Sadly, violence at schools is all too common in the United States. But schools in the Diocese of Wilmington have taken steps to make sure their students are learning in as safe an environment as possible.
Lou De Angelo, the superintendent of schools, said the diocese has always had safety plans, and those have been heightened since the shooting at Annunciation Church in Minneapolis in late August, when two children were killed and 30 people were injured as they attended a school Mass.
De Angelo said it shouldn’t take a tragedy like that one to keep the diocese and schools vigilant.
“We should be attentive as I hope we are each year,” he said.
The Catholic Schools Office asks schools to go over their safety procedures and have a manual. These should be reviewed each year, De Angelo said.
“We make a big point of teaching those kinds of things that will prevent issues from happening, but we’re also teaching kids how to be safe and secure,” he said.
De Angelo said school staff and volunteers need to be aware of their surroundings. If they take children outside and something seems amiss, bring them back into the building.
Ursuline Academy in Wilmington has children from preschool through high school. The school added a perimeter fence when the Student Life Center opened in 2019, said Brittany Keller, the director of communications.
Ursuline also employs a full-time security officer. He is a presence during the morning dropoff along Franklin Street. A Wilmington police officer also helps with traffic and getting students to the building safely each day, Keller said.
Most Blessed Sacrament School in Ocean Pines, Md., doesn’t have a fence, but they do have a retired New York City police officer helping out, said David Stofa, the principal. The former officer has a child at the school.
The school is on the same parcel of land as St. John Neumann Church, and on days when they have Mass, the former officer is there to keep watch while the students walk from one building to the other, Stofa said. He checks out the parking lot beforehand and sits with the students at Mass.
“It’s another set of eyes,” Stofa said. “He’s available anytime we need him.”
MBS has changed protocols for after-school events, the principal continued. A teacher or Stofa is stationed in the lobby as people arrive and leave. The school also has various safety drills each month and “scenario planning,” Stofa said.
“We sit out here on (Route) 589,” he said. “We don’t have any fences, so we’re doing our due diligence to be as prepared as possible.”
Most Blessed Sacrament has adopted the “I Love You Guys” response protocol. The program is a crisis-response approach used by Worcester County Public Schools and thousands of others across the country.
Stofa said he also has an agreement with neighboring Showell Elementary School in case an evacuation is necessary.
All schools have exterior cameras, and they can always add more, De Angelo said. Some schools have security officers. Local police agencies provide that service in some places, while other schools pay for it.
“We’re trying to do what we can to keep schools safe,” he said.
