Makayla Hardy talks to the school police chief about what steps are being taken to keep local schools safe.

All week we've been reporting on the recent school shooting in Georgia as well as several lockdowns and threat investigations at schools here at home.

We wanted to dig further into some of the ways our schools are working to keep students and staff safe. The school district has several different measures for safety, including the most commonly known one being 'secured campus' formerly known as code yellow and 'lockdown' formerly known as code red.

Washoe County School Police Chief Tracey Moore wants to assure parents the safety of their children. "When the fire alarm is activated, we evacuate and do a student accountability check. In a secured campus it's the same thing. We lock the perimeter of the campus down, the teachers lock their doors, and they stay instructional periods where they keep the kids and the teachers inside the building and safe."

Chief Moore says as a part of their crisis alert system, teachers and staff are provided a special badge with a button they can press that can call for assistance or initiate a lockdown. He says there has been some recent changes to their safety procedures such as creating a full-perimeter fence to help law enforcement secure school campuses and implementing single-point entry at every school.

"The single point entry keeps the perimeter secured and you can only come in through the school through one door during business hours."

Moore says this is where they also use the visitor management system to check the visitor's records and make sure they're clean.

The school district also plans several drills throughout the school year. So far this school year there have been 21 evacuation drills, 3 lockdown drills, and 4 secured campus drills.

The school district also shares that there have been almost a dozen non-planned emergency activations. A majority are fire alarm events requiring an evacuation, at least one lockdown, and a few secured campuses.

Moore says, "During these crisis emergency events of a lockdown or secured campus our communications department posts the information and the updates we can provide to the parents on the school district website. So, if they're looking for information, please don't call the dispatch center, please let them take the calls for emergency services."

Chief Moore says if parents need information, they can contact the school district's communications department or your school administrator.