Seminole County improving school security

All Seminole County schools are getting security upgrades over the next five years, but several churches are now banding together to ensure that Oviedo High School is one of the first in the district to be secured. 

“School safety is not something new to us.” 

Seminole County Public Schools and the Sheriff’s Office are joining forces in a new video, promoting school safety in a new initiative called “Secure Oviedo Schools.” But they’re not doing it alone. 

“Obviously no school's going to be totally secure but you do what you can.”

Enter Dwayne Mercer, a pastor at CrossLife Church in Oviedo. A man on a mission, he reached out to Seminole County Schools after the Parkland shooting. The district was already working toward fencing and new cameras at all of its schools as part of a five-year security plan.

“I said what can we do then to help you? And they said cameras or fencing and we had to make a choice and so we could do more schools with the cameras,” said Pastor Dwayne Mercer. 

CrossLife Church is one of several churches in the community raising money for these cameras and they've already raised $43,000.

The goal is to raise $62,000 for cameras at Oviedo’s high schools and one of its middle schools and maybe even cut the district’s five-year security plan down to three. But more importantly, the goal is to ensure safety as best as they can.

“Out community is a family-oriented community and people are afraid. It's continuing to go on and on and all we can do is do what we can do,” said Pastor Mercer. 

The Secure Oviedo Schools group is hoping to meet its fundraising goal on February 1st in a big golf tournament at Twin Rivers, followed by a dinner and auction.