Recently, the only thing on everyone’s mind when it comes to school safety is COVID-19. Surprisingly, the biggest thing going on is far from it. 

“Covid has a minimal impact right now on the school,” said Officer Eric Butler, the school resource officer on the 10-12 side, “Mainly because it is something that the administration deals with, and as a school, we aren’t really affected by it unless they change something major, like a mask mandate or something like that.”

The topic that school safety has been focused on more recently is something that almost all students are associated with- social media. 

“It’s crazy how fast social media evolves,” said Butler, “For example, a month or so ago, it was really popular for people to vandalize school property for fun, specifically the restrooms, and then post about it on social platforms like it was some kind of achievement.” 

That is why school safety has been focused on social media recently, because of its fast-changing nature that could lead people to do things that may not be the best decision for views and likes. 

“Trends are evolving, and when something on media platforms goes a new trend comes and takes its place. We rely on students and parents to inform us of what is going on, and if a new [or potentially dangerous] trend comes up, we have to know about it, that’s the big thing.” 

If social media is the current focus of school safety, then what about the future?

“We aren’t planning on using robots or anything in the future or anything like that,” said Officer Butler, “and to be honest, a lot of the things in the future have to do with what goes on in other places.” 

School safety within Carroll depends a lot on events that take place outside of our city, county, even our state. 

“For instance, when that school shooting happened in Michigan back in November, everyone across the country worked together and used our power to implement things in order to make it a safer and overall better place,” said Butler.

Social Media, once again, can also affect the future of Carroll and how safe it can be.

“Safety in school is evolving, right alongside trends and such, and because of that, we must change,” said Butler, “because when it comes to something as versatile as social media we have to adapt to it.”

He also mentioned how bad routines can be for safety.

“Routines can really hurt sometimes, especially when one of the biggest things right now is online media platforms, because of how every-changing they are. We have to change our safety habits, so if something comes along that requires a large amount of change to accommodate, we as a school are prepared for change and better suited for adaptation in the future.”