Area schools respond to Sandy Hook with security measures for the fall

In response to the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut more than six months ago, some schools in the area have ramped up security measures to protect students. 

 

In Bucks County, the board of the Council Rock School District has voted to install card-access systems for employees, as well as 143 surveillance cameras and six new security workers to be distributed among the district’s 16 schools.

Superintendent Mark Klein says that the plan reflects an overwhelming push for more secure school grounds, after months of holding forums with parents.

“We’re walking this very difficult line between keeping the schools schools and not prisons, so we had to modify some of the things that we were doing,” Klein said. “And yet at the same time, not run the risk that we were locking kids out of buildings and or keeping parents from coming into schools.”

Pass cards will not be necessary to enter through the student-only doors.

When Delaware County students return to any one of the district’s 230 schools this fall, chances are they will hear about something called a panic button.

Each school will be given a button and an intercom, to be put in a secure area. Once it’s pressed, police will be dispatched to the school immediately. 

Every school in the district will be given a button, but they are not required to use them.

In Harrisburg, the House Education Committee approved a bill to provide $10 million in grants for trained police officers in schools last week, but it still has to go to the floor for a full vote.