By BRENNA DONNELLY
WISH-TV | wishtv.com
Carmel Clay School officials announced the selection of a new superintendent June 1 amid unrest in Hamilton County and the state over student safety.
Beresford
Michael Beresford will take the position vacated in February by Nicholas Wahl, who resigned after being placed on administrative leave along with Corinne Middleton, who was the district’s human resources director.
Beresford is no stranger to Hamilton County; he’s been employed with Hamilton Southeastern Schools for 25 years, most recently as assistant superintendent.
“There’s not a day in my career where safety wasn’t the first priority,” Beresford said.
It is a significant time to be at the helm of a 16,000-student school district. Carmel High School recently made headlines for violent threats made at the school, and just last month a student shooter brought two handguns into a seventh-grade classroom in Noblesville West Middle School and injured a student and a teacher.
“When it happens right down the road with people I know and people I care about, it’s even more devastating,” he said. “Anything that happens we always review what happened, look into and see what can we do to prevent this from happening again.”
While aware that school security is often parents and staff members’ first priority, Beresford said he’s not rolling out any new programs.
“As far as doing something, bringing something brand new and trying something out, it’s more about evaluating what happened and seeing what we can do to try to prevent this,” he said.
Parents in Carmel say something needs to change to prevent more school shootings.
“As a parent getting ready to send kids to elementary school it makes me very nervous and it’s heartbreaking and it’s terrible,” said Carmel parent Annie McKeand.
She said the solution does not begin with the superintendent.
“I think we need people in legislation that are willing to make those changes. I think we need to start there,” McKeand said.
Former teacher Jan Ballak drew a connection between school violence and world violence from her experiences teaching in 2001.
“At the time when the Twin Towers came down and comforting little ones in second grade at that time, I find it no different. We are still in a time where there is unrest as far as safety in the schools,” Ballak said.
For now, the new superintendent said he wants bring parents into the world of school security decision making.
“It’s a very multilayered approach to school safety. And there some layers the public will never know about because we don’t compromise our school safety programs, but at the same time I think we need to give parents the look behind the curtain again,” Beresford said.
However, first he wants to hear what Carmel parents, administrators, students, teachers and support staff have to say.
“Over the first 100 days I plan to listen. A listening tour of sorts,” he said.