The Selma City School Board is considering more school security following the murder of 18-year-old Alexis Hunter, a Selma High School student that was shot dead directly outside of the school’s campus.

During the Selma City School work session Tuesday night, Selma City School Board president Henry Hicks, Sr. proposed that the local school system improve security for the school system. He said the security guards and unmanned metal detectors are not enough to fully protect the people on Selma City School campuses.

“We need to look at our system, and look at how we can better protect our teachers, our students and people that are working in these schools,” Hicks said. “Having a metal detector standing there, and someone is walking through and nobody is here to man is just like not having it.”

He suggested that the system gets additional resource officers, because they are more equipped to handle dangerous situations. The resources officers are highly trained law enforcement officers prepared to protect Selma City Schools, according to the school system’s website.

“We may need more resource officers in these schools, because they can carry guns,” Hicks said.

Hicks said that he does not feel as though the school system is responsible for the death of Alexis Hunter, but the fact that the murder happened near the school should urge them to make changes within the system.

“I’m not saying that we had anything to do with it, but at the end of the day our children were affected by it,” Hicks said. “I went to the vigil that night and those kids were hurt. It not only hurts those kids. It hurts the community.”

Selma City School Board member Udo Ufomadu said that murders involving students in the Selma City Schools should encourage the board to re-evaluate the school policy.

He said the policy should focus more on preventing the students from breaking school rules rather than punishing students who violate them.

“We have to make sure that we don’t push them back to the streets,” Ufomadu said. “What we keep talking about and doing is correction. We don’t talk about preventive measures.”

Selma City School Board member Brenda Randolph-Obomanu said that bettering character education would help resolve the issue. She said that teachers should put more effort into explaining the meaning behind the “word of the day” in their elementary schools.

“We wait until they get too consumed in it,” Obomanu said. “We need to also focus on some proactive things at younger ages before they get to this point, so they’ll be able to walk away, be able to say “no” and be able to not to put that gun in their hand.”

The Selma City School Board will be conducting their regular school board meeting in the Selma High School auditorium Thursday at 6 p.m.