Keeping students and staff safe continues to be a high priority for Oswego School District 308 officials.

During a recent Oswego School Board meeting, staff presented board members with the district’s annual safety and security update.

On the average, the district deals with 46 behavior incidents per day and has three police service calls a day. That is in addition to the district seeing an average of 215 visitors a day.

“This amount of need isn’t going away,” Assistant Superintendent of Student Services Jeremy Bell told board members. “It’s going to continue. And we have to make sure that we’re equipping our buildings with the appropriate resources and tools to be able to support those kids as they come in along with supporting our staff.”

One way the district has tried to improve security is through making sure that all schools in the district have a sufficient number of security cameras. In addition, this school year the district piloted an emergency messaging system called Catapult EMS, which sends alerts to first responders, staff, parents and students, including panic button alerts, automated messages and silent override messages.

District 308 has 24 schools and programs and has 16,889 students, 2,760 staff members and 111 administrators.

The district uses a Raptor Visitor Management System, which screens all visitors against national sex offender databases and tracks visitor activity to ensure accountability and safety.

Each school has a secure, single-point entry vestibule where visitor IDs are verified before granting access. In addition, staff are required to wear visible identification badges to ensure that school officials know who is in their buildings at all times.

Recognizing the connection between mental health and safety, the district continues to strengthen early-intervention systems, expand counseling and behavioral supports and promote a culture where students and staff feel empowered to seek help and report concerns.

Digital safety is also a concern. District 308 uses Securly, a web-based platform that helps schools monitor and filter student internet activity. It blocks harmful content, detects cyberbullying and identifies potential threats.

Bell said the district is planning to implement more safety and security initiatives. That includes partnering with the Northern Illinois School Safety Administrator Association to do a district safety audit along with putting together a district emergency response plan.

Other projects include doing a full-scale drill next summer and strengthening the identification systems for staff and students.

That could include requiring students to wear badges as well as staff.

“Just because you’re a high school student and you walk in and that teacher knows who you are doesn’t mean that every staff member in that building does,” Bell said.