Nearly 30 percent of parents in the U.S fear for their children’s’ safety at school. In addition, roughly one in eight students fear for their own safety while in school according to Gallup, a polling company that delivers and analyzes statistics on attitudes and behaviors of employees, customers, students and citizens.

Stockbridge teachers have no self-defense training for a threatening situation, but are still expected to protect students to the best of their ability.

Senior Alexei Jessop thinks that the staff at the high school is not prepared for a threat, nor that our students are well-protected.

“We don’t really talk about it like how to prevent it and what we would do during a threat,” Jessop said. “Like, if someone was going to come shoot up the school, we leave our doors open. When we walk in the school, the students from the student parking lot walk in and it’s always just open. The door by where the garbage goes, that’s always open. It’s like a free pass to come shoot up our school. We don’t really protect our students.”

Because of the lack of security preparation, adjustments are going to be implemented next school year according to administration.

With the recent bond funding, Smith Elementary, Heritage Elementary and the Richard C. Howlett high school campus will each be receiving a new security system that include double doors, a camera recognition system and a key card swiping slot for staff and coaches.

“The secure entrances are a huge change,” high school principal Richard Cook said. “We’re going to have the ability to monitor when doors are open or not open. I think you’ll see a real shift in the way people think when we have purposely built a space for secure entrances. The transition of this year will really get addressed by that new space.”

This addition of the double doors will increase safety of the students, but it was decided that new security cameras are a must-have.

According to superintendent Karl Heidrich, while the parking lots will not be receiving new cameras, all of the cameras on the interior and exterior of the school will be replaced due to the poor quality of the current cameras.

“They’re grainy and they don’t have good resolution,” Heidrich said. “The new cameras will be able to see out there clear. I feel like we can clearly see with the new camera system.”

Junior Cassandra Whitt thinks that the new camera recognition system might be a bit overkill for a small town like Stockbridge, but a good idea nonetheless.

“I feel like that’s just kind of creepy that they’re going to have that,” Whitt said. “I guess if it makes our school more secure, do it, but it’s not like anything bad actually happens around here for us to need all of that security.”

School districts close to Stockbridge, such as Dansville, have taken to new methods of protecting their students.

“We have shared the run/fight/hide approach with our staff,” Dansville superintendent Amy Hodgson said. “What is practiced is essentially the ‘HIDE’ or a typical lockdown protocol.  In an actual event, teachers are asked to do what is best to protect their students and themselves.  This may include barricading the door with furniture, for example.”

But, no matter the amount of protection given to students, it is possible that there would not be defense for every possible situation.

“I think that there is no system that is going to stop everything,” Cook said. “I think that it is a good preventative, and I think that it is something that we’re always improving and studying and that is what the county is talking about.”

According to Stockbridge Chief of Police Johnnie Torres, the Michigan legislature mandates how many drills that schools have to have.

“The school coordinates with the local law enforcement so that we have those,” Torres said. “Each year we get together and fill out a form and then send it to our emergency management. Well, we go through the Ingham County Sheriff’s Department, because Stockbridge has under 10,000 population. Each school fills those out, let us know when those drills are so that we have them and we forward those out onto the emergency manager at the Ingham County Sheriff’s Department.”

Ingham County’s current system, or the shelter-in-place system, is looking to be improved according to Torres.

“Right now and throughout the state of Michigan, this is kind of being played with right now as far as changing the way of which we do internal threat situations, like active violence shooters,” Torres said.  
“So, let’s say that someone is in the school. Right now, we’re under the red card, green card system. That is what is in play, it is still in play, however, the school district is right now looking at revamping those protocols and maybe do something different. I know that there are other schools in the state, and in the country, that do something a little different. But right now, essentially what it is, is shelter-in-place.”

With the current drills the school has now, senior Alexander Twining thinks that students, including himself, do not take them seriously because they would rather be doing other things.

“I’d rather be getting my stuff done or watching whatever I’m watching,” Twining said. “I don’t really want to go into a room for 10 minutes. I feel like it’s a waste of time because the possibilities of a tornado happening or a fire happening or someone breaking in with a gun are really slim to none. I don’t want to be wasting my time doing that when it’s not going to happen, most likely, when I could be doing something that is productive.”

However, senior Dara Diffenbaugh believes that without a serious mindset about these drills, bad things can happen.

“This is your safety we’re talking about,” Diffenbaugh said. “And, the safety of others around you. If we don’t move as a group, and we aren’t one mind, then accidents can happen.”

Diffenbaugh also thinks that the drills involving threats can be improved to increase the safety of students.

“I’ve read that, I can’t remember what school it was, is teaching their students how to defend themselves in case of an attacker came into the room,” Diffenbaugh said. “I think that that could also be beneficial in a way, and I think that we should still be taught how to stay out of sight a little more, but in case that doesn’t work, there needs to be some kind of backup procedure.”

According to Heidrich, Stockbridge Community Schools follow the Ingham County protocols because the schools are located in the county, but because the district receives students from four counties, it is a bit of a challenge.

“We use the baseline of Ingham county protocols,” Heidrich said. “Stockbridge is unique that we cover four counties. Because we’re part of the Ingham ISD, we use their protocols. We’re continuing to look at and examine our procedures to look at our options and to make our procedures more efficient.”

There is no current timeline for the for the new procedures to take place. Although, Heidrich said that “the protocols should be in place for the next school year.”

The current procedures are not perfect, but according to Cook, there is always room for improvement in our protocols.

“I think schools could always be safer places,” Cook said. “I also think that this is an issue, like many other issues, that isn’t above the school. It’s about our culture, it’s about our country. There are so many ways in which the schools change communities, or reflect communities, and violence is not going to be stopped with just drills and protocols. It needs to be something that we address as a culture and a country.”