National experts, local politicians and members of a school safety task force said they think proposed safety measures to protect Onondaga County students from school shootings are not only feasible, but necessary.

The Onondaga County School Safety Task Force released a report last month detailing safety recommendations for local schools in the wake of the February 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida.

The task force worked to outline strategies to identify, prevent and handle school safety issues such as active shooter situations. The group was formed shortly after 17 people died at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

The recommendations included adopting a Standard Response Protocol, encouraging a climate of “see something, say something,” using first responders in drills and training employees in crisis prevention, mental health awareness and basic bleeding control.

The Standard Response Protocol is a procedure developed by the I Love U Guys Foundation that standardizes terms used to describe active shooter situations. The protocol makes it easier for students, teachers and first responders to “understand the response and status of the event,” according to foundation’s website.

Various members of the task force and nationally-known experts on school safety said that the recommendations are feasible in Onondaga County schools. The 59-member group was chaired by Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh, Onondaga County Executive Joanie Mahoney, Onondaga County Sheriff Gene Conway and Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick.

Task force member and SUNY Oswego professor Jaclyn Schildkraut, who is an expert on mass shootings, said that the purpose of the report was to provide recommendations that school districts could choose to use.

“We didn’t want to tell people what to do,” Schildkraut said. “We wanted to give people recommendations and let them make their own decisions.”

She added that some recommendations, such as the installation of interior door locks and the Standard Response Protocol, are measures that studies have shown to be effective.

Schildkraut said that no one who was behind a locked door has ever been shot in a school shooting, except in instances where the perpetrator was also behind the locked door, or someone was shot through windows.

Fitzpatrick said that the task force worked to only propose possible solutions to school safety.

“I said, ‘Let’s not talk about federal firearms licenses or universal background checks because we don’t have control over that,’” he said. “Let’s talk about things we have control over.”

Fitzpatrick said that he thinks every recommendation within the report is feasible in Onondaga County schools. He added that he believed the recommendations are financially viable.

Task force members, local leaders and national experts said there’s always a need for school safety solutions.

“This is a conversation that absolutely had to happen,” said Common Councilor Susan Boyle, of the 3rd district. “I think that it’s a very comprehensive study.”

Boyle, a member of the Council’s Education and Human Development Committee, said that all Syracuse City School District high schools installed metal detectors at their entrances after the 1999 Columbine High School shooting. She added that the school board said at the time that it was protecting students.

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Amy Klinger, director of programs for the Educator’s School Safety Network, which does consulting and threat assessment training, said there should be equal money spent on technology or hardware and training, and that metal detectors are proven not to work.

In addition to the metal detectors, county schools have armed school resource officers. Fitzpatrick said that the county has stopped gang activity using information gathered by the officers.

He also said that the task force unanimously supported keeping officers in schools.

Boyle said that Syracuse schools currently plan to install the interior locks that could be effective in protecting students. Schildkraut said that the schools in Skaneateles Central School District and Syracuse City School District are both adopting the Standard Response Protocol to better handle active shooter situations.

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Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos recently stated that she would not be opposed to local and state governments spending federal grant money to arm teachers in their school districts. Fitzpatrick said that the task force unanimously agreed that arming teachers was not an effective way to protect students.

“I would never consider using available federal funds for the purchase of guns to arm teachers,” said Katie Sojewicz, vice president of the Syracuse City School District, in an email. “I believe that it is completely inappropriate to arm teachers. Guns do not belong in school.”

Fitzpatrick said he plans to hold more meetings, even though the report has been finalized. Schildkraut said it is important that school safety is a continuous dialogue.

The task force’s report helped people, even within the group, understand school safety and proper solutions, Schildkraut said.

“People are reading it, taking it seriously and thinking about what the next steps will be,” she said.

— Contributing Writer Emma Folts contributed reporting to this article.

Published on September 19, 2018 at 10:14 pm

Contact Catherine: ccleffer@syr.edu | @ccleffert