For Schools Heightened Alert Is New Norm

Parents of East Hampton High School students received an automated phone call yesterday morning informing them that the school had been evacuated after administrators discovered a threatening message scrawled on a bathroom mirror.

Although the school said the threat did not appear to be credible, police conducted a thorough search of the building. Around 10:45 a.m., conditions were deemed safe and students returned to class.

This was the district’s latest opportunity to put into action the security protocols it has been fine-tuning since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in December 2012.

Earlier this month, South Fork school administrators were on high alert after a Springs resident discharged a shotgun at his house and drove off with the gun in the car. A multi-jurisdictional manhunt ensued, with schools ordered to begin a lockout. No one was allowed to enter or exit school grounds until it ended, with the capture of the man, Valon Shoshi.

Jack Perna, superintendent of the Montauk School, went a step further. He promptly put his school on lockdown.

Lockdown is an added layer of precaution, when teachers and students are instructed to wait inside locked classrooms, away from windows, until the all-clear signal is heard. Mr. Perna used School Messenger, an emergency parent notification system that sends messages via email, text, and phone, to alert parents of the lockdown via text.

He then stood watch by the front door of the school until informed by the East Hampton Town police that the man had been taken into custody. Fifteen minutes later, he sent a second text to parents, informing them that the lockdown had been lifted.

Reflecting Monday on what he might do differently if it happened again, the superintendent said he’d likely wait a while longer to alert parents, hoping to avoid hysteria.

“I might hold off next time. It sounds terrible,” he said. “If, God forbid, there was a situation and the police were here, people who were panicked and coming to get their children, it could make matters worse. And it’s not like we are going to let them in anyway.”

Montauk School, like most local schools, now operates on a permanent state of heightened alert. Since September 2013, it requires that visitors be buzzed in at the front entrance not once, but twice. Motion-activated cameras stand at the ready. Mr. Perna, who has been the superintendent since 1995, is constantly balancing the need to protect his students and staff with the obligation to keep parents informed.

“These are their children. They should know what’s going on,” he said. “But what they need to know is that police have a plan and the plan works best without outside influences.”

Since the Oct. 3 manhunt, he and several other administrators have talked about what else they might have done, and might do in the future. While schools have held lockdown drills in the past (typically once or twice a year), this was their first real-life test.

Since the Sandy Hook shooting there have been at least 87 weapons-related incidents in schools, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, an antigun coalition run by Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City. The most recent incident happened on Friday when Jaylen Fryberg, a 15-year-old student at Marysville-Pilchuck High School in Washington State opened fire on five of his classmates before taking his own life.

Though schools have faced ramped-up security concerns ever since the shootings at Columbine High School in 1999, the Sandy Hook attack radically altered the landscape. South Fork districts, like others across the country, have since implemented rigorous defenses. Some have constructed new vestibules at front entrances, while others have ensured that classroom doors can be locked and that administrators, teachers, and visitors wear badges during school hours, for instant identification.

For Richard Burns, the East Hampton superintendent, the Oct. 3 incident proved an invaluable learning lesson, particularly insofar as communication is concerned. Mr. Burns was in constant contact with both town and village police that day, since East Hampton High School falls within East Hampton Town police jurisdiction while East Hampton Middle School and John M. Marshall Elementary School are under the protection of the East Hampton Village police.

Barring entry to outsiders proved especially relevant in East Hampton, since Mr. Shoshi, 28, had formerly worked as a paraprofessional in the district — and was, to many, a familiar face.

“I’m happy with the overall process and response in each of the buildings,” said Mr. Burns. Each principal was tasked with alerting parents via email. Since the day of the manhunt, said the superintendent, a few minor procedural changes have been put into place. Because of security concerns, he declined to elaborate.

“The incident helped make sure that all of our bases are covered,” said Mr. Burns. “We’re trying to question everything we do, and if we see a hole or a blip, we immediately work to correct it.”

Adam Fine, the high school’s principal, was not in the building on Oct. 3. He and two other administrators were at a conference in Melville. That morning he received a call from Mr. Burns, informing him of the situation.

Police judged that there was no threat to the high school building, so a lockout was imposed, where students are still free to roam within the building, but no lockdown. Students turned quickly to their smartphones as rumors began to spread on Facebook and Twitter.

“We did a great job, considering, but I would have liked more communication to the student body to set their minds at ease,” said Mr. Fine on Tuesday. “In a lockout situation, you’re free to communicate.”

From his phone, he sent a Google alert to parents, telling them that a lockout had begun and then that it had been lifted.

“Our number-one priority is to worry about the kids in the school and then be able to send a message to families to set their minds at ease,” said Mr. Fine. “It ended up being a great exercise as a district. No one was in jeopardy of getting hurt, and it was a great training to talk about what we can do better.”

Now in his 13th year as an administrator, he said the school conducts a lockdown drill twice each year. Following the Sandy Hook shooting, the principal himself completed an active-shooter training course with the town police. He urges other school administrators to consider taking the all-day course.

Besides the worry of unknown outside threats, Mr. Fine and others on his staff spend a lot of time focusing on what they can control — students’ mental health. “With most of these shooters, you start seeing patterns of mental illness that went for years unchecked and how it all ties together,” said Mr. Fine. During the more than 50 principal-parent breakfasts he has convened, he said that 90 percent of the questions he has fielded concern issues not of academics, but of students and their well-being.

Though the Ross School, Springs School, Bridgehampton School, and Amagansett School also went on lockout, police did not instruct the Wainscott School to follow a similar procedure. “We didn’t hear about the situation until later on. The person in question [Mr. Shoshi] was headed east,” said Stuart Rachlin, the district’s superintendent. “I guess there was a sense that we were out of harm’s way.”

Mr. Rachlin, an educator with more than 40 years of experience, has also witnessed a changed landscape where school security is concerned. The Wainscott School has implemented several changes in recent years, including more alarms, closed-circuit cameras, a secured front entrance, and a special notification system for anyone (including the physical education teacher) who leaves the building with students. Even parents who stop by during the day are routinely greeted and questioned.

No longer is anyone permitted on school grounds, unless it is after-hours. While in past years local residents with young children might visit the school playground during the day, they are now asked to come back after students have been dismissed.

“You don’t want to be alarmist, but it’s difficult to balance a sense of community and family while at the same time creating a safe environment that can quickly become more of a police state than not,” said Mr. Rachlin.