Safe or unsafe; that is the question
Kevin Kane
Safe or unsafe; that is the question
It is supposed to be one of the safer places to send your children. Parents should be at ease once they drop their children off for the day and leave. It is a place of education, fun and bonding. That description has recently been modified and has been replaced with dangerous, worried and precaution. Jeff Jacobson is a Lawrence resident and high school parent that has noticed the recent changes.
“I worry about sending my daughter to school,” said Jacobson. “I went to school during race riots and everything else back in the 1960’s and I think it was safer to go to school back then.”
These are the schools of North America today. Over the past three months, there have been five deadly school shootings in America and Canada, from Bailey, Colo., to Montreal. These once safe and educational places have been transformed into places with crisis response plans, metal detectors and security cameras. Parents now have to worry about sending their kids to school, a place once thought of as being safe.
Even more alarming is where these incidents are taking place. They aren’t happening in the major inner-city schools but rather occurring in small towns and communities that thought of themselves as safe and protected from such incidents. Bailey, Colo. and Essex, Vt. are not big cities with thousands of people living there. They are smaller towns and cities that did not expect such tragedies to occur in their homes.
Lawrence schools have not experienced any type of severe violence, but are they prepared for them? What are schools in this area doing to keep the safety of children and the concern of parents in tact? Sue Morgan, president of the Lawrence School board said it is a tough task to balance safety and a quality education. “We want to keep our students safe, that is our top priority, but we also want to keep a positive learning environment both at the same time.”
Schools in Lawrence have guidelines and preparations in the case of such an emergency. Schools do drills that simulate a possible crisis situation. In these drills the buildings are locked down, classrooms are bolted and students are told to get down on the ground. Staff members are required to receive crisis training, so in the case of such a situation, they are prepared and have an understanding of what to do. The school board and local schools have cooperated with Lawrence police and ask for their suggestions as to how they can keep students safe. In all of the Lawrence schools, there is a “locked door” policy, which funnels all guests and students entering the school through monitored doors of the school.
Morgan says they want less invasive means of security at Lawrence schools. Recently, surveillance cameras have been installed in Lawrence High School, Lawrence Free State and the junior high schools. The cameras serve as a way to view students during the school day and have the ability to zoom, rewind, replay and store video-footage. Morgan feels that adding other, more invasive securities such as metal detectors takes away from a positive learning environment. “We don’t want to add a negative factor for learning, and we feel items such as those take away from a positive learning environment. We have taken a pro-active yet moderated approach to school safety.”
Jacobson feels the same way about metal detectors and other invasive forms of security. He feels they slow down the school day for kids and are very tedious. He would rather the teachers and school administrators get to know students. “I think they should talk to the kids, and spend time looking at kids who could possibly do something.”
Lawrence schools are doing what they feel is necessary to keep the schools and everyone inside them safe. They have added security cameras, established locked door policies and employ security guards all in an effort to help protect students and faculty. They have taken the necessary precautions and have specific plans in place if such an event were to occur. But with all of the security devices and precautions in place, you never know what could happen.
It is an event that has given many parents and their children reason for concern. These events have taken place at similar schools across the country, so what is the chance of it occurring somewhere close to home? “It’s something I worry about almost everyday,” said Jacobson. “You just have to hope that it doesn’t happen and that if it does, the kids and the faculty are well-prepared.”