'No Price' to be Put on School Security

(TNS) - Local schools face tough choices on how much security is appropriate as last week’s shooting in Madison Twp. brought a nationwide issue close to home for the first time.

The challenge for schools is how far to go on a continuum with tons of options. More locks? More cameras? More guards? More drills? Adding metal detectors? Arming school staff? There’s no way to make everyone happy, as there are parents who support and oppose each of those steps.

“It’s a tough spot for schools and it comes down to one word — reasonableness. What is reasonable to reduce risk?” said Ken Trump, a national school safety consultant. “The majority of parents want safe schools, want risks reduced, want genuine preparedness.

“But they also want that to be balanced with a climate supportive of students, not a prison-like environment.”

But Sheriff Richard K. Jones said districts’ school boards and superintendents need to do as much as possible to implement something he’s been advocating since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in December 2012: arming administrators and stationing former armed forces or law enforcement personnel in classrooms as substitute teachers. Failure to do so means put a district in peril, he said.

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