Tulsa Public School board members met Monday night for the first time since the shooting at McLain's homecoming game that left one teenager dead and three others injured.
District officials spent hours detailing the school's updated safety protocols.
Some of those security measures include on-site committees that will develop campus-specific response plans during an emergency, de-escalation training, and adding more school resource officers who will use metal-detecting wands to check students at random intervals.
TPS Superintendent Dr. Deborah Gist said administrators are doing all they can to try and address what she describes as a "community issue."
"Of course we have nearly 80 school communities, and while we have had a focus on the McLain campus we're looking at the needs at everyone at our school campuses," Gist explained. "This is not just a McLain High School issue, it's not just a Tulsa Public Schools issue either; it's a community issue."
Gist said issues like gun violence the lack of help for mental health statewide are influencing violence in schools.
"In our own city, we have families who are dealing with food and housing insecurity financial instability seemingly insurmountable dual challenges of generation trauma and the systems of oppression that created them," Gist said. "Our children see and feel the stress and instability and they take it with them to school."
Gist said a report like TPS's study on safety protocols alone is not what keeps schools safe.
"It's the choices we all make it's what we do in our communities and the choices of our it's the choices of our elected officials here locally but also at the state level," Gist said.
The district has also implemented an anonymous safety hotline for tips. Students can call 918-480-SAFE or text 480SAFE.
