SCHOOL DAZE
Security is watchword as kids return to class
As the school year started Monday, an Omni Middle School administrator blocked the Boca Raton school’s gated main entrance, warmly greeting familiar faces while stopping strangers in their tracks.
“I need to see your ID,” she said repeatedly to adults who approached the gate, even those with children in tow. Where administrators once checked identification inside the main office, behind the aluminum gate, they now scrutinize strangers at the entryway.
It was a similar story across Palm Beach County as parents, children and educators adjusted to a host of new security safeguards created after the mass school shooting in Parkland six months ago.
At many schools, new restrictions meant long lines, new rules and less freedom of movement on campus, while at other schools campus life carried on with few noticeable changes.
For the first time, every school was staffed by a uniformed police officer, the result of a new state law requiring that safe-school officers guard campuses statewide. High schools and middle schools already had police officers assigned to them, but regular police presence is a change for the district’s 106 elementary schools.
District officials said the first day of classes Monday went smoothly and without major disruptions. A handful of parents complained of delayed buses and issues with
their child’s registration, but the problems appeared to be isolated.
Overall, the school district said 83 percent of its 655 buses arrived at school before classes started. Late buses are common in the first week of classes as drivers and students become familiar with their routes.
Superintendent Donald Fennoy, who spent the day visiting several schools, said he was pleased with conditions and asked for parents’ patience as they adjust to the new realities of a post-Parkland world.
“There will be kinks along the road, and we are documenting those and addressing them as quickly as possible,” Fennoy said.
To better control who goes on and comes off campus, many schools restricted parents’ ability to walk the hallways. Some schools are also requiring car decals to pass through the pickup and dropoff loop.
At Pine Jog Elementary west of West Palm Beach, parents learned they could no longer walk their children to their first class this week unless the children were kindergartners.
The shift left a queue of parents and children stretching from the office door back to the curb facing the parking lot.
Frank Rodriguez, a regional superintendent, said that several elementaries had adopted similar plans to limit access on school grounds, and that most parents seem to be accepting of it.
“Everybody understands why we’re doing it,” he said. “It’s been good.”
At many schools, students’ movement has been restricted before the first bell rings.
At Omni, just 10 miles from the site of the mass school shooting in Feburary, the school clustered its 1,380plus students into the gymnasium, cafeteria and courtyard ahead of the first bell.
It was a chaotic sight — rooms packed tightly with hundreds of chattering preteens.
But it was controlled chaos, said new Principal Allison Castellano.
“Keeping them all in contained areas gives us better supervision,” Castellano said.
At North Grade Elementary in Lake Worth, the restrictions were fewer — all elementary parents, for instance, were allowed to walk their children to their first class on Monday.