Wake County school officials discuss large-scale event security plans, safety upgrades

CARY, N.C. (WTVD) -- Wake County Public School System officials discussed what's been working and what changes could be coming to keep students safer in schools across the district.

Officials discussed safety tools they consider to be effective, while also touching on possible security enhancements during Tuesday afternoon's Safety and Security Committee Meeting.

WCPSS Superintendent Dr. Robert Taylor said new challenges call for new approaches to keeping students safe.

"We know that people communicate differently. We have social media now that was not in place many years ago," he said. "So all of those things are the issues that impact school safety and the engagement of us as human beings."

WCPSS Senior Director of Security Kendrick Scott presented details on current effective security tools for the district, such as weapons detection systems.

"We can tell you that those systems are effective. They all have sensitivities in terms of how you can deliver and capture everything or dial down," said Taylor. "And some things may get through. What we want to express to our public is that these kinds of systems require that there's behavior changes in schools."

Also discussed were upcoming security enhancements in the district, including: upgrades to the lockdown processes to adopt Standard Response Protocol in 2026-2027, upgrades to the reunification processes, physical security infrastructure improvements, and security reassessments.

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Specifically highlighted during the meeting was large-scale event security planning.

This type of planning came into the spotlight after Raleigh police responded to a shots-fired call following Southeast Raleigh High's football jamboree last month.

Taylor said these plans are an important resource for student safety and wanted the district to highlight the plans as one of the many tools available to keep students safe.

"We want people to think about the number of people that are going to be there, the additional resources that they might need, additional things that they may need to examine in the environment, just being hypersensitive," he said.

Scott said a key aspect is knowing what's going on in communities outside the classroom.

"We've got, I feel like, we've got a pretty good lifeline to neighborhood issues that could come onto our campus. But yeah, that's not every incident that's on every issue," he said. "I feel like there's at least a pipeline that information can get to us if we need it."

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Dr. Roy Taylor is a police procedure and security expert. He said threat awareness is also key when developing a large-scale event security plan.

"If you know you've got a football game or a basketball game coming up with your archrivals, or there's more likely to be controversy, there's going to be fights or maybe things that are going on because of this rivalry," he said.

He also says there should be clear channels of communication before and during a large-scale event.

"During the event, making sure everything's in place and you've got good communication between law enforcement, EMS, faculty members, and security staff," he said.

Also discussed frequently during the meeting was the role that community involvement plays in keeping students safe.