School safety still paramount issue for administrators

By most educators' accounts, school is one of the safest places for a student to be.

Armed with cameras monitoring hallways and parking lots, staff who keep an eye out for unexpected visitors, and partnerships with police and fire officials, local schools seem prepared for most anything.

But, as evidenced by a Nov. 15 bomb threat that cleared the building at Flathead High and an incident that involved real-looking plastic guns during an evening harvest party Oct. 29 at Swan River School, unsettling situations still arise.

"This is a period of time with school shootings and violence on campus and the [threat from] drugs and other contraband that some people try to push on to your schools," Bigfork Superintendent Russ Kinzer said.

"It's pretty cliche [to say], but times have changed and you have to be aware of that."

Administrators across the Flathead Valley are aware. And they have contingency plans in place for those times when awareness must turn to action.

Kinzer said Bigfork schools began focusing on a security regimen about five years ago - locking all but one or two entry doors, installing closed-circuit television at the high school and middle school, doing FBI-fingerprint background checks on staffers and volunteers who may supervise children, issuing picture-identification badges to staffers and requiring visitor passes.

Last year, a crackdown on bullying and abusive language became part of the school policy manual.

Bigfork was on the front lines of getting a law officer assigned to the school, something common to local districts now.

"Security is an issue over here because we can be as much as 20 minutes away from law-enforcement response," Kinzer said. Bigfork relies on sheriff's protection dispatched out of Kalispell.

"That's why we have had a school resource officer for so long," Kinzer said.

School officials agree proactive is better than reactive - even if it rubs some students and parents the wrong way.

At Swan River School, an incident over Halloween weekend left Principal Pete Loyda relieved that school policy and personal experience intersected at the right time.

At the school's harvest party, three students brought their spring-loaded Air Soft guns to the family fun night. The toys, Loyda said, have the identical weight, size and look of a 9 mm handgun - except for the orange tip and the hard plastic balls they shoot.

"In inner-city Milwaukee," Loyda said of a previous principal's position he held, "I had kids who were pretty bright who had the real guns. They painted the tips orange to make the officers think they were fake."

Five Swan River boys, Loyda said, played with and shot the Air Soft guns just outside the school, surprising fellow students as they came out the door. Some unsuspecting children went home with welts on their cheeks, although no one was seriously hurt.

After checking policy, talking with parents, students and staff, consulting with the Bigfork and county superintendents - and hearing a local deputy admit that, had he been confronted with the situation and realistic toys, "he would have had to make one of the most difficult decisions of his career" - Loyda recommended expulsion hearings.

None of the five was expelled.

Students had been told at the beginning of the year about consequences for behavior, alcohol and drug infractions. Loyda said he had emphasized the school's zero tolerance for look-alike weapons.

His actions prompted heavy criticism from some parents who said he was acting like a big-city principal who didn't understand Montana ways.

It was a painful few weeks for him, he said, but he would do it again.

"I banked on the response that I will err every time on the side of being safe, and on the school policy in situations like this. I have had students who have been seriously injured - even had one situation with a fatality in school.

"All it takes is one small mistake," he added. "I do not want to deal with that in the Swan River district."

Sound policy, strong resolve and plenty of drills are hallmarks of safe schools.

On Nov. 15, Flathead High School Principal Callie Langohr discovered just how crucial that last element is.

A phoned-in bomb threat that Monday noon prompted Langohr and her administrative team to announce that students and staff were to leave the school immediately and wait at Elrod Elementary until it was safe to return. A police search turned up nothing. Shortly after class dismissal time, the school was back to normal operations.

The process came off without a hitch.

Langohr said it wasn't just luck. The school has a policy of holding four evacuation drills and four lock-down drills a month - some planned, some surprise, some forcing evacuees to follow new routes, some making the announcement by unexpected means.

"That's why the bomb-threat evacuation went as smoothly as it did," she said, "because we've been practicing for years."

But a safe school environment comes from more than drills.

Video cameras are posted in a dozen or so locations in Flathead hallways and outside the building, all feeding to a continuous monitoring screen at the entry to the principal's office.

The cameras and their locations are fully disclosed, both to build trust and deter crime.

"We solved a lot of criminal activity just because of the cameras," she said.

Although most students "just want to have a good day," there is some criminal activity, she said.

Last school year alone, 21 Flathead students were disciplined and charged by police for being involved in physical assaults at the school.

Seven students were caught and charged with theft at the school. There were nine cases of vandalism (compared with 13 the year before), two weapons offenses (one the prior year) and one substantially violent threat (the same as the prior year).

In each of the categories, Langohr said administrators know more instances occurred but those at fault could not be confirmed.

Cameras obviously didn't prevent these crimes. But, in sorting out the facts of those caught on tape, they exposed false stories.

Langohr said the crimes are not as prevalent in Flathead as in other large schools. That's partially due, she said, to the atmosphere the school sets through such subtleties as landscaping and color schemes and more obvious moves such as respecting the population.

Even in discipline, administrators mete out varied punishment after considering extenuating circumstances.

"Zero tolerance," she said, "only paints you into a corner ? removes the human element" in dealing with students.

"If you take care of people up front, if you do the best you can and let them know it's safe to be here, treat them like adults," Langohr said, "you have a safer environment."

Bigfork's Kinzer would agree.

"Some of the best security you can have is your student body," the superintendent said.

"If they have the belief that you are trying to keep the campus safe ? they want a safe place and they will report" infractions, he said. "When you have that kind of culture, your security is improved."

In the elementary grades, establishing that feeling of safety often comes in the form of reassurance through routine.

West Valley School takes pains to schedule drills, Superintendent Todd Fiske said. The school now has held four lock-down drills, practicing what to do when the 350 students need to be kept safe inside their classrooms.

"In the beginning it scared the kids, because even though we were just practicing, they know that this isn't just a fire drill," Fiske said. "It's a drill for when we have to keep the kids safe."

Children were frightened about intruders causing harm, so "we continue to always talk about that intruder" while letting them know there are other reasons to stay safely inside as a group.

"As we move forward through this, it has become something like [the routine of] a fire drill," he said. You've got to do this in this day and age."

Other measures are less visible to the children - teacher training, painting crosswalks on the busy parking lot, even two-way radios to keep playground supervisors, teachers and office staff in close touch.

"Those are probably some of the best tools we can have," Fiske said. "We have no cameras now and don't anticipate ever needing them."

The school is working on an emergency handbook that is practical and easily understood by everyone from regular staff to occasional substitutes who may have to respond in a crisis.

Whitefish School District is a recognized leader in the valley when it comes to crisis response.

Superintendent Jerry House brought the concept of a quick response team with him when he moved from Yakima, Wash., to take the Whitefish job four years ago. With Central School Assistant Principal Kerry Drown now at the helm of the Whitefish district's crisis-response team, teachers are trained and organized districtwide and at individual schools into response teams.

"We know we are not working in a vacuum," House said. "We invited police, fire, hospital, business leaders, the railroad and all kinds of agencies into our meetings," asking for their comments and letting them know the schools' layout and student and staff needs.

Safety and law officials got a school walk-through and a map to help access the building in case a gunman or intruder poses a threat.

Most recently, the district developed site evacuation agreements for North Valley Hospital, the O'Shaughnessy Center, City Hall, Roy Duff Memorial Armory and other large buildings to house students on short notice in case of emergency.

Now, the school is developing a peer support group.

"We had the critical incident response management side," he said. "We were missing the mental health side."

Every district in the valley has suffered tragedy in deaths" and other incidents, he said. "We do the counseling [to handle immediate reactions]. But when we think about mental health, how long does an incident stay with people? The grieving process can be long."

A recent crisis response training session brought together administrators and counselors from small and large schools across the Flathead. It was the first step to forming a larger safety net to help with immediate response needs in every district, regardless of that school's staffing.

"Some of the little districts across the Flathead have a very small staff," House said. "It's important that the whole valley share this process and information, so we're helping each other out.

"My vision is to have a Flathead Valley critical incident stress management team so the mental health side can be taken care of," he added. "We already can call in other counselors. But if we had a specific crisis, who do we call in as a designated team?

"The whole idea is we're here for kids, all of us across the valley. We want them to be as safe as possible."

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com