Scary afternoon

[nmmom95]

I was at my sons' school this afternoon. We had a shower for his teacher. She is going out on maternity leave today. The aide's daughter was taping paper over the window in the door so the teacher couldn't see in (the shower was a surprise), when she said "Mom, there's a man in the other 1st grade." The aide went to see and he was going through the aide's handbag. She questioned him and he ran away. He had already stolen quite a bit of money from a purse in another classroom.
The school is supposed to be secure! Locked doors, sign in at the office, etc. How did a strange man walk around unnoticed? With all the things you hear about crazy people with guns, this guy just waltzed right in!

I am seriously freaking out! I know I'm paranoid, but what if the next guy, God forbid, has a gun? This is a relatively small, Catholic school, so I guess I was lulled into a false sense of security.

If you made it with me this far, thanks for letting me get this off my chest.

 

[DWGal210]

That IS scary!!! And I am with you, if that guy can get in...what about someone else with nefarious intentions?

 

[Tink888]

No wonder you are freaking out, I would be too!!!

At all of our schools, all doors are locked from the outside and you have to be buzzed in and report to the office. Even still, I have often thought how easy it would be for a stranger to be buzzed in at the elementary schools. The nice thing at our Jr High is not only do you need to be buzzed in and report to the office but there is also a volunteer who sits right near the doors.

I would have a lot of questions for the administration.

 

[moburg]

I hope it was brought to the attention of the school administration and the police! The administration now owes the parents an investigation of the security failure and a review of the overall security procedures.

 

[mrsv98]

I was at my sons' school this afternoon. We had a shower for his teacher. She is going out on maternity leave today. The aide's daughter was taping paper over the window in the door so the teacher couldn't see in (the shower was a surprise), when she said "Mom, there's a man in the other 1st grade." The aide went to see and he was going through the aide's handbag. She questioned him and he ran away. He had already stolen quite a bit of money from a purse in another classroom.
The school is supposed to be secure! Locked doors, sign in at the office, etc. How did a strange man walk around unnoticed? With all the things you hear about crazy people with guns, this guy just waltzed right in!

I am seriously freaking out! I know I'm paranoid, but what if the next guy, God forbid, has a gun? This is a relatively small, Catholic school, so I guess I was lulled into a false sense of security.

If you made it with me this far, thanks for letting me get this off my chest.

Someone has some serious 'splanin to do. Seriously, I would be camped at the principal's office until I got an explanation and assurances that policies with be tightened and enforced.

I don't talk about it much, but I was a nanny on the north shore of Chicago when Laurie Dann went on her killing spree. A good friend of mine was the teacher who's classroom she hit. I had worked at a birthday party for the little boy who was killed. I will never, ever forget that day, forget the feelings of abject fear when the police locked down all the schools. We had to go and sign out the little girl I took care of. A beautiful May afternoon and not one kid on the street. There is NO excuse for the school to be so lax in their security.

 

[minniebeth]

I would be scared too!
Not that it makes the situation better, but if that was the worst of it, consider it a major wake-up call to the school and security protocol. It could have been a whole lot worse in several ways.

 

[klacey1]

Very scary!! Did he look "poor" or "normal" (I hate to use those words)-- maybe someone thought he was a dad and just let him in? Or maybe he did sign it, and said he was a dad. Thank God all he wanted was money and not a child!

ETA: I was asking if he looked poor as in if he was a homeless man who snuck in. Not that that's okay, because at least you could understand how desperate he'd be to steal

 

[Mkrop]

 

[PatsMom]

When my daugther started high school, you could open one of the 'locked' doors just by jiggling it. Since it was near the parking lot, that was how lots of us came in.

I've also seen tons of what nuclear security used to call 'tailgating'. One person buzzes in and three people follow him or her. We've all been raised to be polite and hold the door. Real easy for person #4 to wander off in a different direction than the first 3. For all they know, that person works there.

 

[ragdoll]

Scary stuff. All Cleveland public schools (yes, even elementary) have a security guard at the door and metal detectors to go through. It is such a shame that such drastic measures need to be taken, but unfortunately it has come to be necessary.

 

[4nana]

How very scary that must have been ! I agree, seems security needs to be kicked up a notch! Glad no one was hurt.

 

[jazzielady]

Hah! My first teaching job, we got this new "kid" in the school. Turns out he was 24 yo hiding out from the police. I realized after the fact that it must have been him a who stole the $20 bill I had in my wallet ap few days earlier.

 

[ADisneyQueen]

I wonder if he was a parent in the school for some reason?
I used to work at an early childhood center and one of the moms went into an empty classroom in the morning, knew where the teacher kept a key to the file cabinet. She opened it and stole money from her purse and also an envelope with field trip money!

 

[mlynn]

I was at my sons' school this afternoon. We had a shower for his teacher. She is going out on maternity leave today. The aide's daughter was taping paper over the window in the door so the teacher couldn't see in (the shower was a surprise), when she said "Mom, there's a man in the other 1st grade." The aide went to see and he was going through the aide's handbag. She questioned him and he ran away. He had already stolen quite a bit of money from a purse in another classroom.
The school is supposed to be secure! Locked doors, sign in at the office, etc. How did a strange man walk around unnoticed? With all the things you hear about crazy people with guns, this guy just waltzed right in!

I am seriously freaking out! I know I'm paranoid, but what if the next guy, God forbid, has a gun? This is a relatively small, Catholic school, so I guess I was lulled into a false sense of security.

If you made it with me this far, thanks for letting me get this off my chest.

OMG was this in Williamstown>My friend just posted the same thing on her facebook.

 

[StephyDee]

If it wasn't at Williamstown, was it in Willingboro by any chance? I went to a small Catholic school there too, locked doors, sign-in sheets and all that stuff. Then again, that's almost every school nowadays, but still....it's in Southern NJ....

and it's so unfortunate that it had to happen! I'm just glad no one got hurt! That's the important thing!

 

[Luv Bunnies]

All of the schools in our district are wide open including the one where I work and the one my son attends. The classroom doors open to outside hallways and there are no locked gates to prohibit anyone from getting in. Visitors are supposed to sign in at the office but it rarely happens. We don't have security guards. The custodians regularly roam the halls and keep an eye on things but they also have work to do so they can easily miss things.

The school where I work is in a not-so-great neighborhood. A few years ago, we were put on lockdown because two 5th graders found a guy bleeding in the bathroom. Turned out he had a fight with his girlfriend and she locked him out of their apartment. He put his arm through the window and she called the police. He ended up on our campus trying to hide but he left a trail of blood! Another time, two guys in the neighborhood got into a verbal argument. One said he was going to go home and get a gun and come back and shoot the other guy. We were put on lockdown while the police searched the neighborhood. They were blocking the street right in front of my classroom with their shotguns out and ready! It was pretty scary! We haven't had any lockdowns this year but we still have 5 weeks left!

 

[Mary•Poppins]

I don't talk about it much, but I was a nanny on the north shore of Chicago when Laurie Dann went on her killing spree. A good friend of mine was the teacher who's classroom she hit. I had worked at a birthday party for the little boy who was killed. I will never, ever forget that day, forget the feelings of abject fear when the police locked down all the schools. We had to go and sign out the little girl I took care of. A beautiful May afternoon and not one kid on the street. There is NO excuse for the school to be so lax in their security.

Wow ... I had never heard of her (not sure what shell I was living in??) That is really scary!

The situation today was very scary. It seems obvious that the man was just in to steal money ... but someone else could come in to do something more!

Very scary!

 

[nmmom95]

Someone has some serious 'splanin to do. Seriously, I would be camped at the principal's office until I got an explanation and assurances that policies with be tightened and enforced.

I don't talk about it much, but I was a nanny on the north shore of Chicago when Laurie Dann went on her killing spree. A good friend of mine was the teacher who's classroom she hit. I had worked at a birthday party for the little boy who was killed. I will never, ever forget that day, forget the feelings of abject fear when the police locked down all the schools. We had to go and sign out the little girl I took care of. A beautiful May afternoon and not one kid on the street. There is NO excuse for the school to be so lax in their security.

That's terrible! That must have been terrifying!

Very scary!! Did he look "poor" or "normal" (I hate to use those words)-- maybe someone thought he was a dad and just let him in? Or maybe he did sign it, and said he was a dad. Thank God all he wanted was money and not a child!

ETA: I was asking if he looked poor as in if he was a homeless man who snuck in. Not that that's okay, because at least you could understand how desperate he'd be to steal

He didn't look homeless. Someone may have thought he was a dad.

OMG was this in Williamstown>My friend just posted the same thing on her facebook.

It was in Williamstown.


As many of you said, thank God, he only wanted money. They seriously need to tighten security. The thought that just anyone could walk into the school scares me. Who knows what the next person would be capable of!

 

[weewuvvdisney]

The same thing happened about two weeks ago at my dd's former elementary school.

Apparently the man followed some of the parents of the kindergarden kids at the end of the day. Followed them in and then found a classroom and stole the teachers purse. All doors at this school are locked.... the daycare at one end must use a buzzer (and has a camera system to see who is there) to allow people in. The main entrance has an intercom system but I think anyone can get in there because they just have to say they need to speak to someone in the office. Once they are in the door, they can scoot off anywhere as there are not visible by the staff in the office. By the time the staff realize that the person hadn't gone to the office, they could be anywhere.

It is sad that everything must be so secure these days.

 

[manning]

Hopefully they have security cameras.