Schools’ security concerns discussed

PINE PLAINS — Following a security audit of the Stissing Mountain Middle/High School from state and county law enforcement, the Pine Plains Central School District continues to look into the security of its joint middle and high school building.The audit was completed after the events of Nov. 10, 2008, when a district parent brought a shotgun into the building and holed up in a room with Middle School Principal Robert Hess for several hours, before surrendering peacefully.If Stissing Mountain had one significant security concern, New York State Police Captain Scott Brown said during his audit presentation at the March 2 Board of Education (BOE) meeting, it was the lack of supervision at the front desk in the early morning, before the hallway monitor started working, and again later in the day, after the monitor left for the evening. Between the time the school is opened by maintenance staff early in the morning and closed late at night, Brown said, there is little supervision regarding who enters the building.At the March 16 school board meeting, Hess and High School Principal Tara Horst gave short presentations about security issues.Horst and Hess acknowledged the lack of supervision during those specific hours when a monitor was not on duty and said it was simply because there were not enough bodies to cover the school the entire time.Members of the board wondered how difficult it would be to simply keep the doors locked when there wasn’t a hallway monitor in place. An instance was brought up when students who may have forgotten homework do return to the school in the evening to get to their lockers and need to get inside. The possibility of having some sort of notification system for janitors where they could go and let a student in instead of keeping the entrance unlocked was discussed.“The issue is one we’ve been discussing,” Superintendent Linda Kaumeyer explained. “How late do you keep the building open?”Kaumeyer said there was no “perfect solution” to the issue because there weren’t enough funds to keep a greeter present all of the time the building was unlocked.“As we go forward,” she said, “the board can instruct us as to what kind of building access you’re most comfortable with, especially after 5 p.m.”“If there’s nothing going on after 5 p.m. [because sometimes sports and extracurricular activities are held into the evening] and the last bus has left, I think the doors should be locked,” BOE President Bruce Kimball said.Board Trustee Todd Bowen said he had been with his daughter one night, who had forgotten a book at school, and that there was no one in the hallways. At the time the janitors were still in the building, but they were busy cleaning in the classrooms.The board’s “wish list” solution would be to have the greeters’ hours extended to 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. (they are currently 7:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.).Installing surveillance cameras was also discussed, and Horst said that in the previous district she worked at cameras were used for a variety of reasons, including reviewing incidents involving students during the day.The board also touched upon possibly switching to a lock system where identification swipe cards would open doors and also leave a digital record as to who had entered the building and when. Kimball said it was something he felt the school should look into for all three buildings in the district.Kaumeyer said the district would look into the possibilities of the board’s suggestions, but again pointed out that the district was operating with a limited budget.