By JEFF MORRIS
A group of Increase Miller Elementary School parents spoke out at the two most recent Katonah-Lewisboro School Board meetings to request that a full-time school resource officer be assigned to IMES.
Parent remarks began at the Nov. 7 meeting with Barbara Aceta, who recounted the events that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012. She quoted a statement from the Connecticut Police Chiefs Association saying the actual elapsed time between dispatch and police entering the building was eight minutes and 38 seconds, while she noted the shooter fired 154 rounds and killed 20 children in four minutes.
“I certainly can’t imagine the regret of the district who did not have a dedicated SRO at that school that day, and do now,” she said.
Aceta added, “We have one SRO, who is phenomenal, but we have five schools.” She said an active shooter typically does not stop shooting unless and until being confronted, and an SRO at a school can be on scene in as little as 10 seconds.
Aceta was followed by two other parents who echoed her sentiments. They called attention to the panic that had occurred among parents the prior week when there was a school lockout, caused by a police manhunt for a suspect in a shooting in Somers. That suspect was later apprehended in Putnam Valley and charged in the triple shooting of his girlfriend and her two sons, one of whom died.
At the Nov. 21 board meeting, Aceta returned to repeat her request, and six more Increase Miller parents spoke in favor of a dedicated SRO for the school. One, Kristen Boginsky, recalled being a freshman at Virginia Tech and being on campus when there was a deadly mass shooting there in April 2007.
Agnes Petrocelli said while she did not believe the school was in danger during the Somers incident, it “highlighted the lack of dedicated police presence at Increase Miller.” She cited Yorktown schools with seven SROs, one for each school; Brewster with one in each of four schools; North Salem with a dedicated elementary SRO and one shared at their middle/high school; and Somers with four schools, each with an SRO, as well as “bullet-proof glass windows on its entire first floor.” She contrasted that with Katonah-Lewisboro having one SRO covering five schools, two of which are 20 minutes apart.
Joseph Stepancic called into question the IMES vision statement that mentions a safe learning environment, claiming without a dedicated SRO, the school was not safe. Olga Limniatis asked that the district perform a school safety assessment to look for security gaps, as she said was called for in the New York State Safe Schools Against Violence in Education (SAVE) Act. Lindsay Curtin asserted that the town of Lewisboro has approximately 6,000 households paying property taxes, and if the entire cost of an SRO were added to the school budget, it would add $83 per year per household, or $7 per month; she did not mention whether any schools other than IMES would get a dedicated officer. Danielle Burstein said there were “many parents who are interested in the same thing with the same request” who were not present, but “they’re all texting us.” Another parent, Angie Restrepo, also spoke in favor of a dedicated SRO.
Board president Julia Hadlock thanked everyone for coming and sharing their interest about the SRO, and said the board would be having conversations about it going forward.
Later in the meeting, trustee Rory Burke called the entire premise into question. “Is there a way that we can get some actual data around the effectiveness of an SRO at stopping shootings in school, and around the likelihood of any given student being shot in any given school?” asked Burke. “It seems infinitesimally small to me.” He said any evidence he has read suggests that the number of deaths in a building where there is an armed guard increases three-fold over there being nobody armed in that building. “What is the benefit of an SRO,” he asked, “Do they help or do they hurt?” He said everything they’d heard was “sort of hearsay,” and he would like to get some hard evidence.
Hadlock said it was an emotional and scary topic, and it was important to be empathetic when people have strong emotions. But, she said, “there is a lot of data actually that doesn’t support that an SRO actually creates a safer environment.” She said there was an opportunity to share that data with the community. “Like all things we do, it should be data supported,” said Burke.
Trustee Barbara Williams said she had gone down a rabbit hole asking the same questions after the prior meeting. She cited a 2021 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association that concluded there was no association between having an armed officer and the deterrence of violence; that an armed officer on the scene was the number one factor associated with increased casualties; and that prior research suggests many school shooters are actively suicidal, so an armed officer may be an incentive rather than a deterrent. “This is one study, and we can always look at more,” said Williams, who noted that she can understand where parents are coming from, as looking at a police officer “gives you that sense of security.”
Trustee Lorraine Gallagher pointed out the district is currently investing a lot of money in new security vestibules, and that the district also has “amazing greeters” with police or military backgrounds. Trustee Jon Poffenberger confirmed that greeters have those backgrounds, and suggested that they should be better promoted; Hadlock said within their security contract, they specify that greeters have police or military backgrounds.
Superintendent Ray Blanch commended the district for having a variety of components in place to keep all students and faculty as safe as possible, including strong restorative practices and mental health services. He repeated that research generally finds having an SRO in a mass shooting situation serves more of a containment function than preventative; he said the actions that some other districts took were illustrative of local decision-making reflective of particular times and places, and it is completely a local decision.
Trustee Bill Swertfager asked whether the district should actively publicize the safety and security elements that are in place; he suggested that information should be pushed out to the PTOs to counter any idea that the district is doing nothing; Hadlock said it could be useful to bring it up at parent council meetings. Burke cautioned that expressing whether the district is “weak” or “strong” in security could be a bad idea if brought out in the “broader media.”
Williams concluded the discussion, noting that she didn’t think most people realize what a “big deal” having the security vestibules at each building really is, as they are most commonly used at high risk targets such as embassies.
A group of Increase Miller Elementary School parents spoke out at the two most recent Katonah-Lewisboro School Board meetings to request that a full-time school resource officer be assigned to IMES.
Parent remarks began at the Nov. 7 meeting with Barbara Aceta, who recounted the events that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012. She quoted a statement from the Connecticut Police Chiefs Association saying the actual elapsed time between dispatch and police entering the building was eight minutes and 38 seconds, while she noted the shooter fired 154 rounds and killed 20 children in four minutes.
“I certainly can’t imagine the regret of the district who did not have a dedicated SRO at that school that day, and do now,” she said.
Aceta added, “We have one SRO, who is phenomenal, but we have five schools.” She said an active shooter typically does not stop shooting unless and until being confronted, and an SRO at a school can be on scene in as little as 10 seconds.
Aceta was followed by two other parents who echoed her sentiments. They called attention to the panic that had occurred among parents the prior week when there was a school lockout, caused by a police manhunt for a suspect in a shooting in Somers. That suspect was later apprehended in Putnam Valley and charged in the triple shooting of his girlfriend and her two sons, one of whom died.
At the Nov. 21 board meeting, Aceta returned to repeat her request, and six more Increase Miller parents spoke in favor of a dedicated SRO for the school. One, Kristen Boginsky, recalled being a freshman at Virginia Tech and being on campus when there was a deadly mass shooting there in April 2007.
Agnes Petrocelli said while she did not believe the school was in danger during the Somers incident, it “highlighted the lack of dedicated police presence at Increase Miller.” She cited Yorktown schools with seven SROs, one for each school; Brewster with one in each of four schools; North Salem with a dedicated elementary SRO and one shared at their middle/high school; and Somers with four schools, each with an SRO, as well as “bullet-proof glass windows on its entire first floor.” She contrasted that with Katonah-Lewisboro having one SRO covering five schools, two of which are 20 minutes apart.
Joseph Stepancic called into question the IMES vision statement that mentions a safe learning environment, claiming without a dedicated SRO, the school was not safe. Olga Limniatis asked that the district perform a school safety assessment to look for security gaps, as she said was called for in the New York State Safe Schools Against Violence in Education (SAVE) Act. Lindsay Curtin asserted that the town of Lewisboro has approximately 6,000 households paying property taxes, and if the entire cost of an SRO were added to the school budget, it would add $83 per year per household, or $7 per month; she did not mention whether any schools other than IMES would get a dedicated officer. Danielle Burstein said there were “many parents who are interested in the same thing with the same request” who were not present, but “they’re all texting us.” Another parent, Angie Restrepo, also spoke in favor of a dedicated SRO.
Board president Julia Hadlock thanked everyone for coming and sharing their interest about the SRO, and said the board would be having conversations about it going forward.
Later in the meeting, trustee Rory Burke called the entire premise into question. “Is there a way that we can get some actual data around the effectiveness of an SRO at stopping shootings in school, and around the likelihood of any given student being shot in any given school?” asked Burke. “It seems infinitesimally small to me.” He said any evidence he has read suggests that the number of deaths in a building where there is an armed guard increases three-fold over there being nobody armed in that building. “What is the benefit of an SRO,” he asked, “Do they help or do they hurt?” He said everything they’d heard was “sort of hearsay,” and he would like to get some hard evidence.
Hadlock said it was an emotional and scary topic, and it was important to be empathetic when people have strong emotions. But, she said, “there is a lot of data actually that doesn’t support that an SRO actually creates a safer environment.” She said there was an opportunity to share that data with the community. “Like all things we do, it should be data supported,” said Burke.
Assistant Superintendent for student support services, Alexandra Casabona, said she had gone down a rabbit hole asking the same questions after the prior meeting. She cited a 2021 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association that concluded there was no association between having an armed officer and the deterrence of violence; that an armed officer on the scene was the number one factor associated with increased casualties; and that prior research suggests many school shooters are actively suicidal, so an armed officer may be an incentive rather than a deterrent. “This is one study, and we can always look at more,” said Casabona, who noted that she can understand where parents are coming from, as looking at a police officer “gives you that sense of security.”
Trustee Lorraine Gallagher pointed out the district is currently investing a lot of money in new security vestibules, and that the district also has “amazing greeters” with police or military backgrounds. Trustee Jon Poffenberger confirmed that greeters have those backgrounds, and suggested that they should be better promoted; Hadlock said within their security contract, they specify that greeters have police or military backgrounds.
Superintendent Ray Blanch commended the district for having a variety of components in place to keep all students and faculty as safe as possible, including strong restorative practices and mental health services. He repeated that research generally finds having an SRO in a mass shooting situation serves more of a containment function than preventative; he said the actions that some other districts took were illustrative of local decision-making reflective of particular times and places, and it is completely a local decision.
Trustee Bill Swertfager asked whether the district should actively publicize the safety and security elements that are in place; he suggested that information should be pushed out to the PTOs to counter any idea that the district is doing nothing; Hadlock said it could be useful to bring it up at parent council meetings. Burke cautioned that expressing whether the district is “weak” or “strong” in security could be a bad idea if brought out in the “broader media.”
Casabona concluded the discussion, noting that she didn’t think most people realize what a “big deal” having the security vestibules at each building really is, as they are most commonly used at high risk targets such as embassies.