Monticello Superintendent to School Board – Security
December 19th, 2012 by Joe Burgess
School security and it’s importance to administrators and students was evident at Tuesday’s Monticello School Board meeting.
MIS EAST presented a visual demonstrations, suggesting door locks that could be locked from inside the classroom, even by substitute teachers, who don’t have “school keys”. Other topics in their program included color coded panels over the door windows and non-transparent window shades.
Superintendent Bobby Harper then spoke to the group, showing true concern about the student’s safety and school security.
Harper’s comments included several projects that will likely be improved in the very near future.
What happened in the little town of Newton, CT could surely happen here in Monticello. We believe because we live in a small town that it is less likely to happen here and that is a false sense of security. No matter where you live there are people who go off the deep end and will do something stupid and dangerous. The schools should be discussing what can be learned from this tragedy and take the appropriate steps to make a safer school. The Administrators and Teachers are the first responders in a situation like this. They cannot wait for the police or sheriff deputies to get there. They need to be allowed to carry concealed hand guns that must be on their person at all times. They cannot put the gun in a purse and put someplace away from the teacher/administrator. This should not be mandatory but on a volunteer basis and the person will need to take the necessary classes to do this. The gun will have to be concealed on the person to be ready at all times and to also keep the children safe from getting a hold of it. If the administrators/teachers in the Newton school had hand guns, this would have ended way before 20 children and 6 adults were killed.
Unfortunately the first thing urban people want to do is to get rid of the guns. Guns do not kill – people do. We have to prepare for the crazy people who do things like this.