Cleveland schools to add guards, detectors

The SuccessTech Academy will reopen Tuesday.

CLEVELAND (AP) — The city school district will place metal detectors and security guards in all schools in response to a student shooting rampage that left two teachers and two students wounded before the gunman killed himself, schools CEO Eugene Sanders said Friday.

“While this has been a trying time ... we love our students,” he said. “We are absolutely committed to them and their success.”

Each school will be reviewed by a professional security firm and the district will hold community meetings to gather other concerns.

“Safety and security is our top priority for every student in our district,” Sanders said.

The district will spend $3 million to $4 million to place metal detectors in all 110 school buildings and it will take months to do so, Sanders said. The district currently has 10 metal detector units and rotates them.

The district will need to hire 50 to 70 security guards to have one in each school, officials said. The district currently has 148 security guards plus 20 city police officers assigned to schools, but they are concentrated in bigger, more trouble-prone high schools, with some buildings having multiple guards and others none.

Twenty to 25 of the district’s school buildings currently do not have guards, Sanders said.

Sanders said the scene of the shooting, SuccessTech Academy, would reopen Tuesday. The school will host an open house Monday evening for parents and students to discuss safety issues.

In addition, every school will have a student assembly to reiterate safety guidelines, including a hot line to report threats.

Sanders had set a self-imposed Friday deadline to submit the plan to city hall, and outlined the recommendations at a joint news conference with Mayor Frank Jackson. The mayor controls schools through an appointed board.

The plan was drawn up in the wake of Wednesday’s SuccessTech shooting. Asa Coon, 14, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

Coon, who had a record of mental illness and home and school trouble that repeatedly landed him in juvenile court, had been suspended following a fight on Monday. His uncle told The Associated Press on Friday that Coon was upset his teachers didn’t listen to his side of the story.

One teacher remained hospitalized on Friday and his condition was upgraded to good. The others were treated at area hospitals and released.

Metal detectors have a deterrent value beyond alerting authorities to weapons, making it less likely a youngster would even try to enter school with a gun or knife, said James F. Kenny, associate professor of criminal justice at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, N.J.

Kenny said metal detectors are most common in urban districts and he was surprised they hadn’t been routinely used in an inner-city district like Cleveland.

As for keeping out a menacing youngster who has been suspended like Coon, Kenny said security can be improved by distributing photos of the banned student and improving communications between security and school officials.

Parents should encourage their children to talk about violent threats they hear in school and should tell their youngsters not to be fearful of looking like a snitch, said Jeffrey Lox, clinical director of the Bellefaire JCB Jewish social service agency in suburban Cleveland.

“When it comes to safety, it’s not tattling,” Lox said.

Sporting events involving Cleveland schools resumed Friday and the district asked for a moment of silence at each event to mark the tragedy. Athletics Commissioner Leonard Jackson said extra security guards and police were assigned to each game to make fans and players comfortable returning to their routines.

“We just want to be more vigilant,” he said.