Officer Oren Wright of the Lynn Police Department Spoke to the School Committee about the security measures the school system and police department have in place to protect students. He spoke at length about the different measures the school district has in place to keep each school secure. These include the badge and lanyard that all staff members must wear and the training exercises students throughout the district go through multiple times a year.
The district has worked with the police department to ensure that all entrances to each school are locked and that no one can just come into a Lynn school and “roam around” without clearance and the proper supervision. Though these steps may seem unnecessary to some, the changes have apparently been met with little resistance from parents who are understandably concerned about their children’s safety after the spate of high-profile school shootings in recent years.
Officer Wright touched on the way the culture surrounding schools has changed in recent years, alluding to the fact that student safety is a bigger topic than ever before without explicitly mentioning the litany of school shootings that have led to this increased emphasis on security. “We’re in another day and time than when we were all children. When I went to school, doors weren’t locked in schools, you could almost come and go. It was expected that you were safe, people weren’t just going to walk in. It’s a different time. We have to keep our staff and especially our students safe.”