After the tragedy in Connecticut, a sense of normalcy is important for kids, say school officials, who are also reviewing ?security protocols.

Local school officials tried to show students, especially the younger ones, that Monday was a routine day – even though the shocking news of the school shootings in Newtown, Conn., was still reverberating throughout Maine and the world.

Twenty-six people, including 20 elementary school children, were murdered on Friday, Dec. 14, at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Police say the 20-year-old gunman killed himself at the school.

In Westbrook and Gorham schools, as well as in the schools in School Administrative District 6, school officials began to review safety plans, while at the same time, making sure that the kids, especially the youngest ones, got back into a normal school routine as quickly as possible.

In a letter to the community, which can be viewed on the Westbrook School Department’s website at www.westbrookschools.org, Westbrook School Superintendent Marc Gousse said that the department goes over its emergency plans on a regular basis.

“The Westbrook School Department actively reviews safety plans with local authorities and maintains established procedures to address unexpected events,” Gousse said. “District administration and local public safety officials will continue to work collaboratively to provide training, resources and support to promote environments with the ultimate goal of keeping everyone safe. As a standing practice, the Westbrook School Department conducts regular internal reviews of safety procedures. If revisions are necessary, changes are implemented. If additional training is identified-we provide it.

“Tragedies such as this give us pause to reflect on how fortunate we are, yet they also allow us realize that we must be prepared for any emergency at any time,” Gousse continued. “With that in mind, we will continue to place the safety of our students and staff at the forefront in our minds and actions.”

Speaking on Tuesday morning, Gousse said he visited all of the schools in the district as students came back on Monday, and he didn’t see any major problems with kids dealing with the tragic news.

“What I saw yesterday, particularly at the elementary schools, was kids doing school,” Gousse said.

The decision was made, Gousse said, to treat the school day as normally as possible, with staff instructed to discuss the tragedy only if students indicated they wanted to talk about it.

“I think the most important thing we can do for our kids is to provide structure and routine, which is what’s going on (in the schools now),” he said. “We wanted to be careful that we didn’t interfere with how parents individually wanted to handle (discussions of what happened).”

At Westbrook’s Saccarappa School, which has children from kindergarten through fourth grade, Principal Brian Mazjanis said the younger students didn’t seem to be impacted by the news of the shootings.

“That’s probably because they don’t watch a lot of news,” he said.

Mazjanis echoed Gousse’s belief that getting the kids right into the routine of a normal school day was probably the best thing for them.

“We’ve followed the regular routine and the kids have been great,” he said. “There have been no problems at all. It’s gone really smoothly. I was a little worried going into Monday, but the kids have been great.”

In Gorham, Police Chief Ronald Shepard said his department plans a review of emergency policies with school officials this week.

“We’ll have a conversation in light of the recent incident (in Connecticut),” Shepard said.

But, Shepard said, Gorham police have done a lot of training with the schools and had recently reviewed the policies. Shepard did not anticipate instituting any changes in emergency plans.

Following the tragedy, Gorham Superintendent Ted Sharp wrote a letter to Gorham parents on Dec. 16.

“Please be advised that each of Gorham schools has a comprehensive emergency crisis plan, a plan that was developed together with law enforcement, fire officials, EMT officials, and other appropriate and interested individuals and organizations,” Sharp wrote. “As educators, it is important that we do not initiate conversations with the children about this tragedy, rather it is to be prepared to respond to the needs of the children and adults who may require reassurance by providing a reasoned, thoughtful, and comforting response to their questions.”

“Our professional social workers and counselors are present,” Sharp said on Tuesday.

At the high school, Principal Christopher Record said Tuesday that they had met with police and fire officials at the beginning of the school year. Record said high school administrators are “obviously reviewing what “we do. We take it very seriously.”

Gorham has three elementary schools with grades kindergarten through 5, and the principals of those schools wrote letters to parents and the community. Those letters also were posted online this week.

“Our hearts are broken,” Jane Esty, principal of Great Falls Elementary School wrote. “We’ve heard it countless times these past several days, because there is nothing else to say. It’s what we boil all of our emotions down to when we think of the unimaginable tragedy in Newtown.”

All four of the letters can be read by visiting www.gorhamschools.org.

At SAD 6, Superintendent Frank Sherburne, who spent last weekend contacting administrators and drafting a letter reassuring the school community that the district takes emergency preparedness seriously, said safety plans are in place, ranging from intruders in the school to natural disasters.

“We’re constantly doing our lockdown drills, our intruder-in-the-building drills. They’ve become, unfortunately, a common practice that we do with kids because there is the possibility that that could happen anywhere,” Sherburne said. “We have had and are having conversations about the security of our buildings, how to make them more secure, to make sure we’ve identified any weak spots that we may have and to mitigate those weak spots so we aren’t at risk.”

Sherburne said even with the district’s extensive security plans, which each district throughout Maine is mandated by state law to draft, tragedies can still occur, and constant vigilance is required.

“Sometimes you do get lulled into a false sense of security. These kinds of situations, as tragic as they are, remind us that we can’t be lulled. We always have to be on guard. And we are,” Sherburne said. “And sadly, it’s where we are as a society. I think for folks who’ve never had the opportunity to witness a lockdown drill or an intruder-in-the-building drill, it sends shivers down your spine.”

Sherburne said as a result of the Newtown shootings, he’s going to begin introducing “strangers” into the school as a way of testing the response of students and staff. He says it will help sharpen the school community’s use and recognition of identification badges. Sherburne said he doesn’t want students confronting the planted “strangers,” but to inform staff of their presence.

“I want students to go to an adult in the building and saying, ‘Hey, there’s a guy in the building who doesn’t have a badge on,’ and I want to see how long it would take someone to report that there’s an intruder in the building,” he said.

For returning staff and students, Monday’s storm was a blessing in disguise, said Virginia Day, principal of George E. Jack Elementary School and Edna Libby Elementary School, both of which are in Standish.

“It’s going very well. I think we were fortunate we had a snowstorm, it’s a great diversion,” Day said Monday afternoon. “The students haven’t really been talking about it. And we had already agreed if students ask questions, we would acknowledge that something had happened obviously – you don’t sweep it under the rug – but you always follow that up with, ‘You’re safe here, we’re working very hard to keep everyone safe because school should be a safe place.’ And if (students) had any concerns above and beyond that, we had the plan in place that they would be talking to the guidance counselor, but we really haven’t had that.”

Day said she and Assistant Principal Doug Parker had emailed staff during the weekend regarding the Newtown tragedy and held a staff meeting prior to students’ arrival on Monday.

“We wanted to make sure everyone was on the same page, that we were consistent,” Day said. “We reviewed our crisis plan, which we do frequently anyway since it’s kind of a living document that you’re always tweaking, making sure everyone is wearing their ID badges and that we’re diligent about anyone coming into the building, any volunteers or visitors that they get their ID badges, sign in, which is something we always do.”

Sherburne said he has been reinforcing the safety protocols in hopes of tightening security at each of the district’s buildings. Identification badges play a prominent role, for students and visitors and staff, as well as locking as many doors as possible. One parent mentioned in an email to Sherburne the need for armed guards at each school. But Sherburne said there’s a real-world balance to the additional measures.

“In the past there was an effort to reduce the amount of entrances by locking doors and then community members get very upset about the fact that they don’t have access to our buildings. So there’s a constant balance that we have to create,” Sherburne said.

“Certainly, where I sit, the fewer entrances that people have the better because it does create some level of security, but even as we saw with Sandy Hook, they had every measure in place, they had safety plans in place. If it’s going to happen, no matter what you have in place, it might happen. Unfortunately, that’s the state of our society today, we always have to be on guard to protect our kids.”

Gousse

After the tragedy in Connecticut, a sense of normalcy is important for kids, say school officials, who are also reviewing ?security protocols.

Local school officials tried to show students, especially the younger ones, that Monday was a routine day – even though the shocking news of the school shootings in Newtown, Conn., was still reverberating throughout Maine and the world.

Twenty-six people, including 20 elementary school children, were murdered on Friday, Dec. 14, at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Police say the 20-year-old gunman killed himself at the school.

In Westbrook and Gorham schools, as well as in the schools in School Administrative District 6, school officials began to review safety plans, while at the same time, making sure that the kids, especially the youngest ones, got back into a normal school routine as quickly as possible.

In a letter to the community, which can be viewed on the Westbrook School Department’s website at www.westbrookschools.org, Westbrook School Superintendent Marc Gousse said that the department goes over its emergency plans on a regular basis.

“The Westbrook School Department actively reviews safety plans with local authorities and maintains established procedures to address unexpected events,” Gousse said. “District administration and local public safety officials will continue to work collaboratively to provide training, resources and support to promote environments with the ultimate goal of keeping everyone safe. As a standing practice, the Westbrook School Department conducts regular internal reviews of safety procedures. If revisions are necessary, changes are implemented. If additional training is identified-we provide it.

“Tragedies such as this give us pause to reflect on how fortunate we are, yet they also allow us realize that we must be prepared for any emergency at any time,” Gousse continued. “With that in mind, we will continue to place the safety of our students and staff at the forefront in our minds and actions.”

Speaking on Tuesday morning, Gousse said he visited all of the schools in the district as students came back on Monday, and he didn’t see any major problems with kids dealing with the tragic news.

“What I saw yesterday, particularly at the elementary schools, was kids doing school,” Gousse said.

The decision was made, Gousse said, to treat the school day as normally as possible, with staff instructed to discuss the tragedy only if students indicated they wanted to talk about it.

“I think the most important thing we can do for our kids is to provide structure and routine, which is what’s going on (in the schools now),” he said. “We wanted to be careful that we didn’t interfere with how parents individually wanted to handle (discussions of what happened).”

At Westbrook’s Saccarappa School, which has children from kindergarten through fourth grade, Principal Brian Mazjanis said the younger students didn’t seem to be impacted by the news of the shootings.

“That’s probably because they don’t watch a lot of news,” he said.

Mazjanis echoed Gousse’s belief that getting the kids right into the routine of a normal school day was probably the best thing for them.

“We’ve followed the regular routine and the kids have been great,” he said. “There have been no problems at all. It’s gone really smoothly. I was a little worried going into Monday, but the kids have been great.”

In Gorham, Police Chief Ronald Shepard said his department plans a review of emergency policies with school officials this week.

“We’ll have a conversation in light of the recent incident (in Connecticut),” Shepard said.

But, Shepard said, Gorham police have done a lot of training with the schools and had recently reviewed the policies. Shepard did not anticipate instituting any changes in emergency plans.

Following the tragedy, Gorham Superintendent Ted Sharp wrote a letter to Gorham parents on Dec. 16.

“Please be advised that each of Gorham schools has a comprehensive emergency crisis plan, a plan that was developed together with law enforcement, fire officials, EMT officials, and other appropriate and interested individuals and organizations,” Sharp wrote. “As educators, it is important that we do not initiate conversations with the children about this tragedy, rather it is to be prepared to respond to the needs of the children and adults who may require reassurance by providing a reasoned, thoughtful, and comforting response to their questions.”

“Our professional social workers and counselors are present,” Sharp said on Tuesday.

At the high school, Principal Christopher Record said Tuesday that they had met with police and fire officials at the beginning of the school year. Record said high school administrators are “obviously reviewing what “we do. We take it very seriously.”

Gorham has three elementary schools with grades kindergarten through 5, and the principals of those schools wrote letters to parents and the community. Those letters also were posted online this week.

“Our hearts are broken,” Jane Esty, principal of Great Falls Elementary School wrote. “We’ve heard it countless times these past several days, because there is nothing else to say. It’s what we boil all of our emotions down to when we think of the unimaginable tragedy in Newtown.”

All four of the letters can be read by visiting www.gorhamschools.org.

At SAD 6, Superintendent Frank Sherburne, who spent last weekend contacting administrators and drafting a letter reassuring the school community that the district takes emergency preparedness seriously, said safety plans are in place, ranging from intruders in the school to natural disasters.

“We’re constantly doing our lockdown drills, our intruder-in-the-building drills. They’ve become, unfortunately, a common practice that we do with kids because there is the possibility that that could happen anywhere,” Sherburne said. “We have had and are having conversations about the security of our buildings, how to make them more secure, to make sure we’ve identified any weak spots that we may have and to mitigate those weak spots so we aren’t at risk.”

Sherburne said even with the district’s extensive security plans, which each district throughout Maine is mandated by state law to draft, tragedies can still occur, and constant vigilance is required.

“Sometimes you do get lulled into a false sense of security. These kinds of situations, as tragic as they are, remind us that we can’t be lulled. We always have to be on guard. And we are,” Sherburne said. “And sadly, it’s where we are as a society. I think for folks who’ve never had the opportunity to witness a lockdown drill or an intruder-in-the-building drill, it sends shivers down your spine.”

Sherburne said as a result of the Newtown shootings, he’s going to begin introducing “strangers” into the school as a way of testing the response of students and staff. He says it will help sharpen the school community’s use and recognition of identification badges. Sherburne said he doesn’t want students confronting the planted “strangers,” but to inform staff of their presence.

“I want students to go to an adult in the building and saying, ‘Hey, there’s a guy in the building who doesn’t have a badge on,’ and I want to see how long it would take someone to report that there’s an intruder in the building,” he said.

For returning staff and students, Monday’s storm was a blessing in disguise, said Virginia Day, principal of George E. Jack Elementary School and Edna Libby Elementary School, both of which are in Standish.

“It’s going very well. I think we were fortunate we had a snowstorm, it’s a great diversion,” Day said Monday afternoon. “The students haven’t really been talking about it. And we had already agreed if students ask questions, we would acknowledge that something had happened obviously – you don’t sweep it under the rug – but you always follow that up with, ‘You’re safe here, we’re working very hard to keep everyone safe because school should be a safe place.’ And if (students) had any concerns above and beyond that, we had the plan in place that they would be talking to the guidance counselor, but we really haven’t had that.”

Day said she and Assistant Principal Doug Parker had emailed staff during the weekend regarding the Newtown tragedy and held a staff meeting prior to students’ arrival on Monday.

“We wanted to make sure everyone was on the same page, that we were consistent,” Day said. “We reviewed our crisis plan, which we do frequently anyway since it’s kind of a living document that you’re always tweaking, making sure everyone is wearing their ID badges and that we’re diligent about anyone coming into the building, any volunteers or visitors that they get their ID badges, sign in, which is something we always do.”

Sherburne said he has been reinforcing the safety protocols in hopes of tightening security at each of the district’s buildings. Identification badges play a prominent role, for students and visitors and staff, as well as locking as many doors as possible. One parent mentioned in an email to Sherburne the need for armed guards at each school. But Sherburne said there’s a real-world balance to the additional measures.

“In the past there was an effort to reduce the amount of entrances by locking doors and then community members get very upset about the fact that they don’t have access to our buildings. So there’s a constant balance that we have to create,” Sherburne said.

“Certainly, where I sit, the fewer entrances that people have the better because it does create some level of security, but even as we saw with Sandy Hook, they had every measure in place, they had safety plans in place. If it’s going to happen, no matter what you have in place, it might happen. Unfortunately, that’s the state of our society today, we always have to be on guard to protect our kids.”

Gousse