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SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Educators in South Bend are looking to be proactive to ensure the safety of students.

At a South Bend Community school board meeting last night, board members tabled a vote on a $97,000 plan to beef up security measures at all South Bend schools. The plan would be paid for by a grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security if approved.

“We took the contract off the agenda tonight because wanted to make sure we talked about it with our teacher’s union and that we had all the details right,” said Supt. Todd Cummings. “That’s a very important detail to get right and we didn’t think we had it all ready to go.”

The plan would see a new security system install at every school where visitors would scan their driver’s license before being allowed further into the school. The system would then do an instant background check on those visitors, who would then be given a temporary badge allowing them inside that expires once they leave the building or when their time inside is up.

“It will also make volunteering easier and speed up our hiring process for new staff people,” Cummings added.

There are also some house keeping attachments to the plan, such as buying ten new radios for police officers who patrol school campuses as well as having the officers who use those radios visit with students at schools more often so they can get to know who is in charge of protecting them and feel safer.

Cummings was also quick to clarify that arming teachers is not being considered in the plan calling it “a bad idea.”

(PHOTO: B. Fanton/Getty Images)