Bozeman Public Schools officials say they are always adapting their safety plans — and learning from incidents like these — in order to improve.

Just two weeks earlier, a special education paraprofessional at Whittier Elementary School was arrested on Jan. 3 for allegedly sending nude photos of himself to a Vermont investigator who was posing as a 14-year-old girl.

The staff member was placed on unpaid administrative leave after his arrest and the community was assured that allegations in the case did not seem to involve any Bozeman schools students, Bertram said in a Jan. 4 press release.

The staffer had went through the standard background check process that all district employees must pass before working with students.

“In the event of a safety emergency, you can’t communicate enough,” King said in the Jan. 25 interview. “You know, parents want to know, they want information and it’s hard to keep up.”

The district partners with the Bozeman Police Department to station school resource officers in school buildings, King said during the board meeting. There are four officers split between 12 buildings and Sgt. Scott McCormick oversees them.

“Part of what the SROs do, they do go into the classroom, they have classes that they teach starting in elementary school all the way through high school on different safety issues, different legal things,” McCormick said. “Overall, we’re there to prevent crime and I think just building that relationship with, you know, from administrators, to teachers, to students and parents, have an open line of communication with them helps reduce the amount of incidents we have in the district.”

Staff do have issues with people leaving doors propped open to let others in, he said. Some states, such as Texas, have passed laws requiring regular audits of school campuses, including ensuring all doors are closed and locked.

In May, the district passed a tax levy to help pay for ongoing safety costs, Waterman said. The levies brought in about $2.3 million for school safety measures so far.

Bozeman Chronicle: How Bozeman schools work to keep students safe