Twelve days after a 19-year-old gunned down 14 of his former classmates and three faculty members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., members of the public took to the Hillsborough Township Board of Education meeting on Feb. 26 to discuss safety in the district’s nine buildings.
It may have been the first time since the Feb. 14 shooting that the school board met publicly, but it was not the first time that a school shooting dominated a board of education meeting in Hillsborough. At the start of the evening’s proceedings, school board President Judith Haas called for a moment of silence before reading the names of those killed in the Valentine’s Day shooting.
Though more attention has been placed on school safety in the days since the shooting, Superintendent Dr. Jorden Schiff said district officials are constantly considering how to ensure the safety of thousands of students each day.
Whenever a school shooting takes place, Schiff said the Hillsborough school district conducts an “after-action analysis” where recommendations for modifications to things like drilling procedures or the hardening of any other targets are made by officials.
“This is something that we take extraordinarily seriously each and every day,” Schiff said. “I’m very proud of the teachers, the staff members, our students, the parents, our law enforcement officials, our administrators, all of whom play a very important role in making sure that our kids are safe every day.”
According to the FBI, there have been 50 mass murders, or attempted mass murders, in schools around the country since the April 20, 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado. In those incidents, 141 people have been killed in the nearly 19 years since.
In the hours following the incident last month, Schiff said he began working with the Hillsborough Police Department and other school administrators in an effort to try to ease worries the next day.
“My first call on Valentine’s Day was to the chief of police, Darren Powell, and I also spoke that evening with three of our principals in the larger schools to talk about the following day and what that following day would be looking like,” Schiff said. “[We wanted] to provide additional police visibility and coverage in our schools during that day.”
Since then, Schiff said district officials have been looking at emergency plans and the school board received a report during its executive session on Monday to discuss security measures. He said the district was being purposeful in not publicly sharing those methods, since that same information could be used in an attack.
“We talk about that during executive session because we don’t publicize how we intend to keep kids safe every day,” he said. “There may be people out there that don’t have the best of intentions and we don’t want to give them any additional information or intelligence about how we keep our kids safe.”
Moving forward, the superintendent said the district will continue to take an “all of the above approach” to school safety, looking closely at how secure the buildings are, how active shooter drills are conducted and the surveillance systems currently in place.
Schiff also pointed out that the district is looking to address the mental health of its students.
“Whether it’s the safety and security of our school, but also how we address mental health issues and provide support, how we liaise with our township law enforcement officers, and we also look at the county level,” Schiff said.
Earlier this year, Haas said the board approved a measure that gave district officials and local law enforcement agencies the ability to have real-time access to the district’s surveillance systems during an emergency. That move, officials said at the time, would allow first responders to get an idea on what was going on inside and how best to respond.
Outside of the district’s own measures, a group called the Somerset County School Task Force, which Schiff has been a member of for the last three years, meets quarterly to discuss safety issues. He also pointed to work being done at the state Department of Education that would help districts plan how to best address the safety and security needs of students.
“We talk about it in terms of what threats may be out there, what we’re hearing through law enforcement channels and to open up the line of communications between the educators in the county, as well as law enforcement,” Schiff said.
While school board officials were mum about the potential safety issues that need to be addressed, students who attended the meeting spoke up about specific problem areas they witness on a daily basis.
One Hillsborough High School junior named Nicole said the Parkland shooting “changed [her] perspective completely,” stating that she now has a hard time seeing her home town and school district as a safe space.
“This event has affected me in an immense way and over the past week and a half…most of us [students] here can relate to it. We can put ourselves in the shoes of the victims and the survivors. We can imagine ourselves in that school, hiding and being completely afraid,” she said. “I realize that I should not have to think like this. I should not have to fear for my life in a place that’s supposed to make me feel safe, where I spend more than seven hours of my day.”
She, along with fellow student Jonathan Seaton, pointed to specific moments throughout the school day where holes in the high school’s security could make it easy for one or more people from the outside to gain access and create havoc.
Seaton suggested that the district take advantage of a piece of legislation signed into law back in 2016 that allows districts to hire armed, retired police officers under the age of 65 to serve as a Special Law Enforcement Officer Class III.
“The fact that we only have one [school resource officer] and he is stationed only in the high school could lead all the other schools [being] at risk of an active shooter,” he said. “That may be a budget issue, but my solution to that would be to take advantage of the Special Law Enforcement Class III legislation that was recently passed.”
Students at the meeting said the student body has already begun planning a walkout against gun violence in schools on March 14 and April 20, following a wave of activism by youths across the country.
Henry Goodhue, president of the Hillsborough Education Association, praised the students’ efforts to raise awareness on the issue.
“They live this. They’re seeing this every day and by all means will play a role in solving this issue and should absolutely have a voice in how this is addressed,” Goodhue said.
Board members agreed that the students’ active participation in the discussion was welcome, but affirmed that action must be taken in a calm and collected manner in order to ensure that whatever comes next works to keep everyone inside the district’s walls safe.
“We have to look at this through a deliberative process and try to understand the recommendations of school security professionals and educators and bring to the board the best advice on any changes that may be coming as we move forward,” Schiff said.