By Tom Marquardt
The Capital
Published: 10/22/2006
Excerpt:
When news broke in Pennsylvania that yet another deranged person had
entered a school to take the lives of innocent students, parents
wondered about the security of their children in Anne Arundel County
schools.
We wondered, too, and our news instinct prompted us to try to find an
answer. Could someone walk unchallenged into county schools?
On
Oct. 12, a dozen reporters fanned out into the community shortly after
school opened. That morning they checked the security at 56 county
elementary, middle and high schools.
The
reporters simply walked past warning signs asking visitors to sign in.
Some were stopped by observant school employees. But at 24 schools
reporters wandered freely for up to 20 minutes. Security tightened when
a warning from the central office told schools what we were doing. ...
... The intent of such techniques is to expose problems in a harmless way
so that corrective action can be taken before something bad happens.
The fact that the schools announced a series of security measures
shortly after our story leads me to believe that our schools are safer
today than on the day we did our test.
Bill
Mitchell of the Poynter Institute, a school for journalists, says,
"It's a matter of balancing the public service you can do and the
possible consequences. With someone unidentified, you always have the
potential for something to go wrong."
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