Parents seek action on safety measures

Two months after a fatal stabbing at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School, some parents are voicing concerns that school officials have been slow to make changes to improve safety.

"We're extremely frustrated that they just haven't done anything," said Rick Johnson, whose son attends the school. "They haven't taken any steps that we feel should be taken to ensure the safety of our kids."

Parents said they became concerned after a Boston Globe report early this month that John Odgren, the student charged in the Jan. 19 stabbing, had brought a fake gun and a pocketknife to school last fall on two occasions and had never been disciplined. Odgren gave them to a school psychologist who later returned them, Sudbury's police chief has said.

The standing of John M. Ritchie, the regional district's superintendent and principal of the high school, has since "dropped a couple notches," even in the eyes of his fans, said Robert Stein, a candidate for the Sudbury Board of Selectmen.

But Ritchie emphasized in an interview Wednesday that he was "absolutely not" informed that Odgren had brought the items to school.

At a school board meeting on Tuesday, parents asked both Ritchie and members of the Lincoln-Sudbury Regional District School Committee for answers to questions they had raised in a letter about school security.

The letter, signed by eight parents, said "recent disclosures have revealed a significant gap between your stated policies and the reality of how those policies are enforced.

"With great anxiety and discomfort, we continue to send our children to a school where the administrators have arguably done little... to further advance the safety and security" of the school community, the letter said. It went on to urge quick implementation of new safety measures.

The letter asked why security doesn't begin when the school doors open at 6:30 a.m., why unlocked doors are not monitored all day, and why the cafeteria isn't supervised from the moment school opens.

Johnson, one of the parents who signed the letter, attended the meeting. He said he's found Ritchie and the board unresponsive.

"We just want to find the holes and plug them to prevent something like this, or any other safety issue, from happening," Johnson said.

Alan Crosby, who has two sons attending the school, said, "We're not getting answers to some very basic questions. Will we have police presence for the remainder of the year? All we want to know is yes or no."

Mark Collins, chairman of the school board, said he wasn't able to respond in "complete detail" and that a newly formed committee, which will be studying school safety policies and procedures in the wake of the student's death, might be more suited to provide answers.

Ritchie told parents the stabbing wasn't a result of doors not being monitored, aides not being present or police officers not being posted at the school.

He said implementing those changes might be the "wise course," but they "would not have prevented what happened Jan. 19." He wondered whether it might be better to spend money on counseling rather than monitoring doors.

"Our problem has not been lack of supervision," he said, noting that in more than 50 years, the school has not had a problem with unmonitored doors and intruders.

Ritchie said a few changes have been made. Police are in the school most of the day to provide a sense of security, administrators are more visible in the afternoon, the school's emergency response plan has been refined, and an e-mail system has been set up that will enable the school to immediately notify parents if there is a problem. He said he plans as soon as this week to have students discuss in class what to do if they notice a problem in school.

He said it's not yet clear what other changes should be made. "It's a really important decision that needs to be weighed carefully," he said.

The tragedy has put unexpected political pressure on Ritchie, 57, who is paid $176,000 a year, including fringe benefits. He has been superintendent for 10 years and has enjoyed generally strong support in the community.

Eric Harris, a member of the School Committee from Lincoln, said the district's hands were tied until Odgren's March 6 arraignment because the district attorney's office had asked the school not to investigate until the DA's office concluded its work.

He acknowledged that the School Committee has not been responding sufficiently to community concerns, but said that after the study group makes some progress, parents will get a better idea of what changes will be made.

"I think we're doing the best we can," Harris said.

Eileen Glovsky, a School Committee member from Sudbury, said the board felt strongly that a deeper look at school security was needed.

"Just putting in safety measures to make it look like the school is safer is not what our goal is," she said. "Our goal is to assess what the level of safety is and make appropriate changes as necessary."

She defended Ritchie, saying she thinks he's done "an excellent job" responding to the tragedy.

"It's easy to criticize from the outside," she said, adding that running Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High is like running a small town. "The School Committee feels he has done a great job multitasking."

James Alenson, 15, died after he was attacked in a school bathroom at the start of classes on Jan. 19. Prosecutors have charged Odgren with first-degree murder.

The study committee will hold its first meeting Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. in Conference Room B at the high school.