School safety concerns cause a buzz
There was the dad in his black leather coat who darted out of his SUV, clutching a few dollar bills -- his kid's forgotten lunch money. There was the retiree who was delivering an envelope for his wife, who teaches in another building. And there was the mother with a tote bag slung over her shoulder, with a pizza box in one hand and a baby carrier in the other, who arrived just in time for lunch.
Yet when they got to the main entrance at North Andover Middle School, the doors were locked, even though classes were in full swing with more than 1,100 students inside. The school is among a growing number of public schools northwest of Boston that are locking the front doors to their buildings -- forcing visitors to ring a buzzer or bell to gain entry inside.
"Some people might think it's locking kids in, but as a parent, I wouldn't want it any other way. It keeps the riffraff out," said Joseph Krol, a father of two young girls in Methuen who was surprised that the front doors at North Andover Middle School were locked when he dropped by on business one recent Thursday morning.
School leaders and police say locking the front doors is only common sense, especially after many school districts have spent tens of thousands of dollars on surveillance cameras throughout their buildings and thousands of hours developing and revising security plans -- first because of a spate of school shootings in the 1990s and then due to the seemingly never-ending terrorism threats of this decade.
Burlington police Detective Thomas Fournier compares the practice to home security systems.
"You can have the best security system at home, but if you keep your front door unlocked, it's not that useful," he said.
North Andover, Reading, Stoneham, and Woburn have installed, or are in the process of installing, buzzer systems in nearly all their schools in the last few years. Andover voters this spring will consider spending $235,000 to expand buzzer systems from a few schools to more schools. And Tewksbury and Winchester are each testing buzzer systems in one of their schools. All these districts are following the lead of two other northwest suburbs, Dracut and Methuen, which started locking front doors in the late 1990s.
And more suburban districts could soon follow. The Burlington School Committee is debating a plan. North Reading school officials are talking about the idea informally. And Lexington's new Harrington School, which opens next month, will have a front-door buzzer. (The school, however, will keep the front doors open for now, following the policy in place for other schools in the district that don't have buzzers.)
School leaders and police say locking front doors is necessary these days to keep out sex offenders who want to prey on children, noncustodial parents who might want to kidnap their children, and criminals sneaking in to evade police during a chase. Last month, Bedford locked the front doors to all its schools for about an hour while police searched for a 30-year-old man after receiving a report from two girls about "suspicious activity" near the middle and high schools.
"It undoubtedly is an unfortunate sign of our times," said Claudia Bach, superintendent of Andover schools. "It would be nice not to worry."
When visitors arrive at one of the locked schools, they ring a buzzer near the entrance. Usually, a secretary, a parent volunteer, or a senior citizen talks with the visitor over an intercom to find out why they want to come in, all the while they are watching the person on a security monitor. In most cases, the person in the principal's office buzzes in the visitor. Then, they sign in at the office and pick up a visitor's badge.
But often visitors are being buzzed in without showing any identification.
Some school leaders and residents across the region wonder if the systems are for show -- falsely giving students, parents, and others a sense of security. In Lowell, a registered sex offender was buzzed into Moody Elementary School on the morning of Nov. 20, 2003. He skipped checking in at the principal's office, and was later found by the principal and a janitor in a bathroom stall with his coat laid out on the floor. He fled the building and was eventually arrested by police.
Those kinds of concerns, in part, prompted the Burlington School Committee to withdraw a request from a special Town Meeting warrant last month to spend $539,000 to install remote locks, buzzers, and surveillance cameras at its schools. The committee has asked administration officials to provide additional information before making a decision on whether it will place the request on this spring's annual Town Meeting warrant.
"I want to see a plan that makes sense," Thomas F. Murphy Jr., a School Committee member, said in a telephone interview earlier this month. "If there is truly a danger, let's put in a system that will weed people out."
But after living in Burlington for 48 years, Murphy said, he was unconvinced there is a need for those kind of high-security measures, although police in town disagree. To him, getting buzzed into an elementary school conjures up images of an armed fortress or a prison, and he worries the system might unnecessarily make parents feel like criminals, when all they are doing is dropping off a lunch bag or homework to their child.
Proponents of tighter security at public schools acknowledge that no system is foolproof, but say it is at least nice to know when someone is knocking at the door. They also note that new schools are being designed so the reception area of a principal's office has a clear view of the front doors. That way they can see right away if a visitor tries to dodge sign-in requirements.
"Some people might see it as an inconvenience," said Ken Rowe of North Andover, shortly after he was buzzed into North Andover Middle School one recent Thursday morning, while running an errand for his wife, who teaches in another building, "but it's part of the price you have to pay for security and safety."
