Marksmen Highlight Campus Safety

Campus safety continues to be top of mind for students, teachers and parents around the world, including our boys, especially in light of the terrible tragedies that have affected schools around the United States, including in Uvalde earlier this year. Over the course of the summer, Marksmen in the journalism program decided to direct their research and attention to this important topic and covered many aspects of it in the opening edition of Focus magazine, which was released last Friday alongside the first edition of the 2022-2023 ReMarker newspaper.

 

While digging into the important issues surrounding school safety, including the impact of gun violence, the boys also decided to talk with the members of our school’s security team and get an update on St. Mark’s overall campus security program. 

 

As was noted in the magazine, St. Mark’s continues to routinely strengthen and expand its commitment to campus security safety and security across the 40 acres of 10600 Preston Road. With a physical presence on campus 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, the St. Mark’s security team serves and protects the school community while maintaining a welcoming environment.

 

As part of the ongoing expansion of enhanced resources to support campus safety, the campus security team highlighted several recent projects, including:

 

 

St. Mark’s is fortunate to have a security team that includes eight full-time personnel, supported by a roster of eight uniformed Dallas Police Department (DPD) officers that routinely patrol the campus during school and at special events. Five members of the full-time security team are retired Dallas Police officers with a combined active-duty experience totaling more than 130 years. In addition, four of these colleagues were active on the Dallas SWAT team, including Director of Security Dale Hackbarth, a 28-year veteran of the DPD and SWAT.

 

The School, through its security team, maintains a close working relationship and strong partnership with the Dallas Police Department. As they have for many years, this summer the Dallas SWAT team once again conducted advanced training on the campus over several days, using both the Lower School and Fine Arts facilities to simulate various emergency situations. The use of School facilities during the month of July, when campus is quieter, provides a valuable opportunity for officers to train in an actual school setting, and the training gives the SWAT team the chance to spend time on our campus and maintain familiarity with St. Mark’s facilities.

 

Issues of security and violence around schools are certainly a difficult topic, but The ReMarker newspaper team addressed this topic head-on.

“We are in complete disagreement about how to prevent gun violence,” Focus editor-in-chief Myles Lowenberg wrote in the magazine’s introduction. “And worse, we can’t agree on how to prevent it without infringing on the liberties and sensitivities of others. That’s why investigating the causes of and solutions to the shootings plaguing our nation should be proactive. Let’s do the work of investigating and debating now so that one day, there may not be any more circular and repetitive debates after another disaster.”

 

“We must find common ground,” the magazine’s editorial page implores. “Though politicians may default to extreme solutions, by understanding the other side of the gun debate, Americans can transcend the ideological divide.”

 

In reflecting with editors from Focus about St. Mark’s approach to campus safety and security, Eugene McDermott Headmaster David Dini shared the following thoughts.

 

“It’s been a steady and thoughtful escalation of both time, energy and investment in the resources that we devote to campus security,” he said. “We want to ensure that as potential pressures increase — whether it’s gun violence or any other kinds of security — we’re prepared.”