School lockdown actions draw ire
Parents, students critical of communication issues during threat events, address board
Nevin White told the Mt. Pleasant school board that it was difficult to access bathrooms during an incident last week and that his teacher handed him a rope and said he might need to engage in tug-of-war if someone tried to get into the classroom.
Immediately after he was done speaking, his teacher told the board that he brought the rope to school, apologized to White for putting him in that situation and said to the board, “Give me the tools” to keep his students safe.
The teacher, Eric Beckman, said he wanted barriers to prevent people from entering classrooms after the school has gone into one of its two enhanced security modes if a threat of violence is made against the school.
He and White, a junior, addressed the board in the wake of three threats made at the high school over the last 10 days, one of which involved moving the school to the lowest level of its two enhanced security levels.
The biggest complaint made about the district’s responses to the threats, and one made sandwiched in at Mt. Pleasant Middle School, was communication. There wasn’t enough of it flowing from administrators to parents and students.
Parents who addressed the board said they didn’t receive information during part of the week, and what they received wasn’t timely.
District officials acknowledged issues with communication before public comment during security presentations by administrators of the middle and high schools.
The security situation posed a challenge, Darby Weaver, middle school principal, said. A written threat was found in a bathroom at the middle school on Dec. 8.
Students can immediately message parents, she said, but the school has to take a more judicious approach. Release too much information too early, and parents arriving at the school to pick up children could inadvertently create an additional security situation.
Despite criticisms concerning the flow of information from school officials to parents, Weaver categorized the response by the
During a full lockdown, students and staff are barricading rooms and hiding.
middle school as 9 on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest.
The school was placed in secure mode, the lowest of the two enhanced security levels used by the district, until administrators and police determined that the threat wasn’t credible.
John Winkler, high school principal, told board members that the response at the high school improved across the three incidents, going from 3 on Dec. 3 when a written threat was found on a bathroom stall to a 6 on Dec. 7 to a 9 last Thursday.
The first two incidents resulted in the early dismissal of students, the high school was placed in secure mode for the third.
Secure mode is a higher level of security than is normally observed, but lower than a full lockdown. It’s used when the school has received a threat but that hasn’t been determined as imminent.
Winkler said that one thing district officials learned over the course of the three incidents is that the school can go into secure mode before police arrive at the school.
Local law enforcement told school officials that their officers can be at the school within three minutes of a call, district officials said Monday night.
He also told board members that managing a building with so many bathrooms posed a challenge. Two students who addressed the board later said that the way the school managed them last week created barriers to accessing bathrooms for students who needed to use them while held in their rooms due to the school being in secure status.
Exterior doors and windows are locked during secure mode but some activities are allowed to continue.
During a full lockdown, students and staff are barricading rooms and hiding.
They are also preparing to defend themselves by hurling things at intruders. Moving to lockdown would come at the advice of law enforcement, although Superintendent Jennifer Verleger said the responsibility remains with school officials.
There is currently one police officer assigned to the Mt. Pleasant Police Department’s Youth Services Unit, which functions as a police liaison to local schools.
Verleger said they have opened talks with Paul Lauria, director of the city’s public safety department, about adding a second. The district could help finance a second officer through COVID relief dollars.