From the Newtown shootings to the Boston bombings, security on school campuses has been a major concern.
Upper School Director Andy King said, “Security has always been a consideration, but obviously with what has recently happened in a place like Sandy Hook Elementary, a lot of people are thinking differently about school security.”
Currently, each classroom is supposed to have an Emergency/Crisis Handbook. Handbook topics cover procedures for almost any emergencies that can occur on campus, and have occurred elsewhere. These include hostage situations, nuclear emergencies, bomb threats, kidnappings, and weapons on campus.
History teacher John Van Leer, who is in his 38th year teaching at Hackley, said “that it is very important for students and staff members to be aware of the handbook because emergencies that are described in the book have occurred at Hackley in the past.”
He said, “there was once a bomb scare as well as an employee who barricaded himself in his office with a firearm.”
However, these handbooks are missing from many classrooms.
Students like Senior Bryan Yu, who is in his eighth year at Hackley, are “unaware that the handbook exists, where it is located, or what is inside of it.”
Not one out of four teachers asked was able to find the Handbook in his or her classroom. Upper School assistant, Claudia Coy, had her Handbook close at hand. She said that her first move in response to a bomb threat would be to make Headmaster Walter Johnson and Upper School Director Andy King aware of the threat.
“Then, if they inform me to call 911, I will or if I cant find them I will definitely call 911 right away. I will then also let security know about the bomb threat as well,” she said.
Ms. Coy was able to list three out of the five most important procedures, which are to call 911, to notify the headmaster, to inform security, to remove students from the building, and to not touch anything that could be or set off the bomb.
In the case of the death of a student or staff member, Upper School librarian, Jackson Blossom, responded that he would “call 911, get help, quickly inform others, and perform CPR if necessary.”
“Not every teacher has an emergency handbook in their classroom. When the library was built some of the procedures were supposed to have changed, but this hasn’t happened yet,” said English teacher Raegan Russell, who teaches in Raymond. This would explain why Mr. Blossom and other teachers in Goodhue are not aware of the specific people to call. History teacher John Van Leer’s classroom is in Goodhue, and even though every classroom is supposed to have an emergency handbook, his classroom does not have one.
Upper School director, Andy King, says that “Hackley is in the midst of a pretty thorough security review, and that the whole handbook is going to be reevaluated because some of the information, such as a few of the emergency phone numbers, need to be updated.”
Ms. Coy believes that students can be made more aware of the emergency handbook and its procedures during “assemblies or grade meetings.”
One Hackley student anonymously asked, “What is the need for the emergency handbooks? The emergencies in the book are so extreme.” A question that has arose on campus is what would Hackley do if massacres like these were to happen here? Good news is that all classrooms are required to have a crisis handbook; bad news is that not all teachers have thoroughly read the handbook and most students do not know that it exists.
Hackley therefore has some difficult conversations ahead about what security is going to mean and look like in the upcoming years.
