The leader of the Perry Community School District emphasizes that safety remains the highest priority.

According to Superintendent Clark Wicks, the district is focusing on ways to keep students safe following the shooting that occurred in January of 2024. He says that the school board has spoken with several threat assessment experts about strategies to identify certain behaviors shown by individuals. Wicks reveals the information he was able to learn.

“The theme is pretty clear, and that is you need to take care of things from within to make sure students and parents are very much aware of students’ mental health, their emotions, and we do have what we call ‘early warning signs,’ that we’re working on. It’s always one in which we’re always in tune and doing our best to take care of kids, so that they can take care of themselves. I think it’s just huge to make sure that we do that.”

Wicks notes that the school board meets with local law enforcement as well as school counselors on a monthly basis to review safety protocols, and make adjustments if necessary.