July 7, 2026, 4:08 a.m. CT
- The school board on Monday approved the designation of EVSC’s director of student conduct and safety, Sara Loete, as its school safety specialist. The latter role will become part of the former.
EVANSVILLE — Evansville Vanderburgh School Corp. (EVSC) may be waiting for what it calls a top-to-bottom audit of safety measures in its 40 schools — but the waiting doesn’t mean nothing is happening.
The school board on Monday approved the designation of EVSC’s director of student conduct and safety, Sara Loete, as its school safety specialist. The latter role will become part of the former.
If EVSC parents and Harrison High School parents specifically are already familiar with Loete, it may be because she has been on the move recently.
Loete had been assistant principal at Harrison for four years when she assumed the role of athletic director at the school on an interim basis in late March. The school board approved her hiring as athletic director on May 4, with an effective date of July 27.
“We have always had a strong athletic program,” Loete told the Courier & Press in May. “Strong traditions. We’ve got really good athletes in the building. My goal is to build our numbers, get our athletes to play sports and be more increasingly competitive. I always want to win sectionals, SIAC and team championships.”
But on June 22 — seven weeks later — the school board named Loete EVSC’s director of student conduct and safety, effective Monday. The “school safety specialist” designation is intended to be part of that job.
Loete received the Indiana Advanced School Safety Specialist certification in 2021, according to EVSC.
Before Loete, then-Deputy Chief of Staff Katy Rogers Elmer had performed the function of school safety specialist. Elmer, however, was hired as principal of North High School in March, succeeding longtime Principal John Skinner in that post.
A pending school safety audit looms large
What does EVSC’s school safety specialist do? Elmer, when she held the title, worked with the Indiana Office of School Safety, part of the Indiana Department of Homeland Security, to solicit advice for doing a district and school safety audit.
Loete will be involved heavily in examining whatever report is produced by Cleveland, Ohio-based National School Safety and Security Services, which the school board hired in December to conduct what EVSC calls a top-to-bottom assessment of safety measures already in place in its 40 schools. EVSC is paying the consulting company $215,750.
The audit was conducted this past school year, and EVSC expects a final report on its findings this month or next.
EVSC decided to seek the safety and security study in the wake of threat incidents that occurred early in the 2025-26 school year. The decision has become a flashpoint for parents and others who think EVSC should be spending money instead on weapons detection systems, as some area school districts say they have done successfully.
EVSC knows that effecting all or parts of whatever National School Safety and Security Services ultimately recommends will involve capital projects that will cost money.
During its May 4 meeting, the school board agreed to issue general obligation bonds in an amount not to exceed $15 million.
“These bond proceeds are designated for safety and security upgrades across the district,” Assistant Superintendent of Finance and Operations Carl Underwood told the school board that night.
The final bond resolution — if not Underwood’s description of it to the school board — stated that the money will be used to pay, “the total cost of the renovation of and improvements to facilities throughout the School Corporation, including safety and security improvements, site and athletic improvements, and the purchase of buses, equipment, and technology.”
Underwood and EVSC spokesman Jason Woebkenberg have said they won’t know how much will go to safety and security upgrades to schools until the school board assesses whatever report is produced by National School Safety and Security Services.
Weapons detection may not be in the cards for EVSC
It would be a surprise if whatever reforms EVSC’s consultant ultimately recommends include weapons detection technology.
National School Safety and Security Services’ president, Kenneth Trump, has made several arguments mitigating against the technology, telling the school board in February that it isn’t guaranteed to work and can cause false alarms for items that aren’t weapons.
At the same time, Warrick County School Corporation (WCSC) and other area and regional school districts have opted for weapons detection technology, calling it a success and a useful supplement to their other safety controls.
WCSC spent nearly $300,000 for weapons detection technology at its three high schools, as well as Warrick Pathways and Career Center. The money from a general obligation bond pays for 15 OPENGATE checkpoints manufactured by CEIA and placed at entrances throughout the schools.
In all, nine entrances in four buildings are covered with the CEIA Opengate systems.
Woebkenberg told the Courier & Press after Monday’s school board meeting that EVSC administrators and staff will be in no hurry to decide which parts of the looming safety and security study to implement.
“Between our board and our administrative team, we’re going to be spending a lot of time looking at that and really digesting that, because we know it is going to be extensive,” he said.
“We’re not going to rush it. We’re going to get it right. That’s what we’ve said all along.”
