Posted 2:13 am Thursday, September 24, 2009
Parents Say John Tyler Security Cuts Having Impact
By MEGAN MIDDLETON and KENNETH DEAN
Staff Writers
Staff Writers
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A fatal stabbing at John Tyler High School Wednesday morning and other alleged disturbances at the campus left some with concerns about security at the school.
Parents gathered outside the school waiting to pick up their students Wednesday expressed concerns that possible security cuts may have impacted the number of fights and disturbances on campus.
"It's just really sad that a teacher had to die before they addressed the lack of security. This school does not have adequate security and is not safe," Clyde Sanders said as he waited for his freshman daughter to exit the school Wednesday.
Officials said there was also an unrelated fight on campus prior to the stabbing Wednesday.
Tyler ISD officials, during a news conference Wednesday, emphasized that the stabbing was "an unforeseen, isolated circumstance."
"All reports suggest that it was a random act by an individual student," TISD Superintendent Dr. Randy Reid said during the press conference. "However, the district will have significant additional support and security at the campus for the foreseeable future."
Reid tried to answer questions about security at the campus and whether there had been a cut to security personnel at John Tyler during the news conference.
"We have had some changes at John Tyler this year related to security," Reid said. "I don't have the detail on that for you at this point, but, again, this incident occurred in a classroom, and again it was a ratio (of) three students to two adults in the classroom at the time."
He later said that some hall monitors were removed at the school. He said that was a "decision based on a security plan that we're putting in place." He said it was not related to budget issues.
There are no metal detectors at John Tyler, the superintendent said.
"That is one of the items that we may look at in the future, but we want to be careful with that because we have a number of doors on every one of these campuses and the students flow from one building to the other," he said.
When asked, Reid said there is no difference between the security at John Tyler and Robert E. Lee high schools.
Classes will resume as normal on Thursday.
"We believe it's important for our students to get back to school as quickly as possible and also to receive the support that we think we can provide with our district personnel," he said. "We're going to have a significant number of counselors there available to the kids."
"We believe it's important for our students to get back to school as quickly as possible and also to receive the support that we think we can provide with our district personnel," he said. "We're going to have a significant number of counselors there available to the kids."
He added, "We will have a great deal of district personnel on duty (Thursday) as well as support from both the Tyler ISD Police Department and the Tyler Police Department."
Reid said that the security at the school, "for the foreseeable future, is going to be different."
"We'll have a lot of support staff on the campus, mostly to support our staff in terms being able to handle the emotional issues with this circumstance," he said. "We do have security on campus. We do have police officers, always, on campus. We have two district police officers that are assigned to John Tyler as well as a full staff of administrative personnel."
FUTURE PLANS
The TISD school board had an emergency closed meeting Wednesday afternoon to discuss school safety, school security and personnel, according to the agenda.
Reid said Wednesday night that no action was taken after that closed session meeting.
"We were looking at security issues and reviewed the incident today and how it related to our security, or didn't," he said, noting again the stabbing was "a random act."
Reid said six TISD police officers were on campus when the stabbing occurred because of the unrelated issue that took place in the morning. Normally there are two, he said.
The superintendent said the district was already working on plans to improve "not only the situation there but people's perception of the situation."
"There's been a lot of positive things happening this year, too," he said. "Plans were already under way and we're going to continue down that path."
Reid said the district would go more in-depth about security issues in the coming days.
"We need to let our staff grieve," he said. "We need to make sure we have school operating again effectively and then we'll address those (issues)."
