By Ashley M. Casey
Staff Writer
Recent school shootings across the nation have pushed school districts in Central New York to review their safety and security practices. Administrators from the Baldwinsville Central School District outlined their plans to make security upgrades and keep tabs on students’ mental health in a public meeting held April 10.
“This is not something that Mr. McDonald and his administration will solve. This is nothing the school board will solve,” said Jeff Marier, president of the Baldwinsville Board of Education. “We all need to come together as a community and we need to hear the good ideas and figure out how to overcome this challenging situation.”
Marier said the school board fully supports the initiatives McDonald has laid out to improve the safety and security of B’ville students.
The district has been working with other agencies to strengthen its safety plan. B’ville school officials were joined at the meeting by Chief Mike Lefancheck of the Baldwinsville Police Department, Onondaga County Assistant District Attorney Jeremy Cali and Tom Czyz, CEO of Armoured One.
While much of the meeting focused on preventing shootings, McDonald emphasized that addressing school shootings is not the only aspect of a school safety plan.
“There could be a gas leak, an oil spill. It’s not just about an active shooter,” McDonald said.
Members of the public shared their questions and concerns at the meeting. McDonald said he would like to post the Q&A on the district’s website, but in the meantime, people can watch PAC-B’s recording of the school safety meeting at vimeo.com/channels/894339.
Read on for a look at some of the issues discussed at the safety meeting:
Mental health
Since taking the helm as superintendent in 2016, McDonald has made mental health a priority in the district. He formed a committee on mental health and substance abuse after the March 2016 suicide of Paige Bird, a 15-year-old Baker student.
At the beginning of this school year, B’ville schools began a partnership with Liberty Resources to provide counseling and crisis intervention to students at Ray Middle School, Durgee Junior High School and Baker High School.
The program is in great demand, McDonald said, adding that there is a waiting list for counseling at Baker. He said he would like to add one more Liberty Resources counselor each at Baker and Durgee and possibly add counselors at the elementary level.
Social engagement
The district is also taking into account the social health of its students.
McDonald said the district’s Positivity Project will expand from just the elementary levels to all grades. The Positivity Project is a character education program that focuses on a different positive character trait each month, such as respect, honesty and cooperation, the latter of which is April’s trait of the month.
“Kids are learning [these values] from kindergarten all the way through their educational career,” McDonald said. “It’s building.”
McDonald said students need activities to build friendships and combat social isolation. This is especially important at Ray because sixth-graders cannot join sports teams yet. He said students can propose new clubs and the district is working to help students develop these activities.
Beth Chetney, a ninth-grade English teacher at Durgee and president of the Baldwinsville Teachers Association, said students have expressed a need for more “kid community.”
To that end, Durgee students recently participated in InterFaith Works of CNY’s “Community Wide Dialogue to End Racism” program with kids from H.W. Smith Pre-K-8 School in the Syracuse City School District. Baker and Corcoran also do the program each year.
Chetney told parents at the meeting that teachers have become the “first responders” in spotting social and mental issues in children.
“We are on the lookout for hurting kids every day,” Chetney said. “When teachers reach out to you and say, ‘Hey, I’m worried’ or ‘Your kid seems like he’s struggling,’ we’re not trying to be a pain in the butt.”
Both McDonald and Chetney said B’ville teachers and staff work to protect students as they would their own families.
“I would want someone to lay down for my kid, and I would lay down for yours,” Chetney said.
Safety assessment and SROs
The BCSD contracts with the Baldwinsville Police Department and the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office to station two school resource officers in the district. BPD Officer Marty Knaul is the SRO for Baker, and Deputy Michael Nord is stationed at Durgee Junior High School.
Part of the district’s $4.31 million safety and security capital project will go toward hiring two more SROs: one to be stationed at Ray Middle School and one who will move among the elementary schools and serve as a team leader for the SROs.
McDonald said the SRO program is not just about putting a “tough guy” in the schools, but it is about providing students with another trusted adult who can help them through the difficult years of adolescence.
“You can hire any police officer and put them in a building, but it has to be the right police officer,” McDonald said. “I’m looking for a counselor, someone who can build a relationship of trust with the kids.”
McDonald said the school district has a “phenomenal” relationship with the Baldwinsville Police Department, and Chief Lefancheck concurred. He said he recently spoke with a fellow law enforcement officer who works elsewhere in New York state.
“Where they work there’s not that level of relationship between the school district at the superintendent and the chief level, and they were somewhat jealous of that,” Lefancheck said. “What the district is doing, and the partnership between all levels of law enforcement and the district — and really, I have to say led by the district — is far beyond what most districts across the state are at the point they’re at.”
Keeping kids safe
Lefancheck said his officers carry maps with the layout of each school and have access to the buildings, but as far as the logistics of law enforcement’s role in the school district’s safety, Lefancheck said the details of a 480-page safety assessment performed by Armoured One will not be released.
“It is not a public document, in my mind,” Lefancheck said.
Czyz said releasing the details of the district’s security weaknesses would expose the district to greater threats.
“Statistically, schools are very safe places. But what we’re seeing on the news is that active shooters are happening, and what we’re doing is equipping the schools with ways to slow down the bad guys and survive,” Czyz said.
Czyz and McDonald said active shooter training for students will be held in the fall. McDonald said the district would send home information about when the training will take place and what it entails, but the program would be optional.
“As scary as it is that our kids are going to have to face those facts, dealing with that stress and the stress inoculation of that fear could actually save their lives,” Czyz said. “Statistically, per the counselors and scientists, [preparedness] … takes that stress off of them and lets them focus on their day.”
