& Albany County Post - The Altamont Enterprise

The Altamont Enterprise – Thursday, December 20, 2012 11
GCD super says
Safety has always been our first job
By Melissa Hale-Spencer
GUILDERLAND — In the
wake of last Friday’s Sandy Hook
Elementary shootings, school
leaders here met Monday morning
with first responders from
local fire, police, and emergency
services to be sure Guilderland
has a good plan in place to deter
violence and deal with an
emergency.
“I always say our first job is
not teaching and learning; it’s
safety,” Superintendent Marie
Wiles told The Enterprise on
Tuesday. “We think about this
all the time.”
Wiles posted a statement on
the district’s website Monday
listing what Guilderland does to
ensure student safety.
When hired, employees are fingerprinted
and go through background
checks; they wear identification
badges in the schools.
The main entrances of all schools
have video cameras. Visitors at
all schools are required to sign
in and wear nametags.
“At the middle school and high
school,” Wiles said, “we have one
or two individuals stationed at a
visible desk to greet visitors and
have them sign in.”
At the five elementary schools,
visitors ring a doorbell at the
main entrance, are observed by
closed-circuit camera from the
school office, and buzzed in by
secretaries. The buzzer systems
were installed three years ago,
Wiles said.
“Buzzers are more reliable,”
she said, “because the doors are
actually locked.”
She went on, “At some schools
this week, we have staff greeting
people. That’s not budgeted; its
because of a heightened sense of
worry and concern.”
Evaluating the need for paid
monitors, formerly stationed at
the elementary schools, “will be
a topic in the budget process,”
Wiles said.
Students at Guilderland, as
required by law, participate in
a dozen fire drills a year. They
also go through a lockdown drill
at least once a year.
School leaders work regularly
with the local police and fire departments,
and Building Crisis
Teams also meet regularly.
A Guilderland Police officer
is stationed in the high school
and visits others schools in the
district as needed.
The Sandy Hook Elementary
School had similar safety measures
in place. Wiles cited a
commentator who said that what
happened at Sandy Hook was not
because of a failed safety system.
The gunman shot his way
through the glass in the locked
front entrance, police say; he
then shot the principal and other
adults who rushed to prevent his
rampage.
Security history at GCSD
Wiles said this week that the
district had received dozens of
phone calls and e-mails since
the Connecticut school shooting,
predominantly at the elementary
level.
“Pine Bush received the most,”
she said.
In 1997, an intruder entered
Pine Bush Elementary. No harm
was done. But it “sent a message
that that can happen anywhere,”
said Nancy Andress at the time.
Andress, who has since retired,
headed the district’s Safe and
Drug-Free Schools Committee.
At that time, individual school
cabinets made plans for security
at each school. “Each building
needed to look at its culture and
develop recommendations,” said
Andress. “Our committee never
said, ‘Lock all doors.’
“Most have elected to leave one
door open, and to lock the side
and rear doors,” Andress said at
the time. “While instituting a
process where there are visitor
badges…none have opted to do
video surveillance.”
In April of 1999, in the wake of
the school killings at Columbine,
many districts rushed to beef up
security, installing metal detectors
and surveillance cameras
and hiring armed officers.
Blaise Salerno, who was superintendent
at the time, spoke
to Guilderland High School students
and the school board of the
need for “the development of a
caring community, one in which
we look after each other.”
Salerno encouraged students
to help those who were troubled,
and, if it seemed too much to
handle, to seek help from a
teacher or administrator. He said
he realized this was considered
“ratting” and went against school
culture.
He assured students that “the
position of the district was not
to be punitive...but to supply
appropriate help and support
for anyone.”
Alluding to the fact that the
two boys who caused the Columbine
slaughter considered themselves
outcasts, Salerno said it
was the right of every individual
to demonstrate difference and to
be accepted.
“It is the differences between
us that challenge us to be better
than we are,” he said. Salerno
concluded of schools, “Not only
are they places of learning, but
they are sanctuaries.”
The board members supported
the superintendent’s stance at
that April 1999 meeting.
That May, two Guilderland
Police officers were stationed in
the schools — one in the middle
school and one at the high school.
Their role, the superintendent
said at the time, was to serve
as educators, not just as enforcers.
Several school board members
pointed out that Columbine had
an armed deputy sheriff on hand
at the time the killings took
place. Several others raised questions
about the officers’ carrying
guns and it was ultimately decided
they would wear dresseddown
uniforms, with their guns
concealed in waist packs.
In 2005, a subcommittee of
the Safe and Drug-Free Schools
Committee came up with a
proposal for locking the schools
and putting a monitor in front to
admit visitors.
The school board, in 2005,
was deeply divided on whether
to institute a locked-door policy
at Guilderland’s five elementary
schools. Parents backing the plan
urged the board to “listen to the
experts” even stating that “any
rational person must agree.”
Parents who opposed the plan
questioned the reasons for the
committee’s fear and the “paranoia”
expressed in the report.
Ultimately, in a split vote, the
board decided to put monitors at
the schools’ front doors and then
re-evaluate before proceeding
with locking doors.
Budget cutbacks led to the
current system where, at the
elementary school, locked doors
“Schools are the heart and soul of a community.
To close them off would be a sad thing.
What happened Friday is beyond sad.”
are opened by a buzzer system,
operated from the school office.
At the high school and middle
school, visitors check in with
monitors at a desk stationed near
the main entrance.
Also for budget reasons, the
school resource officer posts were
cut from two — one in the middle
school and another in the high
school — to one.
Counseling
With the barrage from the
media on the shootings, Wiles
expected there would be more
call for counseling than have
materialized.
“You can’t turn the radio on,
the TV on, or look at a newspaper
without seeing the images
and words, and social media
amplifies that,” she said. “Our
counselors, social workers, and
school psychologists were at the
ready.”
However, the greatest concern,
she said, has come from
parents.
“I totally, totally get that,” said
Wiles, who has a son in elementary
school. “A lot of parents tried
to shield their young children. I
know I did.”
Wiles went on, “We let the parents
take the lead on whether or
not to address the issue.”
The district website posts
three links with advice on talking
to children about difficult news
— from the Public Broadcasting
System, from the New York University
Child Study Center, and
from the National Association of
School Psychologists.
“We only addressed it when
students brought it up,” said
Wiles. “We haven’t had much
of that.”
Wiles’s goal:
Happy grads
Wiles concluded, “Every day,
all the time, we need to keep
our children safe. The difficulty
is striking a balance between
having your building safe and
secure, and having it open and
part of the community.”
Wiles went this fall with other
Guilderland leaders to visit a
sister school in China.
“In China,” she said, “every
school had a gate, an armed
guard, and a gatehouse.”
One school, she said, could
only be accessed if street barriers
were removed.
“I certainly hope that is not
the direction we go,” she said.
“Schools are the heart and soul
of a community. To close them
off would be a sad thing. What
happened Friday,” she said of the
Connecticut school shooting, “is
beyond sad.”
Asked about preventative
measures, Wiles said, “Obviously
trying to be aware and tuned
into students and adults who
need help and are upset. Building
a culture where people look
out for one another and care for
one another — that’s what keeps
us safe — not excluding anyone
from that list.”
Wiles concluded, “We have to
ask ourselves, how do we draw
people in, engage someone, have
happy graduates? If you are not
at ease with who you are, you’re
going to have a bumpy road.”
BKW super says
Plans will be reviewed
By Marcello Iaia
HILLTOWNS —A half-dozen
parents questioned the Berne-
Knox-Westerlo School Board on
Monday about school security;
one recommended setting up a
patrol of volunteers.
The school shooting in Newtown,
Conn. Friday fueled the
discussion about how the district
could be more secure.
“It was a little dinky town
that you never heard of and,
like I said, I’d never heard of
Berne before I moved here,”
said one district parent.
A buzzer system, where secured
doors are unlocked with
a button, and an intercom is
used to communicate, was
high on Superintendent Paul
Dorward’s list of preferred security
measures. He included
magnetic doors, which could
be used to easily identify any
vulnerable access points to the
school buildings.
“Anybody at anytime can
walk into our school...and walk
up and down the halls, and
they’re not even questioned,”
said district parent Patricia
Lee.
Dorward said the District
Safety Plan and building plans
would be reviewed when Albany
County Sheriff Craig Apple
visits Thursday morning. The
two documents have portions
that are not public, Dorward
said, because releasing them
could “compromise our ability
to deal with an emergency.”
Sheriff Apple told The Enterprise
he would primarily
communicate that his office is
an available resource in the
district’s security.
“We’re going to go through
and do any tweaking that
should be done and if there’s
any updating that we didn’t
know about,” said Apple.
Some districts will not need
updating, said Apple, but the
sheriff’s office checks with area
businesses and public buildings
annually to have an accurate
understanding of their security
systems.
The handful of parents at
Monday’s school board meeting
wanted more immediate
reform, like placing more
adults at entrances to supervise
parking-lot crossings and
halls.
The current practice for visitors
to sign in with the main
office, state their purpose, and
be escorted by a host, is overshadowed
by the more common
circumstance of people who
know one another coming in
and out freely.
“Then there’s the sixth-graders
that come back and forth
through the parking lot that
nobody even monitors,” said
The original Since 1974
Lee. The district’s elementary
school is a short distance from
its secondary school, and sixthgraders
take classes in both.
Increasing supervision of
doors and students, Dorward
said, is not possible with staff
members that do not have
free time in their schedules.
Lee suggested parents pay for
background checks and volunteer
to create a presence in
the school.
“If you look, the tragedies
that have been happening
have happened by people who
are known in the schools,”
said board member Maureen
Sikule.
Tentative pricing last year
was around $8,000 for the
buzzer system and $22,000
for the magnetic locks, said
Dorward.
Board President Vasilios
Lefkaditis said he moved “Discuss
School Security” to just
under public discussion in the
agenda when he saw parents
were present for that topic.
“I asked for show of hands
of how many people came to
discuss security. Every hand
went up,” said Lefkaditis.
Board member Gerald Larghe,
who has helped design
military armories, said responses
to a shooter should
be considered in developing
security measures.
“This is going to get worse
over time in society, in my
opinion,” said Larghe, referring
to such shootings as took place
in Connecticut.
He suggested BKW staff
learn incident planning, including
free resources that teach
such simple things as where
to stand in a room and what
non-lethal methods there are
for stopping someone with a
gun.
“It’s something that has never been
thought about in this area, ever.”
Larghe noted that Newtown’s
Sandy Hook Elementary was
breached through its glass
windows. Bulletproof lamination
on school windows, he said,
would not be a large cost.
Lefkaditis said the recent
opening of the school halls for
walkers “could pose a security
risk.” The board gave approval
for walkers using the track
to come into the elementary
school when the weather is
too severe, Monday through
Friday, on days the building
is open. Walkers would leave
a half-hour before buses arrived
with students, around
7:30 a.m.
“It’s not that we’re crazy,”
said Karen White, a BKW
parent, referring to district
measures to deter a shooter.
“It’s something that has never
been thought about in this
area, ever.”
Mark Lawrence
Duanesburg, NY 12056
(518) 895-2059
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