BVA staff, Rostraver police team up for training sessions

By JOHN RECTENWALD
jrectenwald@yourmvi.com
So often work meetings become dreadfully redundant. Couldn’t we have covered that in an email?
For Belle Vernon Area School District teachers who gathered Thursday in training sessions to focus on situational awareness the answer is “no, the stakes are too high.”
By now it’s public consensus that school shootings are an epidemic in this country. When Superintendent Dr. Ken Williams was hired at BVA he made it a top priority to install a school resource officer (SRO) in each of the four buildings that comprise the district.
“(Williams) worked with Rostraver police Chief John Christner, and I thank the Office of the District Attorney in Fayette and Westmoreland counties to allow Rostraver police to have jurisdiction at the schools on the Fayette side,” said BVA Middle School Principal John Grice.
For the first time since Rostraver Township Police embedded two officers at the Washington Township campus and two at the Rostraver campus, teachers gathered with those dedicated SROs and their respective principals to run through worst-case scenarios and threat response assessment training exercises.

To read the rest of the story, please see a copy of Friday’s Mon Valley Independent, call 724-314-0035 to subscribe or subscribe to our online edition at http://monvalleyindependent.com.