position of the officers on campus, she said in these cases, “We need somebody here now.”

“If you look at the data, those things happen very quickly. I’ve done a lot of detailed research into the Uvalde situation and it is heartbreaking. It is heartbreaking. So many of these tragedies could have been prevented and they were not. There was a lot of human error. I’m not being critical of anyone because we’re all human, but the best thing you can do is train and try and to be prepared for the worst thing possible. And that’s what we do here at Cutter,” she said.

In an attempt to work at school security from all angles, and to incorporate as many safety precautions as possible, the bottom line, she said, comes down to the physical security of the buildings and “keeping the bad guys out.”

Following the Uvalde elementary school shooting in Texas in May, she revamped her CSSO team to have each of them carry a gun every day at school.

“I have a group of ladies and gentlemen on my campus that we, including myself, we have taken the responsibility on to protect these kids and to go after the active shooter and take him or her out until the police can get here,” she said. “And they have committed to that; I have committed to that; that we’re willing to give our life just like a police officer does. Never thought we’d be saying that kind of stuff in education but that’s where we are today.”

Readily admitting she is a member of the team, she noted that she would never ask any of her employees to do anything she wouldn’t do.

“I’ve made it very clear that, you know, if a bad guy comes, then I’m coming. I’m coming. My family knows that, my kids know that, my teachers know that, faculty knows that, because I feel like it is my responsibility and my job to keep our kids and faculty and staff safe,” she said.

    Cutter Morning Star School District Superintendent Nancy Anderson received the school safety award on Wednesday at the 17th Annual Arkansas Safe Schools Conference. – Photo by Donald Cross of The Sentinel-Record