Back to School in South Florida – Is it Safe?

As the new school year begins in South Florida practically six months to the day after the shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, it’s no surprise that a cloud of safety uncertainty continues to hover over schools. Some sense of insecurity could linger for years following that tragic Feb. 14 in 2018.

 

Swirling in the wake of the shooting are reverberations that bring both cause for concern and reason for hope. They range from parents’ continuing apprehensions and outcries that not enough is being done about protecting students, to uplifting victim-support outreaches like the Broward Education Foundation’s GoFundMe campaign, which recently culminated with nearly $10 million in donations from almost 37,000 people.

 

They range from a homeschooled high school senior’s controversial allegations that the district is sitting on $100 million approved for school safety four years ago, to tangible results like the school board’s creation of an Armed Safe School Officer position and the hiring of an independent security firm.

 

And, of course, there is the spectrum of responses to MSD students themselves. Weapons-rights advocates are sticking to their guns as the students’ efforts continue to draw acclaim, such as the comment recently offered by President Bill Clinton at a Broward Center appearance.

 

“The Stoneman Douglas students have done something I could never do as president,” he said, “and that’s make people want to vote for people who support sensible gun legislation.”

 

The voices of these high schoolers have been heard loud and clear. But what are the feelings of younger students and their parents? Kids in elementary school are perhaps more vulnerable and most likely don’t fully comprehend the issues or even the danger.

 

“The hardest thing for a parent is to leave your kids somewhere without you. You expect that place to be safe,” says Sara Rogger, one of three moms and a teacher of young students who recently spoke with us, expressing concerns that ranged from guarded optimism to outright anxiety about the safety of kids returning to school this month.

 

SARA ROGGER, a database manager for the Broward Public Library Foundation, has four children. Among them is a daughter in fifth grade and a son in first grade at Croissant Park Elementary in Fort Lauderdale.

 

WHAT WAS THE REACTION OF YOUR KIDS AFTER THE SHOOTING?

It’s hard to have a conversation with kids at that age. It was basically a conversation every morning dropping them off: Just make sure if you hear something, say something. It’s not tattling on anybody, you have to make the teachers and administrators aware.

 

They had numerous drills afterward. The first couple of weeks, my daughter did not want to go to school. She was very nervous. I was nervous myself and I kept them home for a couple of days afterward because my mind was just in shambles over it.

 

My son’s big thing was the teachers pushing on him that if you hear something or see something, say something.

 

DO YOU FEEL SECURE IN SENDING YOUR KIDS BACK TO SCHOOL?

I went to a couple of the security meetings held by the School Board and the school. It makes me feel better knowing that their school is updating a lot of the security cameras, putting in a new system. They’re talking about replacing the windows and making one point of entry for the school, and they plan on having all that done by the time the kids go back to school, which helps. But I’m never gonna feel completely comfortable with it. It’s just so easy for people to get on campus nowadays.

 

DO YOU FEEL ENOUGH IS BEING DONE TO PROTECT STUDENTS?

I feel like a lot of these things should have been in place by now. It’s unfortunate it takes something like this to happen for them to make a safer place for our children. If all or at least some of the security measures are put in place by the time they go back to school, I absolutely do feel like they’ll be safer.

 

SHARI HOFFMAN is a sales person for Weatherby Healthcare and the mother of a fourth-grader at Riverside Elementary in Coral Springs, as well as a 16-year-old high-schooler at J.P. Taravella.

 

WHAT WAS THE REACTION OF YOUR KIDS AFTER THE SHOOTING?

Riverside is about six miles from Douglas. It’s a neighboring school. My niece is a senior there. She was one of the first kids who ran out of the school when the alarm went off and she continued running.

 

It was all very close to home for my younger son. I think once he realized it, he was a little upset. But he doesn’t seem scared or stressed. I don’t think he understands the full scope of it. I immediately ordered bulletproof backpacks for my kids, and my little one and I did a couple of drills. I showed him how to put the bag to shield himself. I don’t normally freak out but I just felt like I needed to do something. I feel like there’s no security. I mean if somebody walks in the front door with a gun, there’s nothing stopping him.

 

DO YOU FEEL SECURE IN SENDING YOUR KIDS BACK TO SCHOOL?

No. I work in east Fort Lauderdale, and through the end of the school year, every day I had anxiety driving to work. The further from my house I got, the more ill I was feeling. When everything happened, my son was in aftercare at school, and to be honest with you, I think the aftercare situation scared me even more because the school resource officers are not there during aftercare.

 

There’s a little bit less of a threat at the elementary schools because the students themselves become more of a threat in a high school, and you’re not going to have that many young kids who are going to try to bring in guns, obviously. But if there’s a crazy person that just wants to go into the school and start shooting, I really don’t feel like there’s any protection. I really don’t feel safe.

 

SO, YOU DON’T FEEL ENOUGH IS BEING DONE TO PROTECT STUDENTS?

No, I don’t. They’re talking about a plan. There’s a police officer on campus but they’re not checking the bags, there’s no metal detectors, no bullet-proof glass. Yes, you have to come in the front, but you can jump a fence and get into the schools — there’s no barbed wire.

 

I think they need a couple of resource officers at each school. They need to secure the outside perimeters. The high schools probably need a double fence. The elementary schools have these little fences — anyone can get into the playgrounds and right into the schools. All of our schools are open. They’re not closed-in schools. They should have some kind of bulletproof glass in the front office if that’s the single point of entry. If not, they need to have one of the resource officers stationed in the front office. And I really believe every school should have metal detectors.

 

They should have better gun control, but even if the laws get passed, it’s not going to be an immediate fix. It’s going to be years until they’re able to minimize all the guns out there. You go into a courthouse, any government building, and they have all kinds of security. But schools, where you have helpless children, there’s so little security.

 

And I don’t think the solution is arming teachers. I think that’s the most ridiculous idea in the world.

 

JUDITH ARRIETA works with 3- to 6-year-olds at Montessori Learning Land Child Care in Pompano Beach. She has an older daughter and a son, who is a senior at Douglas.

 

WHAT WAS THE ERACTION OF YOUR KIDS AFTER THE SHOOTING?

My son jumped over the school fence and ran home with four friends, leaving his car behind. In shock they watched the events unfolding on live TV.

 

DO YOU FEEL SECURE IN SENDING YOUR KIDS BACK TO SCHOOL?

I don’t feel 100% secure, but I have to accept that authorities and the school are doing their best to keep our kids safe. I feel it’s safe but there’s always something in the back of your head.

 

DO YOU FEEL ENOUGH IS BEING DONE TO PROTECT STUDENTS?

Not enough. Definitely stronger gun-control laws would make a big difference..

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KATIE SOLI of Coral Springs has two preschoolers in First United Methodist and second- and fourth-graders in Park Springs Elementary.

 

WHAT WAS THE REACTION OF YOUR KIDS AFTER THE SHOOTING?

We tried to keep it from them as long as possible. My 7-year-old didn’t really understand at all. She knew that there were a lot of mommies and daddies that were really sad. But my 9-year-old understood, and for the first few days she was worried about going back to school. So we kept them home.

 

We’re just seven minutes away from the high school. And where my oldest kids went to preschool is right across from there. It’s really close to home. We went to the memorial. We talk about the 17 people and their families a lot. So my 9-year-old is pretty empathetic and she thinks about them and what they could be doing. Nicholas [Dworet] really enjoyed swimming and Jaime [Guttenberg] loved to dance and my daughter loves dancing. So I think being so close, they feel really connected to it. They’re not afraid like the adults are. They don’t fear going to school like we worry about, but they do think about the kids a lot.

 

DO YOU FEEL SECURE IN SENDING YOUR KIDS BACK TO SCHOOL?

It’s like we should be very, very worried all the time. It doesn’t feel like as big a threat at the elementary level. We just have to keep telling them to be alert.

 

It amazes me how wonderful the teachers are. I feel very very confident in any of my kids’ teachers that they would do anything they could to protect my children. And that makes me feel good. Even if there’s nothing on the outside that has changed, I do feel very, very strongly that the teachers are heroic and would protect any of my kids and any of the kids in the class — and that is something pretty special.

 

DO YOU FEEL ENOUGH IS BEING DONE TO PROTECT STUDENTS?

It’s frustrating. I would like to see some more security at the doors. I’d like to see greater fences. I think the parents really are going to have to be the ones to mobilize and pay for change. I think that the PTOs need to mobilize, fundraise what they can, and put into place whatever their particular needs are at their schools.

 

There’s just a lot of great discussion about what we can do. Parents at our school have talked about: Can we fundraise for buzzers? Can we fundraise for additional staff to escort the children from class to class instead of the kids? The system at our school is that the kids are messengers, and if one kid has to go to the clinic two other students have to take him. That concerns me that there’s so many students out of class. And since it’s elementary school you don’t want them to feel like they’re locked-in like a prison. So we’ve talked about fundraising for an additional adult that could help them walk the students so they’re not just out and about. We’ve talked about buzzers for the front door to let people in or magnetic film for the windows.

 

I sometimes feel like when you start to bring up suggestions to add security measures, there’s pushback — mostly coming from other parents — saying that if there’s somebody that wants to harm anybody, they can get through those barriers. So it’s hard to get much accomplished.