Workers, visitors get ID badges
If you're an adult walking the halls of Maynard schools, you'd better be wearing a badge.
Since the middle of last month, Maynard has embarked on a plan to tighten security at its three schools, Maynard High, Fowler Middle School, and Green Meadow elementary. In doing so, it is adopting security measures that until now have been implemented primarily by urban districts such as Boston and Cambridge.
All school employees -- from kindergarten teachers to custodians to principals -- will be required to have their photo IDs visible at all times.
The number of entrances to each school has been narrowed to one. Once inside, guests must sign in at a desk placed directly across from the door. Even the most doting room mothers must wear a visitor pass.
High school students recently experienced their first "lockdown" drill, where they responded as if a gun-wielding intruder had just entered the building. A similar drill may be held with middle school pupils, but school and safety officials have decided that if there is a drill at Green Meadow it would be after the grade schoolers have gone home.
"The kids are too young," Jack Dillon, the high school assistant principal who spearheaded the safety project, said of the kindergartners through third-graders.
The three buildings, all of which are within walking distance of one another at the junction of routes 27 and 117, have been inspected for security breaches, such as broken locks on interior doors. Every room, as well as every cruiser belonging to the Police Department, is furnished with a color-coded copy of the Maynard Public Schools Emergency Reference Guide -- written and assembled entirely by volunteers.
"We've been working for the last five years to get a program working for all three schools," said Police Chief James F. Corcoran. "There's a lot to be concerned about. With violence in today's world, all it takes is one time."
However, Herb Symes, a middle school gym teacher and president of the Maynard Teachers Association, questions if badges improve safety.
"If someone is hellbent on coming in and raising a ruckus, I don't think they're going to be stopped by a badge. I don't know if this is just a false sense of security just because everybody's walking around with a badge," said Symes, a 38-year school employee. "Anybody can walk in and bypass the office. It's not too hard."
Symes said he has not fielded any complaints from union members about the badges, although there is no contract language mandating their use. Negotiations begin in the fall for a new contract.
"If they truly want security," he said, "they wouldn't have their front doors open."
Save a few isolated incidents about three years ago -- a false bomb threat and a student possessing a firearm -- the Maynard schools have remained safe, said Dillon and Corcoran.
"Our main goal is to just basically stay on top of things," said Dillon.
"When I came to this district, I said this is something we have to put some time into," said Mark Masterson, who became superintendent of schools in August 2002. "There have been no incidents. This is simply something that we would have ignored at one point in time."
That time would have been before April 20, 1999, when two students at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., opened fire on their classmates. In the end, 12 students and one teacher were killed and 23 others were injured.
"For most experienced educators, that was a turning point," said Masterson. "Columbine was to schools what 9/11 was to the general public."
In September, using only available resources, Dillon and colleagues Jeff Mela and Barbara Bergner, vice principals at Fowler Middle School and Green Meadow, respectively, launched the safety campaign. They attended Project Alliance seminars on school safety conducted by Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley's office, and they viewed the Maynard Police Department's video library of simulated examples of school violence.
They tapped Police Sergeant Clifford Wilson, the school safety officer, for information, and they culled ideas from other school systems, said Dillon. "And none of this was done during the school day."
They discovered, for example, that age-old practices such as conducting study hall in the cafeteria are now considered dangerous. "We learned at the last conference never to leave a lot of kids in one area," Dillon said, because gunmen thrive on such an arrangement. Study halls in Maynard are now broken into small groups and held in supervised classrooms.
Linda Koskinen of the high school support staff and computer applications teacher Jim Adams typed, edited, and laid out the 10-page emergency guide. "They did it in one week at zero cost," said Dillon.
Corcoran used grant money to purchase laminated photo identification badges and "Maynard Tiger" lanyards. The badges include abbreviated emergency reference guides.
"The issue is security," said Masterson. "Maynard is a small town and everybody knows everybody, but the people on the police and fire department don't all know who's who on the [school] staff."
Masterson said he expects to take the safety measures another step. This summer he will walk through the three buildings with police and fire officials to note gaps in the security system. "Then, we'll look for money to invest in security," he said. "We have to be as proactive as possible."
