Monday, March 25, 2013
Braintree officials are developing a long-term strategy to boost school safety.
Norfolk DA Michael Morrissey is offering Braintree and every town in his district a comprehensive school safety assessment, providing improved planning and security in the event of a violent school incident. “This is very important work, and I want to make it as easy as possible for towns to have it done,” said Morrissey, who last week convened the first meeting of his new Norfolk County School Safety Task Force. The meeting was attended by more than 50 people, including Chief Russell Jenkins and several other area police chiefs, principals, superintendents and elected officials. “We will provide this for whichever school facility the community chooses,” Morrissey said. “Then, local police and the school officials can use that assessment …
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Braintree officials stress that the schools are not unsafe, but improvements are needed.
The Braintree Police Department's enhanced presence at Braintree Public Schools and the efforts of local and county officials to improve school security response plans and equipment in the wake of the Newtown shooting will last long beyond the outrage and establish sustainable safeguards for Braintree's children. That was the message Police Chief Russell Jenkins brought to the School Committee Monday night as he detailed ongoing security upgrades. They include a plan to install working, handicap-accessible locks on every classroom door, expand the district's network of surveillance cameras and put in place in each school a space for police officers to sit at a desk and write reports, providing a deterrent effect. "What we're doing is not …
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Braintree schools remain on heightened alert nearly a month out from the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary.
As students and teachers from Sandy Hook Elementary have begun to settle into their new school, a few miles south of the site of the Dec. 14 shooting that claimed the lives of 20 first-graders and six educators, districts across the country continue to look at how they can improve school safety. In Braintree, one immediate action was to shift police resources already available so that each elementary school began receiving unannounced visits from officers, who instead of driving through the property or stopping in the driveway now park and walk through the schools. That shift, along with the locked doors and buzz-in system at every Braintree school put in place after Columbine, gives Mayor Joseph Sullivan confidence that the perimeters of …
