Quincy officials address parents' concerns after Florida school shooting

April 10--QUINCY -- About 60 people gathered in the auditorium of the Broad Meadows Middle School Monday night to hear a presentation from the Quincy school district about security measures.

"You cannot plan for everything, but we're trying to plan for as much as we can," said Paul Keenan, the city's police chief.

The presentation, followed by a Q-and-A segment, was hosted by the Citywide PTO and featured Keenan as well as district Superintendent Richard DeCristofaro, head of security Michael Draicchio and Maura Papile, who's in charge of support services.

"Nothing compares to the safety of our children," DeCristofaro said.

Dracchio highlighted some of the district's security features, such as security cameras that connect to the police station and doors that automatically lock. He said the district meets regularly with agencies such as the district attorney's office, the police department and the sheriff's office.

Papile, the head of student support services, said the district has crisis teams in place to communicate with students, teachers and parents in the event of a traumatic event, and to help everyone deal with it afterward. She said they're working hard before something negative happens, too; along with individualized treatment and alternative programs, the schools are trying to instill values of empathy and inclusion in Quincy's young people.

"We need a lot of kindness in this world, given what they're facing on the internet and everywhere else," she said.

Monday night's meeting comes after a former student killed 17 people in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on Feb. 14. The shooting reinvigorated the conversation and debate that had followed previous high-profile school shootings in recent years over how better to protect students.

Keenan said the police department continues to train for and modify its responses to active-shooter situations. In the years since the Columbine school shooting in 1999, the protocol generally has been to take the "diamond" approach, the chief said -- to wait until four officers are there so they can enter together, each covering a direction. But thought process has changed recently; now, the department trains officers to go in by themselves as soon as they get to the scene of an active-shooter incident.

"We've changed that response to be a single-officer response," Keenan said.

Several of the people who came to the meeting said more security measures were needed.

"There should be a lot more things done to proactively harden our schools," Hank Dondero, who attended the meeting, said during the Q-and-A portion.

He and several other people in the crowd asked about what's called the ALICE strategy. That acronym, which stands for alert, lockdown, inform, counter and evacuate, is a program offered by a private organization formed several years ago by a SWAT officer and teacher who sought better ways of responding to active-shooter situations.

Keenan, the police chief, said some parts of the program, such as locking the school down, make sense and are part of Quincy's approach. But, he said, there's no evidence the counter and evacuation elements -- to engage with an attacker or attempt to leave the building -- help.

"Putting a child in harm's way to fight back is not a good idea," the chief said.

He also said attempting to leave the building could just end up in putting more people in more danger, as in the moment it's almost impossible to know where an attacker is or how any of them there are.

"It's total chaos," he said.

Reach Sean Cotter at scotter@ledger.com or 617-786-7049.

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