December 17 (RIA Novosti) Students and teachers across America returned to their classrooms Monday, many of them anxious about just how safe they are in the wake of the elementary school massacre that left 27 dead in Connecticut Friday.
"It's going to be a tough day," said Florida middle school teacher Richard Cantlupe told The Associated Press. "This was like our 9/11 for school teachers."
As schools across the nation grapple with how best to calm the nerves and address the fears, many administrators are rethinking their own school safety procedures and planning new, stepped-up security measures.
Some schools planned to have psychologists and social workers on hand to meet with students.
Some school systems said they would post security officers at the building entrances and would check identification of all visitors, while in some areas local police said they would step up patrols around schools.
And some were urged to conduct lockdown drills.
The question many are asking, though, is what can be done to prevent another tragedy like the one that happened Friday and that has happened with alarming frequency in recent years?
A heavily-armed lone gunman, aged 20 and described in media reports as an intelligent loner, killed 20 young children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, then killed himself.
Police investigators said the gunman, Adam Lanza, shot his way into the school despite a security system that was designed to prevent access by anyone who didn’t belong there.
“He was not voluntarily let into the school at all,” Connecticut State Police spokesman Lieutenant J. Paul Vance said. “He forced his way in.”
“When you read the story of what happened at Sandy Hook, you realize, ‘Holy cow, they did a lot of things right,’” said Tom Boasberg, superintendent of schools in Denver, in an interview with The New York Times.
Boasberg told the Times that most of his schools – like those in Newtown – already have surveillance cameras, intercoms and buzzers.
“We’re not going to turn our schools into police bunkers,” he said.
