Many of us remember a time when school safety largely consisted of monthly fire drills and a tornado shelter drill in the spring.

Those remain very important. But, unfortunately, the number of potential safety threats facing students today goes beyond fires and tornadoes to scary things that were not envisioned just a couple decades ago. Mass shootings, other violence and drug crimes are among them.

Keeping the students, teachers and school staff members safe needs to be a top priority for school districts everywhere. It is a priority for the Fort Dodge Community School District.

District leaders have demonstrated that it is a priority by creating the new position of director of safety and security.

To fill this new position, the district picked the ideal candidate – former Fort Dodge Police Chief Roger Porter.

Porter retired in April after 27 years of service to the citizens of Fort Dodge as a police officer. He was the chief for six years.

On top of all that experience and training, Porter has local connections that someone new to the community would not have. The current police chief, Dennis Quinn, and all the other members of the force worked with him and served under him while he was chief. Porter has also worked extensively with Webster County Sheriff Luke Fleener, the prosecutors in the Webster County Attorney’s Office and Fire Chief Steve Hergenreter.

Creating a new position in government often isn’t a popular move. But in this case it was a very necessary move. We thank the local Board of Education, Interim Superintendent Denise Schares and incoming Superintendent Josh Porter for making this happen.

Parents of Fort Dodge students should feel good about the fact that their school district leadership is moving quickly on the all important issue of school safety.