School Security...Gone is the innocence

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-04-13-columbine-lessons_N.htm

Guards, metal detectors, hand held scanners, bag searches...this isn't the local airport. This is entry way of many local schools. Fifteen years ago, violence in schools consisted of the random fist fight. Then there was Columbine. The horror that occurred that April day is still fresh on everyone's mind and forever changed how we look at school security.

School shootings, while not an everyday occurrence, are a very real threat to the safety of students and staff. This topic is an issue that our high school wrestles with. We have metal detectors at the door, back packs are searched, and students are wanded with hand held scanners. Cameras are found throughout the school halls and recordings are stored should an event in the halls require it.

In addition to the technological aspects of school safety are the requirements of the staff who once upon a time only worried about the education of their students. Lockdowns are practiced. Threats are taken seriously as was evident a few months back when our school system was put under lockdown in response to a threat made by a former employee. Security personnel roam the halls with walkie talkies. There is also security stationed at the main door; all other doors are locked. Gang training has been instituted and a specialist comes in occasionally, walking the halls looking for gang related graffiti, colors, or signs flashed by hand.

Students aren't allowed to wear any items that could be perceived as showing the colors of a gang. Hats and hoods aren't allowed in the building and coats and backpacks are to stay in lockers. Trench coats and any type of coat worn "out of season" are not allowed.

Our school is considered one of the "tougher" schools in the state. Fights do happen, although not as often as one might think. Students have figured out, for the most part, that the school is not the place to settle the dispute about trash-talking on the basketball court the evening before. The steps that have been instituted in order to keep students safe have definitely cut down on what does happen in our school.

However, it isn't perfect. Occasionally the chair where the security person sits in the entry way is empty. Hall security is sometimes short-handed because of family emergency or illness. Because of the atrocious layout of our school, blind spots away from the view of the camera are possible and where ever they are, students have found them. In addition to the educational duties of our school's teachers, they are also acting as security themselves. Our last fight wasn't broken up by security. The first two on the scene to pull the two teenage boys apart were a science teacher and the art teacher. The students fighting were intent on hurting each other.

Because of the holes in our security, would it have been possible for one of these boys to bring a weapon into the school? I fully believe it would have been possible.

What a scary thought.