South Carolina’s Kershaw County School District is pushing to install a cell tower on its grounds. It would require a zoning change, which has already cleared the first hurdle. The issue is on the docket for the next County Council meeting. Billy Smith, Chief Operations Officer for Kershaw County School District, told WLTX-TV that safety concerns demand reliable cell service.
“It’s a safety and security issue that’s been going on since I was the principal at Lugoff-Elgin Middle School back in the early 2000s,” he stated. “Yes, we have radios,” he added, “But only a handful of people have emergency radios. Yes, we have phones on teachers’ desks, but not all emergencies happen right near teachers’ desks. So, every possible means of communication that we could have would do nothing but benefit in reacting and reaction time to any type of emergency.”
The school campus encompasses the high school, middle school, and its sports facilities. “We’ve been looking at probably 10-12 sites on that 103 acres that we have that would be the best place,” said Smith, “The least intrusive. And so we are actually [going to] put it between Richardson Boulevard and the back of the school and the bus rider circle.”
The requested cell tower would stand 195-feet tall, enabling connectivity for all the nearby students and teachers in the event of an emergency, according to WLTX-TV. The height is not tall enough to require flashing lights.
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