By Alok Ganguly
P.R. Manager
Security at Westford Academy has changed over the past few years, due to the increasing amount of horrendous events at schools across the country. The security committee, led by dean Bob Ware, has been working together with Justin Agraz, the Student Resource Officer at WA, and other management for Westford Public Schools to create new policies and implement them in the coming years.
The security team has been working with security agencies like STARS (School Threat and Response Systems) and NEMLEC (the North Eastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council). These agencies are essentially giving advice on the new policies that will eventually be installed here at WA, including what students and faculty should do in a crisis.
Last year, as reported by the Ghostwriter in this article, teachers were trained in a new lockdown procedure called ALICE. Enforcing policies like ALICE in schools during a situation where lockdown is necessary will provide students and staff with vital information necessary for them to survive. The teachers were put into lockdown situations, and were given a brief introduction on what actions they would be able to take during a situation where lockdown procedures would be necessary.
“ALICE is moving beyond the lockdown. ALICE is giving the students important information to students and the people involved to make critical decisions that could mean survival in a crisis, whether it be to secure in place, evacuate, or even confront. There’s a lot that goes on but we are giving the students and staff more tools to make decisions.” said Ware.
Under ALICE, if a shooter or other hostile personnel are able to enter the building, the school will be placed under lockdown, just as before. However, someone such as Ware or Principal James Antonelli would turn on the loudspeaker, and would potentially give the location or general direction of the shooter. When students and staff hear this information, they will become more informed, which will be critical for their survival. For example, if the shooter was described to be in a specific section of the building, those in the opposite end of the building would know they would be safe, and could potentially escape danger.
In order to provide this necessary information to students, new technology must be implemented within the school. This would include the placement of security cameras around the building, and giving keycards to staff members in order to access specific areas or rooms in the building. According to Agraz, these changes are on a list of improvements that he hopes will be included in the building in the next coming years. Obviously, technological implementations like the cameras would take a longer amount of time, since they need to be installed.
Currently, security at WA is a mystery for students. While the buzzer used to enter the building and the SRO are obvious, there are other security precautions that students do not know about.
“Also at the present time, we have two way radios in the offices of all schools, where we can communicate with each other, and also directly with the police and fire departments,” said Superintendent of Schools Bill Olsen.
Lots of other changes are also in the work-in-progress stage, with one of the major hinderances being the cost of these new changes. Agraz mentioned that the collaboration between the security teams for both the town and for WA has been very good, and that everyone is looking forward to making sure these changes are kept in place to make WA a more secure area in a time of crisis.
“We are fortunate enough where there is a collective effort between law enforcement agencies, who make recommendations to move beyond what we have right now,” said Agraz.
Other recent events, like the recent killing of Colleen Ritzer, an algebra teacher, have not had any affect on the plans for the security changes in WA. The level of alertness in security will not be lowered during or after school hours, according to Ware.
“We are going to continue to stay on the forefront of keeping our students and staff safe. We want to continue to be on the forefront of identifying kids in our district that might have potential concerns, and we want to connect with these kids and connect these kids to the right adults so they have people they can talk to so we can help the case get better. We want to continue to have our phones and doors open if any staff has any concerns that they need to share regarding a student. We want to get every kid in this district the right help so that things like this do not happen in Westford,” said Ware.
Administration hopes that the security measures that are planned on being added will be successful and implemented soon.
“We definitely want to know who is around our buildings, and in our buildings at any time, because if an intruder gets access to the building, we need the police department to know to the greatest extent possible where the intruder is in the building,” said Olsen.
