MAHONING VALLEY Schools learn security lessons

Schools are actually very safe, one official said.
By STEPHEN SIFF
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- With a graduating class of about 60, and only about two or three fights each year, the risk of serious violence at McDonald High School is minimal, says superintendent Robert Bloniarz.
"I think our kids know each other very well, and I think they get along well," he said. "It is a small, close-knit community."
Nonetheless, when the new elementary school is completed, it will have security cameras at exits and in hallways, and visitors will have to address themselves to a camera before they are let in.
Doors will be locked while school is in session, Bloniarz said.
At high school: The McDonald school board is considering similar upgrades as part of a planned renovation of the high school.
And though the school has never experienced a shooting or explosion, every teacher has a handbook with a set of instructions for what to do should one occur.
"You just can't afford to be lax," Bloniarz said.
With classes back in full swing for the 2001-2002 school year, cops walk the halls in several area districts, and security measures that 20 or 30 years ago would have seemed repressive are welcomed by parents and students.
"Something like Jonesboro or Columbine -- these things were farfetched notions back then," said Lester G. Morrow, head of the Safe and Drug-Free Schools office of the Ohio Department of Education.
"I think the general public more than anyone wants us to do something and assure that they are sending their youngsters to a safe place to learn."
School officials across the county have been taking visible steps to make schools safer, or at least more secure.
Steps elsewhere: In Howland, officials have said that $60,000 from proceeds of a proposed 1-mill permanent improvement levy on the November ballot would be used for locks and cameras; in the Weathersfield district, officials spent about $30,000 this summer on security upgrades on school buildings and the football stadium after spending about $25,000 the year before; and a deputy sheriff has joined the staff of the Trumbull County Career and Technical Center this year.
For the past two years, the sheriff's department has had a deputy that kept an eye on schoolchildren in 16 mostly rural Trumbull County districts.
"They nip a lot of things in the bud," said Capt. Thomas Stewart, who wrote the grant for the sheriff's Cops-in-Schools program. "We learn a lot of information out there -- about fights outside the building, vandalism in the cemetery, who is carrying guns."
Taking guarantees: It is questionable whether schools have really become more dangerous in the last several years. But in the aftermath of a number of high-profile school shootings, schools are taking what once would have been extraordinary steps to guarantee that the danger is minimized.
"The evidence that I've been able to review absolutely shows us the schools of Ohio are very safe," Morrow said.
The state does not require that schools install locks or cameras in the way that sprinklers or fire extinguishers, for example, are required.
But since 1999, all districts in the state have been required to plan for how each school would react to episodes including violence, tornadoes, gas leaks and chemical spills.
Districts that are most prepared have given maps and floor plans to local law enforcement agencies and have worked up lists of hazardous chemicals stored in science rooms and labs, said Linda Beil, director of the Trumbull County Emergency Management Agency, co-chairwoman of a task force to help schools comply with the law.
"Some of the school systems are so far ahead, and others are just getting started with it," Beil said.
Little interest: The task force has had a limited response: only five of Trumbull County's 22 school districts sent representatives to either of the group's first two meetings, which were also to include law enforcement and safety officials, Beil said.
siff@vindy.com