School safety is a topic discussed often and keeping students safe while they are learning is a top priority for several schools in the Mahoning Valley.

While most districts put proactive measures in place, such as a school resource officer or a security system that requires visitors to check in and out, others have taken an extra step to ensure the safety of their students, which is something this newspaper commends tremendously.

The Liberty Local School District recently announced that it is nearing completion of its new state-of-the-art safety feature, which includes 121 Verkada ​​cameras districtwide and 58 at Liberty High School alone.

This isn’t a normal camera system though. The SmartPass system, which can be monitored by teachers, administrators and police in the building and remotely, includes cutting-edge technology that can track the location of anyone on campus.

According to Liberty High School Principal Brian Knight, students create passes, or their teachers assign them, and the school’s staff can see exactly where students are going at all times.

Knight told our reporter that it was a massive upgrade from the school’s previous system. But this newspaper believes this system is truly valuable because of how it can track anyone on campus at any time, including visitors, or even intruders.

The system can track anybody who comes into the building, according to Knight. So, if there is an intruder on campus, an administrator can type in a description and find the person anywhere in the building.

“If I want to identify an intruder in the building who may be wearing a red sweatshirt, anyone who is in a red sweatshirt would pop up,” Knight told our reporter.

These are the types of safety measures that we love to see installed, as they set a new standard for school security and student safety. With this new system, the district also can easily track missing students with the click of a button.

Now-retired Superintendent Andy Tommelleo, who spearheaded the installation of this new security system alongside Knight, had a goal of keeping the district at the forefront of school safety.

We can surely say that its goal has been accomplished. It also did it in the right way, as the district was awarded $300,000 last year through the Ohio K-12 Safety Grant Program. Most of that money — $292,074 — was used to install the system. Based on Tommelleo’s recommendation, Proline Technology’s bid was accepted in November. That came after the district accepted a bid from Pacific OneSource, which totaled $344,728, but a contract was never signed.

The district was able to consider its options and accomplish its goals at an even cheaper price than before.

So we celebrate the work of Tommelleo, Knight and the rest of the Liberty School District for their efforts in getting the job done while prioritizing student safety.