As metro Atlanta children returned to school from the weekend Monday morning, many found campus security tighter in the wake of Friday’s Connecticut elementary school massacre.
In Gwinnett County, uniformed police officers were assigned to each of the county’s 132 public schools Monday, bolstering the school resource officers normally patroling campuses.
“In light of what happened in Newtown, Conn., people want to feel safe, their kids want to feel safe,” Gwinnett police Sgt. Brian Doan told Channel 2 Action News.
Camelia Calvert, a teacher at Gwinnett’s Shiloh Middle School, was dropping her third- and fourth-grader children off at nearby Shiloh Elementary School Monday morning.
“Most of our schools, all of the doors are pretty much locked except for the front doors,” Calvert told the AJC. “I think now, it’s something we’re going to look at – keeping all the doors locked.”
Some schools are already making plans to do just that.
The principal of DeKalb County’s Briarlake Elementary School e-mailed parents to let them know that teachers will now be required to lock their classrooms at all times, according to Channel 2.
In Clayton County, extra police patrols were planned, and parent volunteers were to be in the hallways.
“All of our schools are key-carded and you have to buzz to get into any of the schools, Clayton Schools spokesman David Waller told Channel 2.
Cherokee County sheriff’s Lt. Jay Baker said deputies “will be working with the Cherokee County School Police and other law enforcement agencies across the county to provide an increased presence at every Cherokee County school throughout this week.”
Baker said uniformed officers will be present as students arrive and depart the schools, and deputies will also increase patrolsa round schools throughout the day.
Calvert said her own children didn’t seem concerned about returning to school Monday.
“They didn’t really feel any fear,” she said. “I think they feel safe here.”
Jordan James, an 18-year-old freshman at the University of Georgia, brought his five-year-old brother, Jackson, to his kindergarten class at Shiloh Elementary Monday morning.
He said Jackson didn’t know about Friday’s shooting that left 20 children dead inside Connecticut’s Sandy Hook Elementary School.
“We’ve been shading him from seeing what’s going on,” Jordan James said.
As for himself, he said, “it made me fearful.”
“The fact that it was kids made it a surreal experience,” Jordan James said. “If it could happen at an elementary school, it could happen at a college.”
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