By Amber Jurgensen and Matt Mauney
Hillsborough County schools have taken extra precautions in the wake of the Dec. 14 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
All Hillsborough County schools, including those in the Plant City area, are operating under modified lockdown procedures, which started Dec. 17. Principals have been directed to keep all doors locked, including those into administrative offices.
Schools also have been directed to monitor who is coming onto campus and any outdoor activity, such as recess or physical education class, more closely. School resource officers, who are stationed permanently at all middle and high schools, also have been placed this week at all elementary schools.
“(This) was more about reassuring the students and parents,” Stephen Hegarty, communications officer for Hillsborough County Public Schools, said. “We didn’t expect anything to happen. After seeing what happened on Friday and the developments over the weekend, we wanted to assure parents and students that our schools are a safe place.”
In addition, counselors, psychologists and staff are available at each school.
The safety measures will last through the end of the week. The district is currently in discussions with local law enforcement officials regarding the resource officers, but they, too, likely will be gone from elementary schools by the end of the week.
Each resource officer’s salary is split between the school district and the officer’s agency. Currently, the district contracts with the Plant City Police Department, Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, Tampa Police Department and Temple Terrace Police Department. Hegarty said he did not know how many the district currently utilizes but that the district has allocated more than $4 million for resource officers for the 2012-13 school year.
Sgt. Christi Esquinaldo has been with the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office’s Schools Resources Section for two-and-one-half years and has spent 16 years total at the Sheriff’s Office.
Esquinaldo said having resource officers on campus “absolutely deters criminal activity from taking place,” adding that there have been instances during which guns, drugs and gang activity have been reported on campuses at middle and high schools.
Esquinaldo mentioned several programs that focus on keeping students safe. One program currently in development is the district’s site-profile program, which provides aerial photos and important phone numbers for every school to help first responders in the case of an emergency.
The Plant City Police Department also planned to increase its presence at area schools during the week and, hopefully, beyond, Sgt. Tray Towles said.
On the morning of Dec. 17, the patrol division received a memorandum to check all schools in their zones throughout the day, be present during the start and finish of the school day and fill out their paperwork in school parking lots.
“Visibility is a huge factor,” Towles said. “If you put more police there to be visible, it will be helpful to deter any activity.”
Currently, the school district does not have a set standard regarding safety precautions at each campus, Hegarty said.
“We have some (schools) that are 100 years old; some are very modern,” Hegarty said.
Parent Bart Borders, who has two children at Walden Lake Elementary and two at Plant City High, said he hopes the Hillsborough district increases security following the tragedy.
“All schools, elementary to high school, should have an armed officer as a resource on campus,” he said. “After what happened, it would be foolish not to.”
Many schools in Plant City have a buzzer system. Each visitor must be buzzed in at the school’s entrance and report to the main office. It’s a similar system to that of Sandy Hook Elementary.