kind of scared for my kid to go to school

[autumngems]

http://www.witn.com/home/headlines/Carteret-County-deputies-seek-help-identifying-suspicious-individuals-at-schools-360174791.html

We live in this county.

 

[purplesparklies]

Are there stills school where people can just walk-in? I live in small town Midwest America and every school I have been to has doors locked all the time. Everyone has to be buzzed in and the office is right inside the door. Can't imagine being able to just waltz in and wander freely.

 

[packrat]

Can walk in and out of my preschool building thru any of our five unlocked doors at any time you like. We share a building w/a daycare and have no way to lock their doors. One of our doors goes directly into a classroom.

The elementary building got a buzzer system last year finally. You have to walk up the hall 50ft to get to the office--or you can turn left and enter a classroom w/in 5 ft of the door, and then continue on down that hall and to the right and be into the building and no one would be the wiser.

Our building can be locked from the high school by some sort of machine that the head custodian has control of. Except for the times it doesn't work--like pretty much every night when my husband is on duty and he stops to pull doors, like he does on every night he works, at every building in town--and they pop right open.

Costs a lot of money to update old buildings to get these systems--no money in the budget and it's doubtful raising taxes to pay for these things will go over well.

Small town, Midwest.

 

[Rockinruby]

Are there stills school where people can just walk-in? I live in small town Midwest America and every school I have been to has doors locked all the time. Everyone has to be buzzed in and the office is right inside the door. Can't imagine being able to just waltz in and wander freely.

I coordinate a reading program at several local schools. There is only one middle school that has locked doors at the entry. Every other school that I volunteer at is fairly easy to access if someone decided to come in. I'm sure they must have protocols, but one of the schools I visit still hasn't gotten around to doing background checks on the volunteers.

 

[momhappy]

Yikes!
That's the one big thing I worry most about - the safety of my children....

 

[momhappy]

Looks like they updated the story:
http://wnct.com/2015/12/02/suspicious-men-reported-entering-2-carteret-co-schools/

 

[Laila619]

I can't believe that there are still schools with unlocked doors nowadays. That's scary. My son goes to a preschool in a small podunk town and that was one of the first things I inquired about when I was touring the school, are the doors locked? Unfortunately it's a scary world out there these days. So many things to worry about as a mom.

 

[tuffyluvr]

Not sure if you saw that the story was updated recently and the people in question were located and it has been determined that they were from the Army Civil Affairs Division out of Ft Bragg and they were there collecting info on crisis evacuation centers.

 

[momhappy]

I posted a link to the updated story above.

 

[tuffyluvr]

Oh sorry, careless mistake

 

[momhappy]

^No worries! I just didn't want OP to miss the updated link

 

[purplesparklies]

It is shocking to me that schools continue to operate with open doors. My child would not attend such a school. As those schools become fewer, they become much more enticing for those looking for an easy target. Do the teachers and administrators of those schools lock the doors on their homes in order to protect the people and things inside? I'm betting so.

 

[random_thought]

I went to bring C's registration for kindergarten in this morning and was so relieved so see the school locks. The outside classroom doors can only be opened from the inside and the teachers have to pass through the main entrance with their badges to get to their classrooms first.

 

[packrat]

We do lock our doors at home. But we paid for the locks on those doors ourselves. We're not operating on government funding, or needing to raise taxes in our community to pay for upgrades to buildings that were built 70 years ago or build new buildings. There's only so much we can do for our schools ourselves. And in a small community w/mostly welfare and blue collar folks-that money isn't sitting around under mattresses to be given to our district.

We don't enjoy the knowledge that we are sitting ducks here. Trust me. We have intruder training next Wednesday for professional development and we go thru a scenario w/him in the school. Just the thought of it makes me want to vomit-and I know it's coming, it's expected, it's not real--and I live w/a cop.

 

[purplesparklies]

I do understand the challenge of securing old buildings. My sons have attended local Catholic schools which are very, very old and seriously underfunded. The systems have not been fancy but all doors are kept locked. Only one door can be opened for access during school hours. The previous school my boys attended simply had a doorbell installed and the secretary had to physically walk over and open the door every single time. A real pain for her but necessary. I'm surprised that the state has not required a change for your school. I taught at the school with only the doorbell and I remember being there for a visit by someone from our state and we had to do a walk through and show the doors/locks and discuss lockdown procedures. He required further steps to meet state safety requirements. Again, this was a very small school. Preschool through 6th at that time and enrollment was less than 100 total and has dropped since then because of issues with the economy in my area. Still necessary to have basic safety measures in place. State requires it for licensing.

 

[packrat]

We don't have a secretary, and we're in the classrooms w/the kids. If we leave, we're out of ratio. Technically we're not even allowed to go to the bathroom throughout the day except at our lunch break. But we have to b/c bladders and periods don't care about laws. And, our school building is shared by a daycare, so someone would have to open a door every time a child was picked up/dropped off, so we'd have to have a full time person just to man the door(s).

One of our lead teachers was put on the emergency management team and they had their first meeting yesterday. They discussed procedures for lockdown/lockout and she said there was a lot of silence and staring at her when she would tell what it's like in our building. They're talking about moving us up the elementary building next year, which would mean the doors would be locked and there is a buzzer you ring and the secretary has to let you in. The middle school and high school are unlocked. We have about 1000 students total.

 

[autumngems]

Luckily it turned out to be legitimate however it did outline the problem of security at the schools.