CHARLESTON, W.Va. — As school districts come into session across the state, West Virginia Department of Education’s efforts to advance safety standards in schools continues to take central focus.

School Safety Director Jonah Adkins said WVDE’s School Safety Unit with the Division of Homeland Security has been taking a variety of measures to enhance those standards statewide.

Adkins said a big step they have recently been taking is through emergency preparedness drills they have been conducting across districts in each region.

The effort began in Logan County. Wednesday Putnam County Schools were conducting the drills at an undisclosed school location.

He said the districts utilize the department’s deployment system to send out a “real threat” alert as what would be conducted in the case of an actual emergency.

“It’s a test obviously, but treating it as if it were a real threat to see response times from law enforcement from EMS services and whomever else may need to be involved,” Adkins said.

He said it’s a process that needs continuous refinement to make sure schools have the quickest emergency response time they can have.

Adkins said the challenge is that with many schools being located in rural areas, the presence of law enforcement isn’t always close by, and that conducting these drills help schools take matters into their own hands as well, if need be.

He said, however, that many counties continue to work on employing School Resource Officers and armed security within their schools. Adkins said it’s most encouraging for them to keep qualified officers on hand.

“That is very positive I believe, the more presence that we can get from law enforcement officials in our schools, especially within rural areas, the better I know I’ll feel each day that students are in our buildings,” he said.

Adkins said they are looking into implementing SROs in every school building in the state. He said it would be roughly just over $30 million to achieve.

Adkins said the biggest challenge is acquiring the manpower that comes with it, and finding not just any law enforcement officer, but the appropriate one to serve within that capacity.

“I think everyone I talk to is in agreement that is really does take a special person to fill that role, someone that can build positive relationships with students at the same time as they are protecting the school,” he said.

Adkins said some counties are also further advancing safety technology in their school districts through the installation of facial recognition software at the entrances of each building.

He said he paid a visit to Marion County who recently installed the technology, and he said he was impressed to see how it works.

“It really is impressive because what they can do is they can keep all of their students and staff metrics, so when someone approaches the door it automatically recognizes that this person is supposed to be here, if it’s someone they do not recognize, principals, secretaries, they get an alert,” Adkins said.

Adkins said they hope to one day implement the facial recognition technology throughout all of the schools in the state.