Hundreds of parents and students packed the auditorium at Mt. Carmel High School Tuesday for a school safety meeting hosted by the Poway Unified School District.
The safety meeting was set up in light of the school shooting in Florida, and the flood of threats happening since, and droves of concerned parents looking for assurance that their kids are safe at school showed up.
Part of the school district and city’s solution to preventing tragedies like the one in Florida is a new 24-hour hotline (844-PUSD-TIP) for reporting anonymous tips about potential school threats.
Poway Mayor Steve Vaus said he came up with the idea six days ago and there was immediate action to implement it at all of the district’s 40 campuses.
The San Diego Police Department's northeastern division and San Diego County Sheriff’s Department’s Poway station have signed on to monitor calls to the hotline around the clock.
Also discussed at the meeting were the prevention, preparedness, and response bullet points.
Those who signed up had a chance to submit questions online and have them answered by school officials and law enforcement.
"A question that we saw repeatedly, ‘Will school staff begin carrying firearms?’ The answer is no,” district superintendent Dr. Marian Kim-Phelps said to a large applause.
The school district received such a positive response to the meeting that it had to change the location to accommodate the more than 700 RSVP’s.
