School
security, chronic dilemma
State developing threat guide
Tuesday, February 14, 2006 • BY JOHN MOONEY •
Star-Ledger Staff
It usually starts with a phone call to
the school, warning of the unthinkable: a bomb in the
building.
Sometimes, a nervous or giggling voice on
the phone gives it away as a prank, just another kid who
wants to disrupt school. Other times, the details about the
supposed bomb's location or just the tone on the other end
of the line sound chillingly real.
Either way, the school's administration
must act fast.
"You come to see them as more a
disruption than as a threat, but you can't ignore them,"
said Montclair High School Principal Mel Katz. "And that's
why they are so effective. You don't want to be the one
principal who didn't act."
How school administrators respond to the
scores of bomb threats against New Jersey public schools
each year has proven a point of debate lately. Although the
vast majority of calls turn out to be hoaxes, not a single
administrator wants to be idle witness to the
exception.
Evacuations themselves can bring their
own problems as they have in Middletown and Montclair
recently.
There is no one answer on how to solve
the problem, and certainly not an easy one, officials said.
As part of a statewide review of security procedures in
virtually every school, state officials plan to put out new
guidelines to help districts handle bomb scares and other
potential security threats.
But the state guidelines will only be
recommendations.
"Each place is so unique, so complex,
that they need to tailor their plans with their local law
enforcement to match their specific situations," said Dennis
Quinn, an assistant to the state attorney general who has
overseen the school security review.
There are no hard numbers available as to
whether school bomb scares are on the rise in the state. In
the most recent statewide data available, there were 134
threats in 2002-2003 and 116 in 2003-2004.
Such data is notoriously underreported,
officials said, but the number of bomb scares appears well
short of the peak following the Columbine High School
shootings in April 1999.
Typically, bomb scares occur at high
schools, and students make the calls. If caught, a student
faces long-term suspension and charges of criminal mischief
and creating a false public alarm.
But bomb scares are also known to come in
spurts. There have been at least a dozen threats since the
fall in Middletown, where frustration came to a head last
month. A threat was received at Middletown High School North
during a rain storm, and 1,700 students were shepherded
outside in the cold to wait for the school to be
checked.
At least 100 of the students did not
return to class. Upon return to school, they were handed
five-day suspensions for disobeying procedures, prompting
further complaints and putting administrators on the
defensive.
"We have to make sure that everyone
follows the plan," said Assistant Superintendent Christopher
Halpin, who made the final call on the suspensions. "That's
our burden, to make sure that every child is accounted for
... No matter how many times it has happened before, you
can't assume this one won't count."
He conceded it is a tough task managing
so many students in such a situation, and he and his staff
are now fine-tuning the plan to at least make shelter
available to students who aren't well. Nevertheless, Halpin
said he won't think twice about evacuating again.
"We're not the experts on what's a
credible threat or not," he said. "The bottom line is if we
are going to protect them from something that could cause
them harm, they may have to stand in the rain."
Montclair High School had its own
evacuation glitch last month, when a group of students also
skipped school after being herded onto the nearby football
field.
Eleven were suspended for a day, and 30
more received after-school or Saturday detention, school
officials said.
But the school maybe sent its most
powerful message to the student body by tracing the caller
that same day. The caller was a friend of a student. He was
arrested and held on $50,000 bond on charges of making a
false public alarm.
"The biggest deterrence we have is quick
apprehension," said principal Katz.
In a statewide security review of every
school last year, prompted by the terrorist massacre at a
school in Beslan, Russia, in 2004, state officials learned
that there were not uniform policies for dealing with bomb
scares and other potential threats.
But law enforcement officials said they
are reluctant to apply a hard and fast rule on
evacuations.
"State Police will not say whether to
evacuate or not," said Quinn, of the attorney general's
office. "Even if you are getting a lot of the crank calls,
it remains your own decision."
It is hardly clearer in other states,
although experts say schools are getting better at weeding
out the obvious hoaxes.
"The majority of schools we have worked
with around the nation do not automatically evacuate on bomb
threat calls," said Kenneth Trump, a nationally recognized
consultant on school security as president of National
School Safety and Security Services in Cleveland.
"The common practice is make a report to
law enforcement and then evaluate the facts of each incident
on a case-by-case basis," he said. "The very general rule of
thumb is that the more details and specificity in the
threat, the more credible it is perceived to be."
Some law enforcement officials in the
state agree that not every threat may warrant a full
evacuation, especially if among a spate of calls.
But Woodbridge Police Lt. Thomas
Gennarelli, whose force has responded to at least three bomb
scares at Colonia High School this year, said he would never
tell a superintendent not to take every precaution he or she
felt necessary.
After all, with one of Colonia's last
bomb threats, the lieutenant said the school wasn't the only
place to be checked for danger.
"They evacuated the kids to the
bleachers, and we had to sweep that, too," he said. "Just to
be safe."
John Mooney covers education. He may be reached at
jmooney@starledger.com or (973) 392-1548.
© 2006 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with
permission.
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