Login | January 21, 2025
Ohio schools try security tactics on tight budgets
Butler County deputy Matt Maxwell stands in the hall as students at Edgewood High School head for their next class, Wednesday, March 27, 2013, in Trenton, Ohio. The veteran deputy drops in daily, unscheduled, at the schools in his southwest Ohio patrol area, one of the post-Sandy Hook initiatives being tried to add security to schools in an era of tightened budgets for both schools and police agencies. (AP Photo/Al Behrman)
DAN SEWELL
Associated Press
Published: April 12, 2013
TRENTON, Ohio (AP) — Clad in a dark uniform, a loaded revolver on his hip, Matt Maxwell gets noticed immediately when he strides down the Edgewood High School hallway. And that's just the reaction he wants.
The tall, stocky Butler County deputy drops in every day, unannounced, at the schools in his southwest Ohio patrol area. The surprise visits are one of the tactics being tried in schools since the deadly Connecticut school shootings and amid tight school and police budgets.
Sheriff Richard Jones started "Operation Safe Schools" last month, reasoning that while he doesn't have enough officers to be at every school, knowing that one could pop in at any time could deter someone planning violence.
"They have no clue when we're going to be here," Maxwell said. "If, God forbid, something is happening, we have everything we need to stop it. We are prepared to do whatever we have to do to protect these kids."
Schools across Ohio are trying to stretch resources to make schools safer, taking a variety of steps to restrict access to school buildings, increase monitoring, and provide more training on how to respond to violence.
The National Rifle Association last week promoted a study to train selected staff members to carry weapons and have at least one armed security officer in every school. President Barack Obama returned to Connecticut on Monday, four months after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting rampage that killed 20 first-graders and six staffers, to promote gun control legislation.
"I don't think there is a general consensus at this point," said Damon Asbury, director of legislative services for the Ohio School Boards Association. "There seem to be two different directions: one focusing on people issues, such as more psychologists and mental health professionals in the schools and community, and the other focusing on arming personnel, improving building security via cameras or limiting access."
Patricia Frost-Brooks, president of the Ohio Education Association, which represents teachers and school staffers, said everyone agrees on making schools safer, but not on how to do it. Teacher groups are wary of talk of arming school staff.
"We're the education leaders. We don't want to be Annie Oakley and Wyatt Earp," she said. "We really need to work together to find some commonsense solutions on how to prevent gun violence instead of just reacting to it."
She and other education officials say many schools in these years of reduced state funding and declining property tax revenues have cut staff, such as guidance counselors, psychologists and nurses, who could help identify and work with students who have personal problems.
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine has been offering educators a training course that focuses on recognizing the signs of potential problems and sharing information and on how to respond to an active shooter in the school. More than 3,400 have trained so far.
His office also has produced a video that will be sent to all school districts for in-house training programs.
"It's a delicate situation. Every school is really working through that," DeWine said of security.
He has said that if he were on a school board, he'd look into adding armed police as Jamestown Schools did recently. But those are local decisions, he said, and noted that some districts don't have the funding available.
In recent years, some schools also curtailed the use of School Resource Officers — police assigned to schools who are usually involved in anti-drug or other education-related efforts while also providing security.
Kari Parsons, executive director of the Ohio School Resource Officers Association, said interest in having more officers has surged since the Dec. 14 attack at Sandy Hook and the shootings at Chardon High School that killed three students.
"Every time there is a tragedy, we have an increase in our membership," she said.
She estimates Ohio schools have 750 resource officers — the state has 613 public school districts, most with multiple buildings. She said nearly all the officers are stationed in high schools or middle schools.
"Until Sandy Hook, who even thought about elementary schools?" she asked.
She said the officers can be positive role models for students besides helping prevent bullying, drugs and other problems.
Edgewood Schools recently added a second resource officer, at a cost of $34,000 a year. It's also among many schools across the state, such as Northridge in the Dayton area and Upper Arlington in suburban Columbus, that have increased monitoring over building access. Video cameras and buzzers, along with questioning from school staff, are becoming common.
Edgewood High Principal Russ Fussnecker said visitors must be buzzed in and surrender a driver's license or other photo identification while in the school.
"I think we feel a lot safer," said Hannah Caudill, a 15-year-old student.
Maxwell squeezed his 6-1, 240-pound frame into a chair to chat with girls around a cafeteria table, then moved on to a table full of boys.
Caudill and friend Miranda Brummett, 14, said they'd rather have the police visits and the other security measures than have guns in the school for the staff's use. The girls said students might overpower a teacher to get the gun, or a panicked staffer might fire it unnecessarily.
"It's too risky," Caudill said.
Maxwell, a law enforcement officer since 1991, said he's never seen any major problems at the local schools but the Sandy Hook shootings of first-graders signaled that violence could break out anywhere.
"If it can happen there, it can happen anywhere," Maxwell said. "That's why we're here."