School Security: “Locking Down” the Details

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Confusion, excitement and fear swept throughout Wesleyan campus during the late morning hours of Aug. 18.

Students and teachers were notified of the second Dollar General thievery, causing the school to go into lockdown mode. Thanks to many years of practice, the process went smoothly with very few errors. Throughout the many hours of anticipation to hear the real account of what happened along Spalding Drive that morning, rumors had developed, each unique to its storyteller.

It is safe to say that the real story is probably still out there jumbled amongst the faulty ones, but the real matter in this situation is the safety precautions that were taken to avoid much larger problems. A big thank you goes out to the campus officers for handling the situation with ease and keeping all on campus safe.

Many members of Wesleyan’s staff note that they remember having fire drills when they were in high school, but do not recall lockdown drills ever being a practice. French teacher Suzanne Ragains suggests that perhaps this is a result of graduating high school before the Columbine High School Shooting, as school security was tightened after this incident. Science teacher Megan Trotter said that her school “had numerous lockdown experiences,” but never actually had any practice runs.

Contrarily, Joseph Koch and Chris Paroli remember experiences similar to those of a Wesleyan student, as they also found themselves practicing for an unexpected intruder’s entrance.

Even though these drills may seem like a waste of time or ineffective, they are just the opposite. The fluidity and attention that come into play during lockdowns surely would not be possible without some form of drills.

Perhaps one of the most wonderful qualities of Wesleyan is the emphasis that it puts on safety. The multiple police officers found around campus take their jobs very seriously and are sure to make those on campus their main priority when on the job. These hard-workers are often taken for granted, given that their presence has not always been a common practice. Some teachers, like Deborah Brown, Dennis Stromie, and Suzanne Ragains, did not have any policemen on their campus in high school, while Annette Smith and Ted Russell had a resource officer that patrolled the hallways. However, a few schools, like the one that Paroli attended, had “fulltime security guards who would monitor 24 hours a day.” With the added sense of security that the officers provide, students, teachers and guests are able to feel protected, rather than paranoid when intruders like the Dollar General thief are present.

The general air of security in schools has, without a doubt, evolved over the years. Wesleyan is privileged with key card security systems and freedom to roam around campus without having to worry about perpetrators entering, which was implemented after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012. Some may consider the key card system to be tedious and annoying, but Koch notes that “the advancements we use today… are just common sense approaches to deal with threat levels that exist now.” Crime itself has changed, so it only makes sense to change security methods to change with as well.

As a result of the safety measures taken at Wesleyan, Trotter said that she feels “safer working at Wesleyan than [she] ever felt while attending [her] public high school.”

Sophomore Quinn Kaloper exemplifies impeccable technique when putting up the black poster in order to prevent the intruder from seeing the students inside the classroom.
Sophomore Quinn Kaloper exemplifies impeccable technique when putting up the black poster in order to prevent the intruder from seeing the students inside the classroom.
Sophomores Caroline Hayes and Quinn Kaloper practice their lockdown proceud
Sophomores Caroline Hayes and Quinn Kaloper practice their lockdown procedure.

 

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