False TV reports that a student had brought a gun to Raymer Elementary School on Feb. 15 panicked many East Toledoans, leading parents to pull more than 160 students from classes that Friday morning.

Toledo Public School (TPS) Board of Education members and administrators agree the incident highlights the need for TPS to address safety issues.

Sobecki said she asked that a safety agenda item be added to TPS’s Ohio School Facilities Commission (OSFC) Building Committee.

Sobecki said the committee will keep safety and security “a standing item to keep board members abreast” of issues that need to be addressed.

“I want to keep it on the agenda,” Sobecki said. “We should have safety on an agenda, and we don’t currently have that on any of our committees.”

At January’s board meeting, Sobecki encouraged fellow board members to make either Superintendent Jerome Pecko or Chief Business Manager James Gant aware of any safety and security concerns board members had, so that when the two administrators met with City of Toledo fire and police chiefs in early February to discuss TPS’s emergency procedures, they could include “all that information we’ve been thinking about.”

Lisa Sobecki and Jerome Pecko

Gant said when he and Pecko met with Police Chief Derrick Diggs and Fire Chief Luis Santiago, “We talked about our process and procedures and made sure they were comfortable with them. We wanted to make sure that our communication was good … to see if they had anything they would like to add to the discussion in terms of how we could be more proactive in what we’re doing.”

Gant said a major concern the four men discussed was whether TPS’s policy, where all school building doors are locked and no one is allowed to leave or enter the building in an emergency, was the best course of action.

“We talked about how we handle active shooters and whether the lockdown procedure was an efficient method of doing that, or whether the program ALICE [Alert–Lockdown–Inform-Counter-Evacuate] would be a direction the district would like to move into,” Gant said. “Let me explain what ALICE is by example. Right now, if we have an active shooter and they get into the classroom, what we teach our kids to do, and it’s what most districts have done probably forever, is to find a location, to get down and to hide.”

A TPS elementary school teacher who asked her name not be published confirmed what Gant said.

“Fire drills are once a month, but there are no prescribed number of times [active shooter drills] have to be done,” she said. “We do one every fall, and they do that K-12. We practice with the kids. There’s a prescribed script that’s read, and every school has the same script.”

Gant said recent research indicates that the “get-down-and-hide” approach is not necessarily the best strategy.

“We want folks to be more active in the process, so we actively look for ways to escape,” Gant said. “We become active in the way we try to distract the shooter so we can eliminate any collateral damages.

“So maybe we start throwing things at the shooter. Some districts have had golf balls in buckets in the corner of every room, that type of thing, to be more active in stopping the shooter.”

Gant said ALICE is a program the district is only considering and that it will not be presented to the board for discussion or a vote Feb. 26.

“It’s something we would have to develop,” Gant said. “Part of the thought process is to get more folks involved in the training; get folks trained and make sure they’re comfortable with it. And then we would roll it out, along with the policy that goes along with it.”

Scope of safety

At January’s meeting, board member Larry Sykes encouraged Pecko and his cabinet to broaden the scope of safety and security experts they consulted to include the Lucas County Sheriff’s Office, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

“If one of our schools goes into lockdown [because of an active shooter], I’m sure the FBI, the ATF and the rest of them potentially could come in our school,” Sykes said. “If it doesn’t happen, great. But if it does happen, we will know how to handle it, when to call them in and when not to. With hostage situations you have to have your best. And that is the FBI and the ATF.”

Sykes pointed to the fact that the Newtown, Conn., shooting Dec. 14 was the 31st school shooting in the U.S. since the Columbine High School massacre of April 20, 1999.

“From all those, we have learned something,” Sykes said. “You have FBI profilers. You have people telling you how to watch out, how to look at stuff, what to be aware of. And that goes beyond your local police, fire and sheriff departments.

Sykes and Sobecki said before TPS would change the lockdown policy, it would seek input from taxpayers.

“Any time we change policies, we go out to the citizens,” Sykes said. “It’s good to have public input from people who have a vested interest, and that’s parents who have their children in our schools.”

Sobecki said that if TPS switched from the current lockdown policy to ALICE, it would schedule meetings to explain the changes to the public.

“There would be a time and a place to do that, but we would have to first take care of it internally,” she said. “We would have to identify the program, whether it’s ALICE or something else, what we’re going to do and make sure our top-notch professionals are trained in the new program because it will be a different philosophy.

“And after you do that, you go site by site to explain the procedures we would have for ALICE versus lockdown. But a public hearing isn’t going to the public and asking ‘Do you think it’s OK if we do ALICE or do you want something else?’

“First, we would have to educate the community about what ALICE is. And then we would take their questions to help them understand.”

Other business

The next regular board meeting is at 5:30 p.m. Feb. 26:

Pecko will present four cabinet members — Romules Durant and Brian Murphy, assistant superintendents of TPS’s two K-12 learning communities; James Gault, chief academic officer; and Cheryl Spieldenner, chief human resources officer — to the board for three-year contract renewals.

The Human Resources Committee will take the cost of two background checks to the full board without a recommendation since committee members Cecilia Adams and Bob Vasquez do not agree on a course of action.

Adams predicted at the committee meeting that the board will vote 3-2 to require employees to pay for the state-mandated FBI background check and that the district will pay for the TPS-required Ohio background check, with Brenda Hill, Sobecki and Vasquez voting “yes” and Adams and Sykes voting “no.”

Treasurer Matthew Cleland said the FBI background check would cost TPS $68,880. The Ohio background checks would cost $63,140.

The Feb. 28 board meeting, to begin at 5 p.m., will focus on the board’s options for hiring a superintendent to replace Pecko, who is leaving when his contract expires July 31.

Tags: Derrick Diggs, James Gant, Jerome Pecko, Larry Sykes, Lisa Sobecki, Luis Santiago, Newtown Connecticut, school safety, school shootings, Toledo Public Schools

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 21st, 2013 at 2:20 pm and is filed under Community, Education.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

I write with a heavy heart, following news of school violence at Chardon High School. Three students dead, two seriously wounded. Many more will undoubtedly suffer a long lasting aftermath from the horrible tragedy. I am deeply saddened about young lives never lived out. Our prayers go out to the families, Chardon High School and Chardon community.

The alleged gunman, T.J. Lane, 17, faces three counts of first-degree felony aggravated murder in the killings of three students and a first-degree felony for attempted aggravated murder for allegedly shooting and injuring two other students. Following the court hearing, prosecutor David Joyce reportedly said, “This is not about bullying. This is not about drugs. This is someone who is not well.” Could this possibly be true? A random shooting for no other reason than T.J. is “not well?” If true, it doesn’t fit the historical imprint on why youth shoot at school.

Frank DiLallo

Dr. Lisa Kovach, University of Toledo professor and author of “School Shootings and Suicides: Why We Must Stop the Bullies” argues, “While I can say that bullying wasn’t and isn’t the only factor, it is the one key factor present in all previously similar shootings. The FBI and Secret Service, shortly after Columbine, described family, social and school dynamics present in all (U.S.) school shooters. I think we’d like to sleep better at night, thinking he was deranged and this was random, but I beg to differ.”

Family dynamic

T.J. Lane has had a troubled family life. His mother and father never married and each had domestic assault charges filed against the other during their relationship. The father was involved with several assault altercations over the years and spent seven months in prison for felonious assault. In 2009, T.J. himself was charged and pled true (guilty) to assault. T.J.’s maternal grandparents were legal guardians at the time of the shooting. It seems obvious T.J. was not coping with family dysfunction and is a victim turned offender.

Social dynamic

There is no typical profile of a shooter, but T.J. seemed to fit some of the indicators: quiet, “Goth” (outcast), few friends, and access to firearms. The shooting was not impulsive, but premeditated and talked about on Twitter and text messaging, also consistent with previous school shootings. Others knew, but ignored or minimized the seriousness of the message.

School dynamic

Dr. Kovach explains, “While we’re told that these particular students didn’t bully him, I wonder if others did. The location — a school — speaks volumes. He didn’t choose a mall, grocery store, or random restaurant.” Something drove T.J. Lane to shoot students at Chardon High School. Something blinded him from seeing any other options. Even if not bullying, is it doubtful T.J. Lane was a rebel without a cause. Dr. Kovach explains, “The Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis states one can only take a certain amount of repeatedly frustrating experiences, e.g., family violence, inequities, bullying/rejection, before one lashes out.”

Even knowing with certainty all the mitigating circumstances, it could never take away the pain or the fact that three innocent youth are dead — a grave injustice and another school shooting added to a growing list. No school, workplace or community can afford to deny the ever-present potential danger that this can happen anywhere at any time. We must listen and be vigilant!

Dr. Kovach makes a strong plea. “If we don’t work together as parents, educators and law enforcement, we will continue to see such tragedies in our country. Children are dying needlessly because we aren’t doing all that we can in terms of prevention. Chardon resulted in the deaths of individuals who could have had bright futures. We must learn from this and past school shootings and work fast and furiously on prevention.”

Most of the pain suffered from bullying is often felt in silence. Do not remain silent! Break the silence by sharing your truth, your stories and speaking out to stop bullying and violence in our community. In the Feb. 16 article titled “From Bully to Activist,” Sarah Ottney wrote about my story. I took a risk with the community to share my story, hoping to inspire others to do the same. I invite you to email me your story so that together we can use this column as a forum to learn from each other and speak out about the injustices of bullying. We must work together to keep our children, places of work and community safe. Everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect without exception, without exemption! There is no greater investment we can make now and for our future.

Frank is a Prevention/Intervention Schools Consultant with the Diocese of Toledo and author of “Peace2U: Three Phase Bullying Solution” and co-author of “Peace Be With You: Christ-Centered Bullying Solution.” Please visit www.peace2usolutions.com or email Frank at frank@peace2usolutions.com.

Tags: bullying, Chardon High School, Frank DiLallo, school shootings, T.J. Lane

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 31st, 2012 at 10:39 am and is filed under Community, Education.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.