A Minnesota school supply list: Notebook paper? Check. #2 pencils? Check. Bulletproof whiteboards? CHECK!
In the latest addition to school protection, the Rocori School District is supplying 200 bulletproof whiteboards to its schools.
These whiteboards are manufactured with a material more resilient than police officers’ bulletproof vests — doubling as a tool in the classroom and a shield in a worst case scenario.
In a school demonstration on Tuesday, Cold Spring Police Chief Phil Jones kicked, stabbed and smacked a whiteboard with a police baton. After Jones’ fight with the inanimate object, it came out relatively unscathed.
While Jones thought it would be unacceptable to actually shoot at the board during the demonstration, he promised he ‘d already tried gunning down the whiteboard earlier and it still came out intact.
“We put this board to the test, and quite frankly, that was the day I became a believer,” Jones told Fox News.
The whiteboards’ Maryland-based manufacturer, Hardwire LLC, typically provides bulletproof gear for the military, but the Sandy Hook shooting motivated the company to create a product to keep schools safe, too. The company has already dolled out whiteboards to schools in North Dakota and Maryland and are in the process of bringing them to Pennsylvania and California.
But the whiteboards just scratch the surface when it comes to bulletproof school supplies. Hardwire also offers bulletproof clipboards, bulletproof peel-n-stick door covers and bulletproof backpack inserts.
Rocori superintendent Scott Staska said the whiteboards are just the beginning of his school safety plan that also includes school resource officers and lockdown drills. In 2003, Rocori High School experienced a school shooting, when a 15-year-old boy shot and killed two other students.
Staska and Jones are both confident that bulletproof whiteboards are a step in the right direction to better protect Rocori schools.
“It is empowerment,” Jones told CBS Minnesota. “It is a tool, something that the teachers will finally have — and the cooks and the custodial staff and principals and administrative staff — so they don’t feel helpless.”
