GREENFIELD — It was the day after the shooting in Parkland, Florida. A crisp, cold February morning.
She’d shooed her kids out to the bus stop, the same way she had every other day; but this time with an extra twinge of worry, as the events of the day before weighed on her mind. She hid her fear to keep them calm, waved them out the door, and then headed back inside to get ready for work.
The tap on her shoulder a few minutes later made her jump, and in her surprise she criticized her 12-year-old. What are you doing, she asked? What if you miss the bus?
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Mom, the child responded, I just wanted to come give you one more hug because if there was a shooting at school today I might not see you again.
That was one of the first times Ashlee Burke, of Greenfield, realized her kids were just as scared as she was, just as worried about whether they’d all come home safe at the end of the day.
Tired of worrying about the security at their kids’ schools, Burke and a handful of other moms from Greenfield-Central Schools are now rallying together, hoping they can convince the district to put metal detectors at the entrances to its eight school buildings.
They’re planning a demonstration at the next Greenfield-Central School Board meeting — scheduled for 7 p.m. June 11 in the Greenfield Central Junior High School cafeteria, 1440 N. Franklin St. — where they’ll speak to the board and present the cost estimates and information they’ve gathered about metal detectors.
They’re asking that parents who support their mission come to the meeting with their children in tow, carrying signs with the hashtag #ifidieinaschoolshooting — an echo of an online campaign that’s gone viral in recent weeks as kids share their thoughts about mortality.
They don’t claim to be experts in school security, and they don’t want to start a gun-control debate, said Lauren Andrews, another G-C mom leading the charge. They’re just ready to admit their fears and fight — as any parents would — to ensure their child’s safety.
“I can’t teach other people how to parent,” Andrews said. “I can’t know what Sally and Joe do in their home or if they lock up their guns. (Security) at the front door … is our best bet.”
Starting a conversation
Burke and Andrews are both Greenfield-Central High School graduates, who decided to raise their families in Greenfield because the safe, suburban feel, they said.
They admit they’d fallen into the same patterns so many others do: they’d hear the news of a shooting, and they’d talk about it with friends and family; they’d post their thoughts and prayers online, and take what little comfort they could find in the fact that the terror was far away — not in Greenfield, not in Hancock County.
But the events at Noblesville West Middle School — where last week a 13-year-old shot and injured a teacher and a classmate — brought the issue too close to home, Burke said.
And Greenfield-Central Schools had already had a few concerning threats in the last school year that were weighing heavily in their minds, Andrews added.
At least four times in the 2017-18 school year, parents were warned that a threat of gun violence had come to the attention of Greenfield-Central Schools’ administrators.
In November, security was heightened at Greenfield-Central High School after a student posted on Instagram that he was going to “shoot up” the school.
Then, in January, three high school students were arrested after a Snapchat video showed them sitting in a car in the school parking lot as one of them pointed a handgun toward the building, his finger on the trigger. The high school was placed on a brief lockdown that day.
In March, a Greenfield Intermediate School student found a handwritten note from a classmate that said: “I am shooting up the school today. This is not a joke. Try and find me. I have a gun in my locker.” The gun referenced in the note was not found, and a thorough search of the boy’s home didn’t turn up any weapons, according to police.
Then again, in April, there was an extra police presence at Greenfield Central Junior High School as a precaution after a bullied student threatened to harm his classmates. The child had no access to weapons; and the threat that was made was not toward the school but individuals off of school property, police said.
Coupled together, these incidents in Greenfield and the shooting in Nobelsville prompted Andrews and Burke to act, they said. They wanted to do something to give themselves and other parents peace of mind about sending their kids off to school every morning.
Adding metal detectors at the main entrances of each building seemed like the best option, they said.
So, they started doing their homework.
Getting estimates
Burke and Andrews have reached out to several security companies to get estimates on what the cost and up-keep of metal detectors might be. They talked to leaders of schools in the area that already utilize the devices, and they’ve learned about some of the positives and negatives.
They’ve been working with the Milroy, Indiana-based Harcourt Outlines, which since 1956 has been selling school supplies to districts across Central Indiana, including Hancock County. Now, along with pencils, pens and pads of paper, the company sells metal detectors and other school security products, representative Mike Showalter said.
Showalter plans to appear before the Greenfield-Central School Board later this month with Burke and Andrews to discuss his company, their products and pricing models. The brand of metal detectors he’ll recommend is the same brand used in Chicago Public Schools, he said.
Burke and Andrews would like to see a metal detector put at the front door of each school building and any door students enter through at the start of the day. Given the layout and traffic flow of each school, they believe 50 devices will get the additional security they desire.
That’ll come at a cost of about $150,000, which shakes out to about $33 per pupil, according to Harcourt Outlines’ price estimates. Greenfield-Central Schools has just more than 4,500 students enrolled in the district, according to the Indiana Department of Education.
Less expensive options are available, Andrews said.
As a comparison, the Hancock County Sheriff’s Department paid $21,000 to put one metal detector and an X-ray machine at the entrance to the Hancock County Courthouse in 2016.
Andrews and Burke said they don’t plan on asking for the school district — or taxpayers — to foot the bill for the metal detectors. They’re willing to take the lead on any fundraising effort to bring their plan to reality.
They recognize other security or safety measures — like requiring students to use clear backpacks, hiring additional school resource officers or adding bullying-prevention and counseling programs — might also be beneficial. Metal detectors are just where they’ve decided to focus their attention, they said.
And they hope the school board members are willing to share their own thoughts and opinions.
“This may not be the answer … but the discussion at least needs to be started,” Burke said.
Greenfield-Central Superintendent Harold Olin had not returned a request for comment at press time.
The debate over metal detectors
The argument over best school-security practices often focuses on the design of a building, according to The Associated Press; and the use of metal detectors often comes up in the debate.
Focusing security solely on exits and entrances can create a host of issues, Gregory Shaffer, a security consultant and retired FBI agent, told the AP recently. Having metal detectors at the entrance creates long lines, which means schools have to start earlier and hire more staff to screen students.
“And if you have long lines going into the school, that makes it a target as well. That is a shooter’s ideal location,” he said, according to AP reports.
But after the 9/11 terror attacks, the United States took steps to secure government and public buildings — from airports to concert halls. It’s routine now to go through a metal detector before entering. Yet those same steps aren’t common in public schools, David Chipman — formerly of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and now a senior policy adviser with the gun safety organization founded by former Rep. Gabby Giffords, who was gravely wounded in a shooting in 2012 — said in an interview with the AP.
“There are some places that we’ve decided as a nation that we will not allow violence to ever occur,” Chipman said. “But school is not one of them yet.”
Andrews told the Daily Reporter she’s gotten push-back online from acquaintances who are against metal detectors in schools. Those folks worry, she said, that kids will be afraid of to come to the building every day.
But metal detectors are commonplace nowadays, she argued. Even at Disney World, which is often called the “happiest place on earth,” families have to pass through metal detectors before entering, she pointed out.
Children are used to it, she said. And they’re already afraid to go to school, she added.
A child’s perspective
Sitting around Burke’s kitchen table this week, putting together the posters they plan to carry at the upcoming school board meeting, Burke’s and Andrews’ kids opened up about their own worries.
And what they had to say brought tears their mothers’ eyes — and renewed their determination.
For these kids at least, having metal detectors in their school buildings will bring a feeling of safety.
“If I go to school in the morning and I have to go through a metal detector, I’ll go in knowing I’ll go home alive,” said 12-year-old Daisy Fletcher, Andrews’ daughter.
Rylee Burke, Ashlee Burke’s 12-year-old daughter, said she worries that her classmates don’t take the “intruder trainings” they have occasionally at school seriously. The students are taught to huddle in a corner of their classroom, turn the lights off and wait for the all-clear, she said. If someone comes into their classroom, they’re supposed to throw things at the person and try to run away.
Rylee has told her mother that, if a shooting where to happen at her school, she hopes she’s in gym class or at recess because those are the easiest places to scatter.
“In sixth grade, I was worried about if my crush would find out that I liked him — not where I was going to scatter (during a school shooting),” Ashlee Burke said of her daughter’s comment.
Andrews’ son, Dylan Fletcher, 11, said whenever his school has an intruder training, he does take it seriously, and he comes up with a plan for what he’d do if a shooter came into whichever classroom he’s in at the time. If its art class, he’d get scissors to throw, he said. If he’s on the school’s second floor, maybe he could break a window and jump out.
“We’re going to fix this,” Andrews said as she wrapped her arms around her son. “We’re gonna fix it.”
[sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”If you go” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
What: Greenfield-Central School Board’s next monthly meeting
When: 7 p.m. June 11
Where: Greenfield Central Junior High School cafeteria, 1440 N. Franklin St.
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