Moss point municipal school district has requested funding for improvements that will address safety gaps discovered in our most recent school safety assessment

In partnership with the moss point police department and fire department, mpsd will install cameras, metal detectors and fencing on our school grounds to improve feelings of safety for our students and faculty. Our schools are located in a community that has seen a substantial increase in gun violence over the last two years. The increase in gun violence has coincided with the onset of the covid epidemic. Many of the deaths are males aged 15-19. Since april 2020, 15 moss point residents have been killed by gun violence and 14 have been injured. As a school system, we are compelled to improve the security of our schools to increase safety for our students. As noted in our most recent assessment, an on-site staff member discovered large gaps in security for our video surveillance capabilities as well as our perimeter fencing. While we understand the cops office has a strong desire to limit the use of metal detectors if this can be avoided, we must be realistic in understanding that our schools need additional security measures to prevent violent incidents from passing from the community into our schools. Cameras will be installed at our kreole, escatawpa, and moss point high schools. These schools have the largest gaps in video surveillance, and also have the highest incident rates for violence and retaliation. Our goal is to eliminate surveillance gaps on our high school campuses to prevent bullying, more appropriately respond to violent incidents, and to deter criminal activity from spilling onto our campus. We are requesting funds for 5 metal detectors to be installed at our high schools as well. Metal detectors will prevent firearms and other weapons from entering our schools. Finally, we will install an additional 110 linear feet of fencing around a degraded section of our campus. This section of the fencing will be repaired/replaced and as a result we will be able to more effectively create a barrier around our campus to secure our students. Mpsd has maintained a steady effort to improve school security over the years. Unfortunately, while being in one of the most underfunded states for public schooling, we are extremely limited in our ability to afford these safety products without federal support. The additional burden of attempting to buffer the poor community climate and gun violence creates more barriers in our efforts to create a healthy learning environment for our students. We believe we have a solid plan to improve our security at our schools. By developing both our school security and our mental health and wellness programming for students, we intend to create a safe haven with many opportunities for students to avoid succumbing to violence. Our intention with these requested products is not to criminalize student behavior, but to prevent incidents and improve our learning environment.