HUNTINGTON -- Cabell County schools are becoming safer, thanks to a $437,000 grant from the School Building Authority. With local matching funds of more than $65,000, the district has $502,931 to spend on technology needed to accomplish the School Access Safety Plan.

Under SASP, all schools eventually will be equipped with Aiphones, a device that allows office staff to see and talk to whomever is trying to enter the building's main door. Getting one for each school is a priority, and all 26 schools and the Career Technical Center are expected to be equipped by the end of the school year, said Mike O'Dell, assistant director of operations.

O'Dell said a little less than a dozen already have the Aiphones, including Beverly Hills, Huntington and Enslow middle schools. Enslow Principal Georgia Porter said it's been great having the new technology, and she already feels a difference in the safety it provides.

"It means everything," Porter said. "That's one of our missions -- to provide a safe environment for our children."

However, O'Dell stressed that nothing school officials buy can make schools completely safe. In fact, he said the most important steps to take are free.

"We can buy all the fancy equipment and negate it with one block of wood holding a door open," he said, adding that making sure exterior doors are locked and keeping first-floor windows closed are the first steps to deterring intruders. "All of this money is going toward deterring access."

O'Dell's office also has been transferring blueprints of the schools onto disks and giving them to first responders, who may need to access the information quickly to find where an injured student is or know which door gives them best access for an emergency. Within the next three years, he also plans to number every door in every school and add that to blueprints, as well as add locks to classroom doors that lock from the inside.

All that will cost a lot more money that this grant provides, O'Dell said, and he doesn't know whether another grant will be available next year. Until then, they'll do what they can to ensure safety in the schools.

"We're a long way from being good, but we're making (students) safer," he said.

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