Guilderland school officials are implementing several measures to address safety issues, but the one attracting the most attention involves man’s best friend.
The Guilderland Board of Education met with the town’s police department in September to explore the possibility of introducing K9 search dog “Rocky” into its school buildings for potential drug and weapon sweeps, said district Superintendent Marie Wiles.
“In the context of that conversation, we realized our school district — in concert with the Guilderland Police Department — does a tremendous amount of work together on the topic of school safety,” Wiles said.
The Board of Education heard a program report on school safety from high school Assistant Principal Lisa Patierne and district Resource Officer Nick Ingle on Wednesday, Nov. 6.
The presentation focused on the district’s partnership with the police department, why the district needs to be more sensitive towards safety issues and the strategies implemented, along with what safety initiatives are being planned.
Wiles said the issue of school safety is “at the center” of the district’s goals, with it appearing in the first sentence of the district’s vision statement.
“It is so important to put this in the context of all the work that we do in our school district and this might be a night where we talk about school safety, but it is in the context of our overall mission,” Wiles said. “We can’t inspire, we can’t cover the common core, we can’t do all those things we need to do as a school if first we don’t keep our students, our staff and our faculty safe and secure.”
Part of the district’s approach to increasing the police presence in the schools involves bringing in “Rocky” to search for drugs and weapons.
Patierne said when a dog search is undertaken, all students and staff would be locked down in classrooms, and only a designated area of the building would be searched. Lockers would not be opened unless “Rocky” detects something and district administrators choose to open that locker.
The searches would be at a “random times” throughout the school year, Patierne said, and “certainly would not be every day.”
Patierne started her presentation sharing a statement from the National Center for Analysis of Violent Crime, which said, “Forms of school violence are not just a school problem or law enforcement problem. They involve schools, families and the communities.”
Patierne said the district has partnerships with many community organizations tackling several different issues such as bullying prevention, individual wellness and mental health, community enhancement and helping high school seniors transition to secondary education.
School shootings increasing
Patierne said between 1992 and 2004, the victimization rates for students 12 to 18 years old declined, but “targeted school shootings” have been increasing.
In the 1970s there were four incidents of targeted school shootings, with the number only jumping to five the following decade, Patierne said. In the 1990s, there were 28 targeted school shootings. In 2000, there was 13 shootings, which increased to 15 in 2007, 18 in 2008 and 37 in 2009 — a high for that decade.
“That is very concerning,” Patierne said. “As you can imagine, fear has a direct impact on higher brain functioning needed to learn, and school shootings have a profound impact on the county and community.”
Ingle said in 2001, a senior at Guilderland High School had planned to commit a school shooting, which he said most people were probably unaware of. Andrew Hernandez, who murdered his mother, wrote a plan for the attack which involved bringing guns into school wrapped in an American flag.
“He had names of students that he was going to kill and use as hostages, human shields,” Ingle said. “He was going to then walk to the resource officer’s office and kill the officer because he knew he had a gun. Then, he was going to take an elevated position on the roof and shoot first responders as they came in.”
Ingle said on the night before Hernandez’s planned attack, he decided to “test” himself and shot his mother. Hernandez then went to Crossgates Mall to see a movie, Ingle said. Later that night, Hernandez turned himself into police.
“This school was hours away from having it happen,” Ingle said.
Wiles said the presentation was aimed to provide the board, school staff and community members with a broader picture of measures undertaken by the district.