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Security will be heightened at many Connecticut schools as students return to class. But as WNPR’s Harriet Jones reports, that won’t begin to address the questions that many parents have.
“….we intend to have a normal day tomorrow….”
Superintendent of Hamden schools, Fran Rabinowitz addresses a crowd of around 200 parents Sunday at a meeting intended to reassure them about the reopening of school. Rabinowitz says she wasn’t surprised by the high turnout.
“I think it expresses a need to come together when something tragic like this happens, a need to have a better understanding of it, a need to be with others.”
Hamden has eight elementary schools – the district intends to post a police officer at each one at arrival and dismissal times at least for the next week. Rabinowitz admitted to the crowd that staff had become too lax about security in the past, but she doesn’t favor new policies, just better enforcement of the existing ones. Karen Riches has children in the ninth and second grades. She disagrees.
“What’s happening in my opinion is that the responsibility for security is falling on school secretaries, who are not security officers. And I’ve shared my concerns numerous times. It’s a common conversation – like, wow – it’s so easy to get in the school.”
Not everyone came here with concerns over security though. Rachel Durkin has a first grader.
“This was an isolated incident of a very sick person and it was tragic, and that’s what it was. It wasn’t because Sandy Hook was an unsafe school. And I think that everybody’s very human reaction – but reacting in a way that is hysterical.”
Durkin is keeping her daughter home from school Monday though, because she hasn’t told her about the shooting, and she doesn’t want the details shared by others. Fellow parent Jennifer Bourque agrees it’s going to be tough for teachers to address rumors and speculation.
“It’s hard to control the information that’s coming in, especially when you have kids talking to other kids.”
For this district and many others the emphasis this week will be on keeping an atmosphere of normality for the children, while reviewing every safety policy they have. The mayor of Hamden, Scott Jackson, who has a first grader, put it this way at the meeting.
"If we have a weakness that could be exploited it needs to go away tomorrow – we need to do this. But Max is going to be at Ridgehill School tomorrow at 8.30."
For WNPR, I'm Harriet Jones.
