Three Limestone County Schools will participate in a National Assessment of Educational Progress survey, Superintendent Dr. Tom Sisk said last week.

The NAEP is a standardized test that measures student comprehension in a number of subjects, including reading, mathematics, science, writing and the arts.

The schools chosen to participate in the national survey are Cedar Hill Elementary School, fourth-grade reading and math; Elkmont Elementary School, fourth-grade reading and math; and Elkmont High School, eighth-grade reading.

“Since we’ve been selected this year, we want to do a good job in representing our families, community and state,” Sisk said. “I’ve been looking at ways of encouraging those three campuses (to do well).”

The tests will be taken in January.

Statewide NAEP scores are what led former Gov. Robert Bentley to declare in 2016 that the state’s educational system “sucks.” Those comments were made in reference to Alabama being ranked 51st in fourth-grade math scores on the NAEP.

Safety assessment

Limestone County’s school safety efforts will also be highlighted in October at an annual meeting of the state’s superintendents. Sisk said Randy Bates, the school system’s safety director, will be giving a presentation on the local efforts at the meeting in Florence.

Limestone County Schools was one of just three statewide to showcase its safety efforts.

“We’ll showcase our partnership with E911, the Rave Panic Button and we’ll talk about our flagship program, SafeDefend,” Sisk said. “We’re one of the only school systems that has all three layers. We’re excited.”

The panic button is a mobile application that allows school employees to call for help with the push of a button. Linked directly to the Athens-Limestone County 911 call center, school employees can simultaneously signal to 911 dispatchers and one another that they have a shooter situation, a fire or a medical emergency on their hands.

The SafeDefend system is a safe-like box that can only be opened with fingerprint recognition. The box, which is connected to a central board in the main office, contains a flashlight with a strobe function, plastic handcuffs, a telescoping self-defense baton, military-grade mace, a tourniquet, trauma pack, whistle and yellow safety vest. When a school employee opens one box, the main office is notified and all other boxes on campus emit a signal, notifying others a problem may exist. At the same time, alarms and strobes go off in the hallways.

In addition to the school systems’s technological efforts, there is a school resource officer at each school in the county.

Sisk said the state Department of Education has a new safety vendor, Insight, and any new measures would be integrated into processes already in place at Limestone County Schools.