School officials address safety

Freeport High students take part in national walkout

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He pushed his glasses up against his nose as he sifted through a stack of papers last week. Freeport Schools Superintendent Dr. Kishore Kuncham said he had been working on safety plans for schools before the Parkland, Fla., shooting a month ago. In the wake of the massacre, however, Freeport is like so many school districts that are taking stock of their emergency plans to ensure they are adequate.

“Our schools are safe,” Kuncham said. Still, a tragedy like Parkland so often prompts deeper reflection.

“Our hearts do go out to the 17 lost lives in the Parkland shooting,” Kuncham said. “As far as Freeport is concerned, we always are proactive in relation to the safety process and procedures. The safety of our students and staff is always a priority for us.”

On Wednesday, roughly 200 Freeport High School students reportedly took part in the National School Walkout for school safety, as the Herald was going to press. (See next week’s paper for a full report.)

Kuncham said that the district did not condone Wednesday’s walkout. His main concern was to make sure that the schools maintained a safe and secure environment.

School officials, he said, encouraged students to wear yellow on the day of the walkout to symbolize unity. At 10 a.m., the schools observed a moment of silence. As an alternative to the walkout, they were encouraged to create memorial cards in art and music classes, while in social studies they wrote letters to local government leaders expressing their ideas on improving school safety.

“There are concerns that keep coming up, and we will do our best to address them,” Kuncham said.

Each year, all of Freeport’s schools hold 12 drills — eight fire drills and four lockdown drills. The district has about 70 school resource officers who monitor halls and school grounds. Safety protocols have been in place for more than five years, according to Kuncham. However, since last December, the Freeport Board of Education has been working to upgrade the schools’ safety plan.

In the case of a lockdown, the superintendent said, the Freeport Police Department and Nassau County police would be immediately notified by the press of a blue button that is strategically placed in the school. Once it was pressed, blue flashing lights would alert students and staff members that there was danger nearby outside the school. Police would take it from there.

Last July, Freeport spent $800,000 to upgrade its security cameras and to make sure there were cameras in all schools, including in the halls. There are now more than 400 cameras districtwide.

“We have a great advantage that we have our own Freeport Police Department,” Kuncham said. “This means that in case of an emergency, they will be at any of our schools within one to two minutes.”

The district is also getting a new security director in the first or second week of April. He or she will regularly review the school’s safety protocols and provide the Board of Education with feedback.

“We have a lot of safety measures implemented for a long time,” Kuncham said, “and not in reaction to the shootings.”

The public safety plans are available on the school district’s website. Building safety plans are not available for the public to review, however, for security reasons. Kuncham said that by law, the school board is required to review and submit safety plans to the state. The plans are coordinated with police, fire and other officials and agencies in the village, county and state.

“The districtwide safety and building plans are constantly looked at and made sure they work,” Kuncham said.

A new resource that the school district is implementing is a phone application — Anonymous Alerts — which students and faculty can download in order to anonymously report suspicious activity at any of the schools. The app will allow students to report concerns, struggles with bullying, fights or any information they might not feel comfortable sharing publicly. It will also provide students with resources like a suicide prevention line and support. The application is still in the works, but Kuncham said he hopes it will be implemented before the end of the school year.

“It’s the idea that if they see something, they share anonymously or not anonymously,” he said. “With time, training and education, [the app] will be a valuable resource for students and staff.”