article on the growing fight r/t Ohio security choices

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M-Quigley
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Joined: Wed Jun 24, 2015 10:06 pm
Location: Western Ohio

article on the growing fight r/t Ohio security choices

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https://www.whio.com/news/local-educati ... PQtUCkEwN/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Offense or defense? The growing fight over fortifying school security

BUTLER, WARREN CO. — Everyone is of the same mind about importance of protecting local schools from deadly violence.

But for many in Butler County and beyond, the agreement ends there.

There’s a growing divide among schools, law enforcement officials, national school security experts and relatives of mass school shootings victims about where the focus on school security should be channeled.
“When the weapons are coming into schools, you need to basically stop that and the way to stop it is all the schools should have metal detectors. I understand why they don’t want to. Their philosophy is they think it makes the schools (appear) too hard,” said Jones of schools’ opposition to walk-through metal detectors.

School officials have also described such large, stationary metal detectors as impractical, expensive and giving local schools the unwanted appearance of prison-like facilities.

But a mother of a child gunned down in America’s most deadly K-12 school shooting disagrees.

“In terms of arming teachers, I’m not personally a fan of that,” said Nicole Hockley, whose 6-year-old boy was among the 28 students and staffers gunned down in 2012 by an intruder at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut.

Hockley recently spoke at Mason High School in southern Warren County telling students and school officials how important it is for schools to focus on identifying students at risk for committing deadly violence long before they lash out.
While I agree that prevention and physical security is important, in regards to the Sandy Hook shooting there is this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Hoo ... l_shooting" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
As of November 30, 2012, 456 children were enrolled in kindergarten through fourth grade at Sandy Hook Elementary School.[19] The school's security protocols had recently been upgraded, requiring visitors to be individually admitted after visual and identification review by video monitor. Doors to the school were locked at 9:30 a.m. each day, after morning arrivals.[20]
Shortly after 9:35 a.m., using his mother's Bushmaster XM15-E2S rifle and ten magazines with 30 rounds each,[5][6][7][8][9] Lanza shot his way through a glass panel next to the locked front entrance doors of the school.
Also, in the case of the school shooter recently in Richmond Indiana the intended school shooter was able to shoot his way through a locked door, but he was stopped by the police who were tipped off in advance. If Sandy Hook had almost any kind of armed response in place that day, the casualty count might've been greatly reduced and perhaps her boy might still be alive.
“They are one of the safest schools in this part of the country,” Jones said. “They really adapted well from that bad incident. An (armed) school resource officer isn’t enough. If they are not at the particular site of the shooting then you should have a plan B and a plan C.

“Plan B and plan C here is to have an armed personnel, just in case. You need to have back up plans and this is back up plan.”

Ohio Senator Bill Coley, R-Liberty Twp., supports that sort of backup plan with one overriding caveat: those school staffers with handguns must be properly trained.

“I like it when bad guys have to worry who might have a weapon,” Coley said.

But he said getting to more secure schools requires at least a two-fold strategy.

“It comes down to soft issues too,” he said. “When (school staffers or students) see something, say something. There has to be a way for when students know a fellow student is having a crisis in their life and they might be considering something as radical as bringing a firearm to school and you get that person some counseling help.

“Those kind of things are all part of creating a safe school.”

Jones, who has spent years arguing with area school officials, isn’t optimistic about convincing others to adopt Madison’s approach.

“It’s very hard to penetrate these school systems’ (attitudes),” he said, “because they (school officials) are the smartest people that ever lived and if you don’t believe that, all you need to do is ask them.”
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