Shootings prompt educators to re-examine security
A school shooting in a rural part of Pennsylvania has prompted local school district officials to re-examine school security to minimize chances of such a violent attack in their district. District superintendents and school security are re-examining tighter security measures in light of last week’s fatal shooting of several school-age children in a one-room Amish schoolhouse in Lancaster County.
Charles Matthews, Connellsville Area School District director of security, said safety for students, teachers, administrators and other staff while on school property is a top priority.
“We discuss it all the time,” he said. “We go over what procedures we have in place and what we can do to make our buildings safer.”
Security measures in place at Connellsville schools include locked doors that deter entrance from outside, on-site security officers and cameras that document activity.
Recent school shootings involving armed adults entering various school buildings, however, have prompted district security and administration to consider having adult visitors use a metal detector before being permitted entry into Connellsville school buildings.
“We’re not at the point of requiring students to go through the detectors as that would be a horrendous undertaking, but we will require adult visitors to pass through one,” said Matthews.
Connellsville began to implement security measures at its facilities prior to the 1999 shooting at the Columbine High School in Colorado, said Matthews, and have continued to upgrade the equipment.
“These shootings are scary,” he said. “It is mind-boggling that these men would do such things to kids.”
In the Uniontown Area School District, the focus is on installing buzz-in systems at the high school and A.J. McMullen School that would not allow anyone to enter the building until being recognized and permitted inside, said district Superintendent Dr. Charles Machesky. Most school buildings in the district already have the systems in place, he added.
“We’re working on that expeditiously. We’re working on stepping up and enhancing it,” said Machesky.
Also involved in the security review process is examining school buildings’ main points of entry, the security of which are critical to student safety, added Machesky.
“Keeping main points of entrance secured goes a long way in controlling who comes into the school and certainly must lessen (the chance) that people who are not supposed to be in the building are not in it,” said Machesky.
Uniontown has its own school police force with two full-time and as many as 16 to 20 part-time officers available in case of an incident. This year, $300,000 of the district’s revenue was allotted to school security and police.
“We believe we provide safe and secure school facilities for all of our children,” said Machesky. “We’re being proactive and examining all points (of entry) and exit. I say let’s expedite this, take charge and get it done, not just look into it.”
Machesky said the district has received a deluge of phone calls from parents concerned about security in the schools since the one-room schoolhouse shooting last week.
In the Laurel Highlands School District, building principals and school faculty have been put on “high alert” as a result of the shootings, said Superintendent Dr. Ronald Sheba.
School personnel are aware of drills to evacuate each building, and procedural issues have been put in place, Sheba added.
Digital video cameras that monitor activity in and outside of the school should be up and running at the high school this week and next week at Clark Elementary, he added.
If an incident were to occur at the schools, the cameras will allow school security, administrators or the authorities to review it and identify any perpetrators.
“That’s going to be a tremendous advantage compared to what we have now,” Sheba said.
Currently at the high school, a buzz-in system is in place. School security personnel guard the building.
“We’ve looked at the school environment to see where we can make it safer, again knowing that nothing is 100 percent,” said Sheba. “We’re being as proactive as we can based on the information we have.”
In light of the recent tragedies, Gov. Ed Rendell has asked the state Department of Education to review its school safety recommendations, said a governor’s office spokesman.
State Department of Education spokesman Mike Storm said although the department has re-released safety recommendations for the schools, whether the suggestions are followed remains a local decision.