School safety has been an ongoing topic of national conversation and debate — and Butler County districts have taken great lengths to turn that talk into action.

The Butler Area School District, Mars Area School District, Knoch School District and Karns City Area School District have all made drastic efforts to improve both infrastructure and policy in recent years.

Mars Area superintendent Mark Gross said that when he was hired by the school district three years ago, he inherited a vast system of safety and security resources from his predecessors.

However, Gross said the work of safety and security for schools is never really done.

“We’re never finished,” Gross said. “We implement things, we make changes, we do reviews, we identify areas — constantly adjusting to try to maximize not only our resources but also our protocols.”

In the aftermath of two threatening incidents on campus this month, the district has undertaken a massive review of its security protocols.

“As I commented at the last board meeting, the No. 1 responsibility for us as administrators is the health, safety and welfare of students and staff,” Gross said. “It’s constantly in review.”

The key to maintaining that, he said, is the district’s relationship to its students, staff and community.

“On Thursday,” Gross said earlier this week, “we’re having an internal meeting to try and see if we can get everybody on the same page of what we can do, what we can’t do, what resources we have, what resources we don’t have.”

For Mars Area, the resources they have are plentiful.

“We’re very fortunate,” Gross said. “We rely heavily on Adams Township police — they’re the experts, they’re our local experts.”

According to Gross, the district has a contract with Adams police providing security on campus and services to the district.

“They’ve been very good with us in meeting with us and working with us and brainstorming ways to improve security,” Gross said.

In addition to township police, the district also utilizes an internal police force, which Gross says plays an essential role in building that relationship between staff, students and community in the district.

“We try to be very aware that our school police should be building relationships with kids,” Gross said. “Our principals deal with the day-to-day type disciplinary issues, and we don’t want to criminalize every incident that perhaps occurs at a school because they’re still schools — we have kids that are still learning; some kids make mistakes.”

Mars’ internal police force acts as mediators between internal issues and the administration.

“They serve on our threat-assessment teams,” Gross said. “That’s basically a group of individuals that comes together if and when there’s a situation with a student that rises to a greater level of concern.”

And while the officers also are responsible for building checks and metal-detector duties, they rely on the Raptor school security system to screen incoming visitors.

“They come into the secure vestibule area, they get their licenses run through the machine and it gives a quick look at if there’s any issues or not so that we can make decisions on whether they’re legitimate,” Gross said of the Raptor system.

And that’s not the only technology the district implements in an ongoing effort to keep its students and staff safe. While Gross said that he could not disclose specifics, he did explain that the school has an efficient means of internal communication among buildings, staff and students.

“We have a system where individuals can alert us about anything that’s going on, or we can alert them — including our law enforcement — very, very quickly,” Gross said. “It’s basically real-time.”

This system is one of the key areas for review in the coming weeks, according to Gross.

“We’re taking a strong look at what we have communication-wise and how to make that even better,” Gross said.

While some of the recent changes have been highlighted on the district website, most of the ongoing changes will be made privately.

“We won’t necessarily announce those types of adjustments,” Gross said. “Just because we don’t want anyone who perhaps would have bad intentions to know what we do, how we do it, when we do it.”

Gross emphasized that he is proud of the work the district has done, but there still is more work to do.

“I always say, ‘good to great,’ that’s my theme academically, and that’s been my theme as superintendent,” Gross said. “We want to move from good to great.”

For the Butler school district, many of its most recent upgrades to security focus not on doctrine, but on the buildings themselves.

“Not so much changes in policy, but we’ve added additional measures,” Butler Area superintendent Brian White said. “If you go to the Intermediate High School, there’s a vestibule area that you have to get buzzed in to the school in — that didn’t exist previously.”

To further screen visitors as they enter, the district also uses metal detectors, armed retired state troopers and the Raptor System to check IDs.

“It’s obviously not as thorough as, like, an FBI clearance background check,” White said. “But at least it gives a quick background check on people who would have access to our schools.”

Inside the school, surveillance is one of the district’s key areas of focus, according to White.

“We’re constantly enhancing our cameras,” White said. “We’re always working to improve our access-control systems; it’s mainly infrastructure upgrades that we’ve been working on.”

The Knoch School District shares many of its neighboring districts’ practices, but, according to superintendent David Foley, it’s the proactive approach of Knoch’s school police unit that makes the biggest difference.

“Their typical responsibilities are patrolling the district, being in all of our buildings, moving around, and developing relationships with our students — proactive relationships, to try to get ahead of some of the discipline challenges that might occur,” Foley said.

Knoch’s school police unit is comprised of retired state troopers.

“They are involved in safety planning — proactive safety planning — they’re on the safety committees,” Foley said. “They help with ‘Safe to Say,’ the anonymous tip line that comes in.”

They also play an essential role in screening visitors, students and situations — before they become a problem.

“The school district has metal detectors, and those police officers are assisting with metal detectors by standing back and watching, and if something comes up, they provide assistance,” Foley said, “making sure that visitors to our campus are there for the right reasons, and to help with educational issues.”

Superintendent Eric Ritzert at Karns City Area School District said the key to school safety is communication.

“One of probably the best safety tools is, if somebody sees something, they say something,” he said.

The district relies heavily on conversations with students, staff and the community to keep their schools secure.

“If they’re aware of anything that’s concerning, they let us know — same way with staff and community members,” Ritzert said. “It really is a partnership with all constituent groups.”

Whether it’s metal detection, armed internal security or emergency communication, their resources are only as effective as their communication is. He highlighted the importance of making sure students, staff and the community understand as much as possible about the district’s security protocol.

“I do think there’s an element of ... you want to be helpful,” Ritzert said. “But at the same time you’ve got to stay in your own lane and make sure that you allow the security protocols that are in place to be effective.”

The more students, staff and communities understand the system, the better they can work with it.

“I think ongoing education will be something that we do our best to continue,” Ritzert said. “Just to remind people to do the right things.”

“I think when everybody steps back from it, we all have the same core mission: We want to keep everyone safe,” Ritzert said. “Communication is probably the most tremendous tool that we use to ensure we’re doing the right thing.”