Fortified by fences and patrolled by more armed personnel, schools will open their doors to students for the start of the new year with a heightened focus on school security products intended to ease fears about deadly campus shootings.
The massacre in Parkland, Fla., one of the most lethal in American history, unnerved school administrators across the country, who devoted the summer to reinforcing buildings and hiring security.
In Florida, armed guards will be posted on almost every campus. In Indiana, some schools will be getting hand-held metal detectors. In Western New York, some schools plan to upgrade their surveillance cameras to include facial recognition.
Six months after the rampage at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, public schools have embraced expensive and sometimes controversial safety measures.
Schools opened with metal detectors this week in Marshall County, Ky., where two students were killed at a school shooting in January. New York City has considered expanding the use of metal detectors.
Some measures go beyond “hardening” school buildings and expanding police presence and focus instead on how to respond to a violent attack. Active shooter drills have become routine for emergency personnel and school administrators. In Nashville last month, 100 school nurses took a one-day course at Vanderbilt University Medical Center titled “Stop the Bleed,” on how to handle a mass casualty event. Among the lessons: how to apply a tourniquet.
