Superintendent: Akron Public Schools review of safety, security measures already underway

Akron Public Schools Superintendent Christine Fowler Mack sat in her home in silence Tuesday night and listened to the sounds of her third grade son playing in the next room. 

Hours earlier, 19 children nearly the same age as her son were gunned down in their elementary school classroom in Uvalde, Texas. 

She thought about the teachers, the school leaders, the parents and the other students, who will never be the same — just wishing it wasn't true. 

She also thought about the 20,000-plus students she's tasked with protecting, to the extent anyone can, in Akron schools. 

Search underway for new safety and security director 

Fowler Mack already is in the process of hiring a director of safety and security, one of five new positions she created in the last few months to address needs she's identified in her first year on the job. 

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In asking for the board to approve that position, Fowler Mack said at the time that the district's preparedness "really needs to be attended to, built out well."

That assessment, she said, came out of a review she did of all departments upon her hiring, but also came in response to another school shooting, at Oxford High School in Michigan.

"That had myself and the team stepping back and asking ourselves questions about our crisis management, preparation and our crisis response practices," Fowler Mack said in February. 

She clarified those comments Wednesday, saying her review then turned up a mixed bag of schools that were on target with the number of drills they were supposed to be doing, and others less so. 

"When I asked for data like show me our drills... I saw that there was gaps," Fowler Mack said. "There were lots of schools that were right on top of things. There were some schools where that wasn’t the case."

Since then, she said, each school has held active shooter training drills that have been observed by Akron police officers, or other law enforcement liaisons. 

"Our goal is not to scare our children," she said. "But we do have to prepare them. So just like it is that when you prepare them through safety town and things like that, about how to walk to school, how to cross the street."

The district has also added two Summit County Sheriff's deputies to be roaming officers around school buildings. 

Safety plans 'hadn't been revised in a while'

Safety and response plans have been reviewed and updated, Fowler Mack said. 

"We had them, but they hadn't been revised in a while," she said. "So those were some of the areas that just said hey we've really got to behave like this is as priority. Not that our children were unsafe, but I felt like we could be more safe and more prepared."

But Fowler Mack said she felt the job of making sure the district's plan is robust as possible is a full-time job and should be separated from the student services role. 

Currently, Dan Rambler is serving in both roles. Rambler will be leaving the district to become the superintendent in Sandusky City Schools, so searches are underway for both jobs. Fowler Mack said she expects to have someone in the role of safety and security within a few weeks, before Rambler leaves. 

The new director will continue to review and build on the district's safety plans, Fowler Mack said. 

She said she is hoping the answer won't be more guns in schools. Keeping schools safe, she said, is a delicate balance of taking precautions without adding to students' stress and trauma, or making school feel like a prison. But any such measure would have to be a conversation with the community, she said.

"I want to, and I believe it's the value of our community, to do everything possible to keep our learning environment as focused on learning as possible," Fowler Mack said.

She said there was no central office directive given to schools on Wednesday to use metal detectors, but some may have used ones they have on hand as a precaution. That's not uncommon toward the end of the year, as pranks are on the rise, she said, or following a major event like what happened in Texas. 

In a letter to families Wednesday, she expressed heartbreak for the loss of life in Texas and provided resources for how to speak with children about the tragedy. She highlighted the district's "holistic" safety plan, which includes securing buildings and training students and staff but also asking the community to speak up if they know or hear of an issue.

"We take our responsibility to educate and keep our students and staff safe very seriously," Fowler Mack said in the letter. "Please take care of each other." 

'A problem of humanity' 

Fowler Mack said she knows the district can only control so much. The same day as the Texas shootings, Akron lost a teenager to gun violence, 15-year-old Buchtel Community Learning Center freshman Jerry Davis. 

She called it a "problem of humanity."

"Even incidents in our community have ripple effects in our schools," she said. 

In the waning days of school, Fowler Mack said administrators are talking to students about safety over the summer and about ways to keep kids busy. The district has greatly expanded its summer programming with federal stimulus funds, and hopes to bring more vulnerable students into the fold to stay engaged with those activities. 

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The district's mental health and counseling teams are also regularly engaged in trying to identify students who might be struggling, Fowler Mack said, acknowledging that so many of the deadly school shootings have been perpetrated by kids or young adults who showed signs of distress or plans to harm others. 

"At the end of the day this is a human, a person who made that choice," Fowler Mack said. "It's balancing thinking that we can solve this from a technical end of 'are we prepared, do we have the appropriate resources to be safe,' (and) also attacking this from... How do we reach students, their hearts, their minds, how do we meet their needs?"

Adding educators' voices to the gun control debate 

Fowler Mack said she also sees superintendents lending their voices more to the gun control debate in the wake of the violence that has destroyed the lives of so many students, teachers and families all over the country for decades with no sign of slowing down. 

"I think we should be adding our voice, that we should be advocating for sensible laws, advocating for resources to ensure safety, things of that nature," she said. "Because we are large gathering places. I think we have the ability to put a face on the human impacts." 

That face looks just like her own child's. She hopes others will see the children in Uvalde and think of their own children, and what world they want their children to grow up in. 

"I can't even stomach watching the news — 'thoughts, prayers' — I feel like we're going through the same routine after each one of these, and I feel like we're not doing things differently," she said. 

"I know we have to do something differently."

Contact education reporter Jennifer Pignolet at jpignolet@thebeaconjournal.com, at 330-996-3216 or on Twitter @JenPignolet.