Rossville Consolidated School District Superintendent Dr. Jim Hanna presented the district’s comprehensive approach to school safety at the AASA National Conference on Education, one of the nation’s largest gatherings of public school system leaders.
Hosted annually by AASA, the conference brings together thousands of superintendents, cabinet members, and education leaders to address critical issues facing public education. This year’s program emphasized leadership, innovation, and student well-being, placing school safety among the conference’s central themes.
Dr. Hanna’s session, Beyond the Lockdown: Prepared People, Not Just Prepared Plans, highlighted how a small, rural Indiana school district has built a people-centered, all-hazards safety framework that extends beyond compliance-driven requirements. Rossville Schools serves approximately 950 students across 75 square miles, where emergency responders may take 10 to 15 minutes to arrive, an operational reality that has shaped the district’s proactive planning.
During the presentation, Dr. Hanna outlined Rossville’s integrated approach to prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery. Key components included staff training in CPR/AED use, bleeding control, threat assessment, and suicide prevention, and district-operated school police services. He also described layered safety technologies, including advanced communication systems, comprehensive camera coverage, and lightning alert systems for outdoor activities.
A central theme of the session was readiness that is “people-dependent.” Dr. Hanna emphasized standardized response protocols, use of the Incident Command System, clearly defined emergency response teams, and regular drills. Ensuring that every adult understands their role during the first critical minutes of an emergency, he said, strengthens both confidence and coordination.
Conference participants praised the model’s practical and scalable design, noting that it demonstrated how districts of any size can improve safety through intentional planning, sustained training, and strong partnerships with first responders.
Dr. Hanna concluded by challenging school leaders to assess whether their systems are truly prepared for the first 10 minutes of a crisis, when preparation, communication, and human decision-making matter most.
Rossville Consolidated School District’s inclusion in the national conference program underscores the district’s leadership in school safety and highlights how rural schools can serve as innovators in protecting students, staff, and communities.