Parents OK with armed guards

Response has been positive to new security protocol

BURLINGTON — Students in the Region 10 School District are finishing up their first semester under the watchful eye of armed school security guards.

In the three months since the new security protocol began, the response from parents and the community has been positive, said Superintendent of Schools Alan Beitman.

“People come up to me all the time and tell me how pleased they are,” he said. “The students don’t even notice the weapons. When people come in the first time, they eye the weapon.”

But that’s the only change Beitman said he has noticed.

The regional district includes two elementary schools, one middle and one high school in Burlington and Harwinton. The district has seven armed security guards, all of whom are retired police officers or state troopers, as is required by state law. The guards are at all four schools.

An accreditation review in November of the school district by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges included questions about school safety, Beitman said.

“They ask all the schools if their personnel feel safe,” he said.

“They meet confidentially with teachers and staff and they said to me ‘how unusual it was to not hear concerns about safety.’ ”

Troop L Resident Trooper Sgt. Dominic Deltorto, who consulted with the school district during the planning of the program, said Wednesday that there have been no incidents since the school guards began carrying guns.

“There has been very positive feedback,” he added.

The impetus for allowing the security guards to carry guns came from Board of Education Chairman Tom Fauesel. He couldn’t be reached for a comment for this story, but in an earlier interview, Fausel said he was concerned that state troopers, who would respond to an emergency in the district, patrol such a large area of the region and might not get to the school very quickly in case of an emergency.

School administrators and other board members were concerned as well, Beitman said, given the rural location of the district. They felt that the amount of time required to respond to an emergency could be affected if they are miles away, for instance, patrolling Route 10, he noted.

The board drafted a policy on the new protocol in September, Beitman said, and since then he’s heard from a number of schools across the state who have asked him to provide background on the process.

Information on whether other schools in the state have begun using armed school guards this year was not available from the state Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection.

The act of arming school guards, however, is a concern of the group CT Against Gun Violence, based in Ridgefield.

Jeremy Stein, executive director of the coalition, said at the time of the new policy being enacted that adding guns doesn’t make a school safer.

“Study after study has shown that guns don’t decrease violence,” he said.

Leslie Hutchison / Hearst Connecticut Media Lewis S. Mills High School in Burlington is one of four schools in the district to have armed school security guards in their buildings.

By Leslie Hutchison / Hearst Connecticut Media The school year began in the Region 10 School District with school security guards carrying guns for the first time at its four schools.