Solanco locked all outside doors at Bart-Colerain and Providence Elementary schools. Both public schools are about six miles from where a gunman entered the one-room schoolhouse, tied up girl students by the feet and opened fire.
Nearby, Pequea Valley School District also locked down its schools’ doors and canceled recess and outside gym class.
Today, public school officials across the county said they have sent or will send home letters to parents about the incident. Schools have staff, guidance counselors and psychologists ready to talk with students and parents if they raise any safety concerns. Some districts also tightened security.
Solanco and Pequea Valley administrators said they did what they had to do to make sure their students were safe.
“It’s actually hard to put into words,” Bart Principal Thomas Brackbill said. “It’s so shocking. It’s something that you think won’t happen this close to home, out here in the country, but it did, and we have to deal with it.”
Adding to the stress, the gunman’s two children are students at Bart-Colerain.
In all, six are dead from this latest school shooting, including the gunman, Charles Carl Roberts IV.
Late this morning, five girls were recovering from gunshot wounds at area hospitals; four of those were in critical condition.
The local shooting comes in the wake of four school shootings to take place in the nation since August, bringing the issue of school safety back into the forefront seven years after Columbine, one of the deadliest school shootings in the nation’s history.
The Bart Township shooting has also prompted President Bush to plan a future gathering of education and law enforcement officials to discuss school violence, according to the Associated Press.
Lancaster County Emergency Management Agency met Monday night with 43 school officials from every local school district and some from private schools, said Randy Gockley, director of Lancaster’s EMA.
Gockley said that the county’s schools are in good shape and have good plans to handle a crisis.
By law, every public school must have an emergency plan, but private schools do not have to do so.
“It’s something that our agency has recommended,” he said of private schools. “In the aftermath, we will reach out to the Amish bishops in the area to help them write emergency plans” if they want the help.
Both Solanco and Pequea Valley today have ended the call for the locking of the front doors.
The shootings have pushed other local school districts, however, to raise their security levels, including Lampeter-Strasburg and Warwick.
Many schools already have front entrance security. No one can get into the school without first walking through the office.
Many also have cameras.
But now, L-S and Warwick are locking their front entrances, too.
A person wishing to enter must provide some sort of identification to a person in the office and get buzzed in, where they would show further identification and then enter the main building.
“It’s a sad thing that we have to do to that extreme,” L-S Superintendent Bob Frick said. “The safety of the children and staff is paramount.”
L-S launched its heightened security Monday and will keep it in place.
Children will still go outside for recess, Frick said. A total lockdown is when a school also locks classroom doors, and that is not what’s happening.
“Fear is a terrible thing and we want to calm that as much as we can,” Frick said.
In Warwick, Lititz police are stepping up patrols near the schools, district spokeswoman Lori Zimmerman said.
It’s an effort to raise the visual watch and ease parents’ fears, she said.
The secondary schools will also hold intruder drills, and officials are setting up discussions with younger students on how to deal with strangers, Zimmerman said.
In Conestoga Valley, director of curriculum and instruction Donovan Mann said that his district “has a detailed crisis plan.”
And that this past summer, the district was able to finish securing the entrances to all of its buildings.
“We maybe need to be more vigilant in who we allow in,” Mann said. “You hate to get to a point where your buildings are locked down.”
CV and Ephrata are among the school districts offering to reach out to the Solanco community and to the Amish communities near them.
In the meantime, KidsPeace, based in Bethlehem, Pa., has issued tips on how to talk to children about school shootings:
Listen to children. Allow them to express concerns and fears.
Reassure them of their safety and security. Tell them who are there to protect them: teachers, school officials, neighbors and police.
Limit discussions on shootings with the younger children to the basic facts.
School-age children will ask if it could happen here or to them. Do not lie. Instead reassure them on how many people are around to protect them.
Be cautious about allowing children to watch too much TV news.
If you have concerns, talk to school counselors, doctors and local mental health professionals.
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