Mike Wolanin | The Republic St. Peter’s Executive Director of Ministries Mike Hinckfoot, left, and St. Peter’s Lutheran School Principal Paul Meredith pose for a photo in the main entrance to St. Peter’s Lutheran School in Columbus, Ind., Friday, Aug. 9, 2024. Both Hinckfoot and Meredith are equipped with stun gun devices as an added level of security for emergency situations at the school.
A photo of a local private school principal wearing a stun gun device during the first day of school this week prompted a flurry of conversation in the community and on social media.
Paul Meredith, St. Peter’s Lutheran School principal, said he and one other staff member, Executive Director of Ministries Mike Hinckfoot, have worn the devices for the past two school years as a means of mitigating risks in the event of an intruder in a worst-case scenario at the school.
“We have a mantra where we like to say, safety over convenience, and so we are trying to put as many safety protocols in place to keep our students and staff as safe as possible,” Meredith said.
Meredith and Hinckfoot went through training with law enforcement in order to become certified in December 2022, and are actually now certified trainers themselves. Certification is required every two years and this coming week they plan to get certified again at a facility in Tipton, Indiana.
“We had to take several different written tests, and then there was an actual training with law enforcement,” Meredith said.
The school administrators went through a full day of training which included scenarios, drills, firing the devices, everything that law enforcement officers learn in the exact same training, he said.
Meredith noted “some of the school safety issues you’ve seen in the news over the past several years,” as the reason for wearing the stun guns at school.
The goal is de-escalation, Hinckfoot said, with the idea that people see the device and it helps de-escalate the situation rather than harm.
When first going through training and certification in 2022, law enforcement officers said Hinckfoot and Meredith represented the first school that they had heard of that equipped staff with the equipment and were supportive of it.
“Had we gone in with reservations, they would have been removed because we were affirmed by — there was probably 16 different police departments there — who said how excellent this was, that we were doing this for our school,” Hinckfoot said. “And so, that affirmed we were making the right choice.”
They also emphasized the stun guns would only be used on an intruder coming into the school, and not a student under any circumstances. Local law enforcement and SWAT safety consultants have fully supported the school’s crisis management plan, including the wearing of the devices, school officials said.
“Our school board and myself and Mr. Hinckfoot have been really committed to school safety, and we looked at ways we could mitigate safety risk in our building, and our school board has been 100% behind us, as well as our church council,” Meredith said.
The school has beefed up security in other ways as well.
St. Peter’s received $50,000 with a 50% match last year through a Secured School Safety Grant (SSSG). The funds were earmarked at the school to purchase “bullet-resistant film” to wrap around windows and glass doors on ground-level floors. In addition, the school spent $32,000 to install nearly 20 active response system buttons throughout the school in the event of an intruder.
“They lock down our entire campus and notify the Columbus Police Department immediately that there’s an active threat,” Meredith said. “They kind of work like a panic button you would see at a bank.”
Meredith said the buttons are “extremely loud, so our entire campus is put on notice.” The school has reinforced doors and the principal also demonstrated additional locks that can be slid into a slot on the bottom of doors for added protection.
“All of our classroom doors are locked, but in the event that lock gets compromised, our teachers can slide these levers in here, so you still can’t get into classrooms,” Meredith said. ” … It’s a not-too-terribly expensive way to add another layer of protection.”
Meredith said school families have backed the measures they’ve taken.
“Our school community is extremely supportive, and they really feel that school safety has been, and always will be a priority for us.”
