ROCKPORT – A rescheduled School Administrative District 28/Five Town CSD school safety forum was held March 27 in the Strom auditorium in Rockport. Panelists included Shawn Carlson, principal of Camden Hills Regional High School; Jamie Stone, principal of the Camden Rockport Middle School; Chris Walker Spencer, principal of Camden Rockport Elementary School; Chris Farley, Camden Fire Chief; Randy Gagne, Camden Police Chief; Jason Peasley, Rockport Fire Chief; and Maria Libby, Superintendent for SAD 28 and Five Town CSD.

Tim Carroll, Knox County Sheriff's Office Chief Deputy, moderated the evening.

A small crowd comprising oadults and young adults participated in the question and answer session that lasted from 6:30 p.m. until 8 p.m.

Libby presented overview of what was currently in place for safety measures at the schools and what was being planned to increase safety there.

Libby said it is important to have a constructive relationship with local law enforcement.

"There has to be great relations between students and teachers in a school building,” she added. “That is one of the best things you can do to make a student feel included and have an adult they can turn to."

Members from the audience were not asked to identify themselves when asking questions, though some did.

One citizen suggested working on building community and building connections, as well.

"We need to do a consistent and conscientious job of finding those students who perhaps are not as connected to the rest of the student body,” he said. “I believe that is the piece we can make the biggest impact on."

Stone, principal of the Camden-Rockport Middle School, said the school has focused on building connections.

She said the school collected data through My House Survey, which Maine public schools do every two years. Stone said the survey asks questions of students how safe they feel at school.

Libby responded by citing the case in Florida concerning the Parkland shooting.

"In Florida, the student had been expelled," she said. "I think sometimes students who have been expelled have quite a bit of anger toward the school."

Libby said the districts rarely have expulsions.

"I've been superintendent for three years and we haven't had any expulsions," she said. "When I was assistant superintendent we had one. Whenever we do have an expulsion we always leave it with a plan for that student to return. We don't expel students and off they go. We work hard with those families to get that student back in our school."

An audience member asked that the schools be proactive instead of reactive.

"We as a community need to come to an understanding and agreement as to where is that line between creating a fortress and creating a learning atmosphere," said Shawn Carlson, principal of Camden Hills Regional High School. "What's best for the community is something we have to look at, as well."

A student responded: "I agree fully that we should be protected to the best of our ability, but we don't want to feel like we're being taught in a prison system.”

Carlson said adults need to help break down barriers between groups of students and help kids who are the most marginalized. But, he said, those students will not be singled out publicly.

A student said she is not alone in feeling that school administration is excluding students from the issue of talking about gun violence in schools.

"There's actually no reason for this, when you look at this revolution that is completely led by teenagers," she said. "Instead of giving us instructions, maybe they could come to us with minds open for suggestions.”

Carlson agreed that the school needs to have student voices at the table.

"If there's a perception that we're shutting students out, maybe it's more a question of time and resources, than a conscious choice not to include as many stakeholders as we can," he said.

Questions about student mental health checkups, social and emotional needs for students, camera systems, card access systems for the front doors, single access driveways and the locking of classroom doors were all addressed.

Camden/Rockport Police Chief Randy Gagne responded to the question concerning single access driveways and their being blocked in the event of an emergency.

A single driveway coming into the school could be problematic, he said.

"We would have to ram through things to get here," he said. "As you see in other school incidents the biggest things are parents responding there, blocking access to law enforcement on their way."

Gagne said he would be all for moving access points so that first responders had a couple of places to get in.

"I don't know how you would get another road in here without a bunch of construction," he said.

Gagne also commented that he would be in favor of a school resource officer.

The question was posed from the audience about after-hours at the school, given that the high school is a public building in the evening.

"I've walked in here at night to leave a note on a door somewhere," she said. "Anyone can walk in here in the evening. There are also banks of lockers that most of the students don't use. There are plenty of places to hide devices in this building."

Carlson responded that it is a community issue.

"It's really what do we want to have as a community," he said. "It's not my decision. It's a board and a community decision. This place was built to be used outside of the school day. Quite frankly, off the top of my head, I can't think of a way to provide security even at the level that we do during the day if it is going to be a public space."

Carlson said it highlights the dynamic of what the community has versus how much it wants to give up. 

"To provide safety here in the evening we would change dramatically how this building should be used,” he said. “Not just this space, but the gym space and the concert band space. You saw the activities that were going on tonight in the cafeteria. They become much less accessible as we increase the level of security we want to have in our spaces. That's the real issue here. No matter which one of these approaches we talk about. Some of them are easy and some are difficult discussions and decisions."

Carlson said it is a public decision as to whether the district locks this building in the evening.

"It is a community decision," he said. "I think it's wonderful that people are here to begin to start to have that conversation about those issues. There isn't a simple or a right answer."

Tim Carroll responded to a question about response time to the school in the event of an incident.

Carroll said that in most circumstances it would be a 10-minute response time.

"It's going to be dependent," Carroll said. "You have a local police department here in Rockport. If they are on the other end of Route 1, at the Rockland line, when the call comes in, that's the time frame. A Camden officer might be closer. A deputy might be at routes 90 and 17. He or she might be closer. It's really going to be dependent because there is not somebody assigned here."

"When that call goes out it could very well be a game warden or a marine patrol officer, or the state police," he said. "Everybody is going to come to a call like that.”

Glen Lang, lives in Lincolnville and is a 30-year state law enforcement veteran with 10 years on the state's tactical unit of the Maine State Police. He said he was not at the forum to represent the state police, but said he had two children in the school.

"I've studied most of the shootings that occurred in schools," he said. "For the SWAT team you're going to have members trickling in for a solid hour. The reality is that the first people getting there are not going to wait for the SWAT team. The first officers on the scene are going to go to the gunfire and address the threat."

"Trust me in that when officers get here now, they are going to go directly to the threat," he said. "The state police are looking into the Alice training now. Some parts I agree with and some parts I disagree with."

Alice training promotes proactive strategies to improve the chance of a person, or student in this case, their survival during an active shooter event. It was a program born after the Columbine shootings.

Lang said he disagrees with training students.

"Every shooting incident since Columbine, the shooter has been a student or former student," he said. "And that brings up another problem. If you have these doors with swipe cards and somebody gives a swipe card to a shooter, he's going to walk in through the door. You really need an eyeball on the person coming in."

Lang offered suggestions:

"You need to harden your shelter, in addition to where you are already doing so," he said. 

Lang also said not to use public communication systems. He said the roads will get clogged so fast it will impede the response of officer who needs to get there.

"You need to have creative solutions so you can make it so you can secure a door so you need to do more than just break a piece of glass and reach in and turn a handle to open it,” he said. “You need to have a locking system in a different location."

"I support having a resource officer at the school," he said. "I've always supported the community relations with having a good resource officer in the school, but like the chief said, if you're going to do it they have to be armed. It just doesn't make any sense not to. You have to build those bridges and that's a good place to do it."

Carroll emphasized that a school resource officer has to be the right person. It can't just be the next guy on the list.

"It has to be the right person, the right fit," he said. "They have to form relationships with staff and faculty, as well as with the students."

Carroll called for one more question or comment to end the evening and William Smith spoke to the group.

"Just a comment," he began. "I've lived here all my life and this area has a problem in thinking we are better than everybody else and it doesn't cost any money to change our way of thinking. The kids that walk around thinking that they are better than everybody else set an example for all the other kids that don't feel good enough."

Smith said those kids who already don't feel good enough are the ones who are ostracized. 

"I think people need to police their own backyard before they try to police their school's backyard," he said. "If you have a cop in the school and you expect 1,800 parents to be that cop’s boss, it's just not going to work, so don't waste your time putting a cop in here unless you let the police chief run the show. Thank you."

Reach Chris Wolf at news@penbaypilot.com