Published in the February 22, 2018 edition
By MAUREEN DOHERTY
NORTH READING — In the wake of the latest school campus massacre – this time on Valentine’s Day at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida that left 17 students and faculty members dead and 15 injured – Superintendent of Schools Jon Bernard assured the community that the safety of North Reading students and faculty are paramount.
He pointed to the numerous protocols that have been in place in all of the town’s schools for a number of years and how the school district is constantly striving to improve those protocols and safety infrastructure.
Asked if anything else would change because school shootings have become more prevalent, he said in a broad way, yes, but also stressed that the district is more proactive than reactive. “We have been doing some work, most recently updates to the school district’s emergency operations plan, which got adopted by the School Committee on Jan. 22,” he said.
A few years ago, Bernard said the school district introduced the ALICE program in all schools “as a response protocol” and it has worked well. Other protocols are not spoken about publicly because doing so would “defeat the purpose,” he said, but he can say that the district developed their protocols in consultation with the town’s police and fire departments and they enjoy a great working relationship.
“The development of our emergency operations plan was collaborative with a number of folks from police and fire,” he said.
The schools also have a School Resource Officer. Paul Lucci, a graduate of NRHS, is currently assigned to that role and he has built a great rapport with the students at the various grade levels, Bernard said. He knew him as a high school student back when he served as principal of NRHS.
For several years the entrances to all of the schools have been monitored and all visitors must be buzzed inside. Once visitors report to the main office, they sign in electronically using the Envoy system that was launched last year. This system documents each visitor’s name, arrival and departure times as well as who they are going to see and for what purpose at each of the five schools plus the superintendent’s office.
“But with all of that said, I don’t want to be reactive. I think we are being proactive. We have had longstanding involvement with folks to continuously look at our emergency protocols, our school safety and security measures,” Bernard said, but added, “I do think there is cause to heighten that vigilance more diligently to identify the ways we need to be doing more.”
Bernard prides himself on maintaining open communications with parents, students and faculty. He welcomes questions by email, phone and face-to-face. He said he will not hang up the phone or end a conversation if the person does not feel comfortable with his response.
The day after the Florida shooting, Bernard met with staff members “and had some pretty healthy dialogue and gathered some information that I am going to use to facilitate further discussion,” he said.
“I am trying to be very reassuring, recognizing that our greatest strength is building relationships, supporting students, engaging in conversation with them; letting them know if you see something you have to say something. Those are critical to our success to prevent tragedy,” he believes.
North Reading responds
On the North Reading Community Connections Facebook page after the shooting, the discussion immediately turned to taking action specifically to enact more controls around firearms or access to them.
Nisreen Bahnen wrote on Feb. 15: “In light of the horrific school shooting in Florida, a group of NR parents and community members are launching an initiative, Parents Taking Action, to brainstorm practical pre-emptive measures to prevent similar incidents from happening in our schools. The goal is to present actionable solutions to school administration and decision makers. If you are interested in being part of the conversation, please PM me your email address and I will add you to the group.”
Dozens of parents immediately responded with a show of support, asking how they can help and thanking Bahnen for facilitating it.
Looking for logistical solutions
Similarly, Garo Toby also sent an email community members and friends, including Superintendent Jon Bernard, calling for a “town wide think tank to brainstorm practical pre-emptive measures to prevent these incidents from happening in our schools and present actionable solutions to school administration and decision-makers.”
He offered to set up an appropriate platform for posts and discussions to take place and invited people to extend his invitation to others.
Toby stressed in his email: “As an American, I refuse to accept that there is no apolitical solution to this problem. We have the intellect to send people to Mars, create driverless cars and invent revolutionary medicines but fail to solve a basic security problem that plagues our communities and puts our most precious ones at risk every day. I am talking about logistical solutions not ideological nor legislative ones, so please do not turn this into a debate about gun ownership: I just want to know that my kids are coming back home after school.”
Not standing idly by
In the aftermath of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the students themselves are leading the charge for tighter gun control and better mental health screening and treatment.
No longer willing to wait for the changes that Congress has been impotent to implement, survivors and parents of victims alike took to the airwaves immediately, imploring people around the country to join in their movement.
Through tears, high school student Emma Gonzalez, a survivor of the massacre, vowed that her high school would be the site of the last mass shooting. She spoke eloquently and passionately at a huge rally, rattling off a series of bulleted and pointed remarks punctuated by the rallying call “We call B.S.!” to challenge the status quo.
Gonzalez quickly earned the crowd’s support and held no punches against those she sees as responsible for the inaction — from President Trump and Congress on down the line to the local level that enabled this shooter to obtain guns and accessories despite the students’ reports of the shooter’s erratic behavior throughout their middle and high school years.
She called out one tweet referencing “signs” that the shooter was mentally disturbed and that his behavior should have been reported. This tweet made the students at her school feel like they were to blame for not reporting his behavior, but that was false, Gonzalez said. “We did. Time and time again, since he was in middle school. It was no surprise to anyone who knew him to hear that he was the shooter. Those talking about how we should have not ostracized him — you didn’t know this kid! We did! We know that they are claiming that there were mental health issues and I am not a psychologist, but we need to pay attention to the fact that this isn’t just a mental health issue. He wouldn’t have hurt that many students with a knife! How about we stop blaming the victims for something that was the shooter’s fault?” she asked. The YouTube video of her speech had over 25 million views by the weekend.
Another Marjory Stoneman Douglas student announced that the students want everyone in the nation to talk about this subject. “We lost 17 lives and our community took 17 bullets through the heart and it’s difficult to come back from that,” he said. To provide some separation between the shooting and their rally, they have scheduled “March for Our Lives” on March 24.
“The March for Our Lives is going to be in every major city and we are organizing it so students everywhere can beg for our lives because at the end of the day, this isn’t about the Red and Blue, the GOP and the Democrats; this is about adults and kids. And at this point, you are either with us or against us. We are giving all of our politicians a clean slate and in the election we are saying if you are accepting money from the NRA there is a badge of shame on you because you are enabling things like this to happen,” he said.
