Tightening school security

BY MARC LALONDE

marc.lalonde@transcontinental.ca

The Lester B. Pearson School Board’s new video-surveillance policy must be consistent across the entire board, the director of the board’s teachers’ union said last week.

The board is working on changes to its Safe School Policy that would equip schools with video-surveillance equipment to beef up security and keep a better eye on things. “There needs to be consistency across the board,” said Pearson Teachers Union president Serge Laurendeau. “I think it’s a good measure, but there needs to be a consistency where the measures are the same across the board.”

That includes limiting visitors’ access to schools, keeping closer tabs on who’s coming and going and keeping doors locked to outsiders, he added.

Most of the board’s elementary schools have double doors at the main entrance, which allow visitors to get in out of the elements before they have to be buzzed in a second set of doors to gain access to the school, but the board’s high schools can be accessed by almost anyone at multiple entrances. Laurendeau’s brief on behalf of the PTU concerning the changes outlined the concerns in a wider scope. “We want all doors except the main doors to be locked from the outside with an emergency bar on the inside so kids can get out in case of a fire or other emergency. We also want all visitors to schools to wear a badge and limit visitors’ free movements in schools. Cameras should be located in the hallways and main entrances. We really have to be concerned with how easily visitors roam freely in our schools,” Laurendeau said.

Safety concerns got their volume turned up last September when Kimveer Gill entered Dawson College with a gun and opened fire on students. That incident is still fresh in many minds. “For sure, we don’t want a repeat of the Dawson incident,” Laurendeau said.

Pearson commissioner John Killingbeck said the project’s funding will come from a $617,000 pool of surplus funds and schools will be encouraged to come up with their own plans for video surveillance and match funds coming from the board from their own surpluses, Killingbeck said. “The onus is on making the system school-friendly, because we’re encouraging the schools to match the funds they get from us. It’s a pretty expensive project,” he said, adding some schools have bigger concerns than others. Some schools only have two or three entrances, with maybe one or two available to the public, while others may have 13 or 14 different entrances, as some Pearson high schools do. “Some schools already even have systems in place, leaving them less to do,” he said.

Killingbeck said the Pearson project was actually planned prior to the Dawson shooting spree, but gained greater significance in its wake. “It was already in the planning stages by then, but it was a wake-up call for a lot of people,” he said.

At John Rennie High School in Pointe Claire, concerns raised after the Dawson shooting have resulted in teachers taking turns manning the front door, principal Nancy Sweer said. “Actually, the week the Dawson crisis occurred, we were talking about the fact that people can just walk right in to the school (through its main entrance),” she said. “After the Dawson incident, we put some additional safety measures in place for students and staff and we asked teachers to man the front door on free periods as a duty of supervision. We didn’t really think it was a permanent solution, because teachers aren’t really qualified to be security guards. We went back to each teacher and told them we wouldn’t ask them to do it, but most of them actually volunteered to man the front door. I myself have manned that post from time to time. That’s the kind of staff we have here. They care about the safety and security in the building.”

Sweer added the school has locked doors leading in from the rear parking lot that used to remain unlocked throughout the school day.

The new Pearson program is to be adopted formally at a council of commissioners meeting in March. For more information, check www.lbpsb.qc.ca.