School officials address safety after rifle incident
Rose JACKSON TWP. — Wernecke has been driving her children to school every day since a Jackson Memorial Middle School seventh-grader carried a rifle onto a school bus undetected.
“I’m terrified to put them on the bus,” Wernecke told school officials Tuesday. “This kid did ride the bus with a weapon.”
She joined roughly 200 other parents, students, teachers and school staff Tuesday at the middle school for the Jackson school board’s monthly meeting to find out more about what district officials are doing to address safety at each school building.
Police say 13-year-old Keith Simons shot himself with a .22-caliber rifle in a middle school boys bathroom Feb. 20. Authorities continue to investigate whether the shooting was accidental or intentional.
Superintendent Chris DiLoreto told Wernecke the district is installing a new camera system on each of its 82 school buses. The school board approved the $202,169 purchase Tuesday night.
Beyond that, DiLoreto declined to provide many specific security protocols to the audience, stating that he doesn’t know the intentions of every person in the room or what they might do with the sensitive information. But he did try to reassure the visitors by holding up the district’s voluminous security plan, which he said has been vetted by the district’s safety committee and its security advisory council, which is comprised of school officials as well as parents with extensive security experience through their private jobs.
DiLoreto said the committees will continue to review all safety procedures and equipment and consider any new security initiatives, such as door barricades and metal detectors. He added that the Stark County Sheriff is organizing a school security committee to consider possible safety steps that could be taken at schools county-wide.
DiLoreto also announced that he will hold two sessions where parents can speak with him directly in a more informal setting. The meetings will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. today and 10 a.m. to noon Saturday in the commons of Jackson High School.
‘Our kids need us more now than ever’
Before parents began to ask questions, DiLoreto gave a review of what steps he and other school officials took Feb. 20 after learning that Simons had shot himself in the bathroom.
DiLoreto said he was at his office when he received the call around 7:50 a.m.
“I jumped in my truck and immediately told (Assistant Superintendent) Barry Mason what we have and to grab our management plan and we run over here as hot as we can to get on site,” DiLoreto said.
Police arrived at the middle school at 7355 Mudbrook St. NW around the same time, he said. The law enforcement agencies included the Jackson Township Police Department, the Stark County Sheriff ’s Office, the FBI, Ohio Highway Patrol, Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.