Derby Officials Explain School Security Efforts

Derby School Superintendent Matthew Conway told an audience of parents and teachers Monday that the shocking murders of 20 first-graders and six educators in Newtown in December has ushered in a ​“new day” of tightened school security.

“No longer can you walk up to a school building unannounced and go to your child’s classroom,” Conway said at a community forum March 25 on new school security measures initiated in response to the Newtown tragedy.

The forum was scheduled to inform parents and other concerned city residents what steps were being taken, and to allow members of the public to ask questions and share ideas with a panel of officials responsible for implementing the safety precautions.

The recently proposed Derby education budget contains a line item calling for up to $200,000 to be spent on security enhancements.

The panel included Mayor Anthony Staffieri, Fire Chief Tom Lenart Jr., George Kurtyka, chairman of the Board of Education’s School Safety Committee, and other officials, but most of the information was presented by Police Chief Gerald Narowski, who described the various physical and procedural improvements the city had implemented or was planning to make.

The improvements and new procedures affect St. Mary-St. Michael Catholic School as well as the four public school buildings, he said.

Narowski told the audience in the auditorium at Derby High School that he was sorry for being deliberately vague about many of the details, but their effectiveness might depend on keeping it a secret.

Derby’s forum took place exactly 100 days after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

In an interview after the event, Conway said many of the security measures being taken in Derby are the same as those in other communities, because the different municipalities and school districts have been sharing ideas and receiving the same advice from state and national sources.

In response to a forum question, he said Derby would probably receive some financial aid to help pay for the improvements, but no one knows yet how much. Congress has appropriated funding, but federal officials are still developing the formula for allocating it, and the state Legislature wouldn’t vote on its assistance funding package until April or May, he said.
Narowski said Derby’s improvements included constructing reception vestibules in each school to receive visitors and check their identifications before admitting them to the buildings.

New locks, alarms, security glass, surveillance cameras, lighting and communication equipment were either already installed, on order or in the planning stages.

Narowski said the city plans to install special locks to secure classroom doors in case of an emergency, and all school staff personnel now are required to carry electronic key cards for new card locks that have been installed.

Derby police officers are also getting special training to respond to incidents like Sandy Hook. Narowski said the officers train in schools with police from nearby towns, so that in case of an emergency they could provide mutual aid.

He said officers now make random stops at schools throughout the day to increase the police presence at the buildings.

The husband of a classroom paraprofessional said his wife’s anxiety level had declined considerably since she noticed the heightened police presence.

Few of the people attending the forum had questions or comments. Conway said that was because Derby waited to hold the forum until many of the new measures had been already implemented.

He told the parents that he would keep them informed as new security measures were completed, and he promised that parents would be notified in advance when schools scheduled a lockdown drill.

City officials assured the forum audience that they would do whatever was needed, but they were also cautious about creating needless anxiety among students.

“We’ll do everything that is necessary,” promised Staffieri, ​“but we don’t want to make schools seem like a prison.”

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