By: Amy Oakley
Carter County Times
The Carter County Fiscal Court held a special meeting on Wednesday, May 24 to continue discussion about allowing 911 dispatch radio usage in Carter County schools.
During the regular monthly meeting of the court, Director of Carter County 911 Joe Lambert was approached by the school system’s chief of police, RD Porter. Porter attended the special meeting and approached the court about adding Carter County Schools to the county’s 911 dispatch.
According to Porter, the Carter County School District under Kentucky law has started their own police agency. The school system owns their own radio frequency on the UHF band. UHF stands for ultra high frequency.
“It’s what the schools and buses operate on. That will be our main radio cause we’re not going to be dispatched to calls when we’re already there,” Porter said.
The reasoning for Porter and Lambert talking together is in the case of an emergency.
“The reason why I talked to Joe was in case of an emergency, I need to be able to talk to outside agencies which is a completely different radio frequency than what the school has,” Porter said.
Since August 2022, 42 schools in the state of Kentucky have formed their own police departments. Many of those schools have received approval to use those radios in case of emergencies.
“What I’m saying there is if we have an active shooter, God forbid if we do, but if we do then I would be able to pick up the radio on the county frequency and make contact with dispatch,” Porter said. “Cause every second we save is better for us.”
Porter stated the only time the county’s dispatch frequency would be used by schools is in the case of emergencies. Outside of that, the schools would continue to use their own frequency to communicate.
“I’ve been an SRO (school resource officer) at West Carter for the last 20 years and I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve radioed to dispatch for something,” Porter said.
Porter and Lambert expect that there will be very minimal calls through 911’s dispatch from the schools. Lambert was brought into the discussion and was asked if he foresees any problems with the schools being allowed to contact them.
“I don’t see a problem with that at all,” Lambert said.
The discussion of school safety entered the room when an example of a school shooting was introduced. The main focus of allowing 911 dispatch radio usage is for the safety of the children attending those schools.
“That’s what it’s all about. It’s about the safety of the kids,” Porter said.
The magistrates and audience agreed with Porter. Carter County Superintendent of Schools Dr. Paul Green also entered the discussion, talking about school safety.
“There’s no amount of money we can put into safety of our kids,” Green said.
Green is looking into ways to make schools in the county safer and feels that this is an important step in that direction.
Magistrate Millard Cordle emphasized school safety, no matter the cost of implementing this usage.
“I’m all for it. We got to protect our kids no matter what,” Cordle said.
Court member Harley Rayburn said he never imagined that it would have to come to something like this, but with recent mass school shootings that have happened around the country, it has.
Porter and Green hope to eventually have a school resource officer in every school within the county. With current funding and budget issues, they are now focusing on trying to have an officer in both middle and high schools to start off.
Green said the costs of using 911 dispatch radio usage will be covered by the school district since it’s their police department.
“Any cost that is additional cost, the school district will cover since it’s our police department. What we’re asking though is to have those partnership agreements,” Green said. “We just need the same access that our officers would’ve had, had they been contracted with the city or the county.”
A formal motion was made by court member Chris Huddle stating that the county will provide dispatch services to the school system for one year and will reevaluate at the next school year. The motion was approved unanimously by the court.
Contact the writer at news@cartercountytimes.com
