PERRYVILLE – Each month, the schools within Perry County and those agencies involved in emergency management, juvenile justice, and health meet at Perry County School District 32 to discuss matters of school safety and health.
Schools include District 32, St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Schools, Immanuel Lutheran School, Altenburg Public School, and United In Christ Lutheran School. Agencies invited include the City of Perryville, Perryville Police and Fire Departments, Perry County Sheriff’s Department, Perry County Juvenile Office, Perry County Emergency Management, and Perry County Health Department.
Jeremy Mantz, Perryville Emergency Management Director, provides an update on the city’s fully-automated outdoor warning siren system during the September Schools Safety Meeting at Perry County School District 32.
The September meeting agenda included discussions on the recent school threats and the role of social media in those incidents, creating more efficient processes for sharing information between schools and agencies, emergency water storage on campus, and the Drug Identification class held on campus on Sept. 23.
Perryville Emergency Management Director Jeremy Mantz presented information on the city’s new outdoor warning siren activation system.
St. Vincent de Paul Schools Head of Schools Zachary Stobart (second from right) provides an update during the meeting to colleagues (from left) Amy Ponder, principal of UCLS; Debbie Haertling, principal of APS: Andy Spieler, principal of ILS; and Perry County Sheriff Jason Klaus.
“This fully-automated system monitors the National Weather Service Service for any tornado warnings issued for the City of Perryville and adjacent areas, about 5 miles from the city’s center. “Whenever the NWS issues a tornado warning polygon in this area, the system automatically activates our outdoor warning sirens,” Mantz said. “We have lots of redundancy built in as well; we can activate the system from our radios if emergency personnel in the field see a tornado, and I can start the sirens directly from my phone.” Mantz said that the monthly tornado siren tests conducted at 10 on the first Monday will now take one minute, and are designed to operate the sirens off the battery back-up. From the control center, Mantz can see when any siren is offline.
Dan Oberkirsch, the district’s director of maintenance, discusses emergency water storage during the monthly Schools Safety Meeting.
Garrett Schott, Safety Director and SRO at District said that the Schools Safety Meeting allows county schools and agencies to share resources. “We all work together to keep our students and staff safe and healthy,” he said. “We create a safer community for everyone by planning ahead for various emergencies, debriefing on incidents that have occurred, and sharing educational and informational opportunities. We have created a community within the larger community that is really focused on our schools.”