Niagara Falls, NY (WBEN) - As the Buffalo School Board Wednesday voted to spend $3 million to enhance security measures at its school buildings, Niagara Falls school officials say enhanced security measures taken since the start of the school year have been successful. Falls officials also say more enhancements could be coming during the school year.
At the end of last school year, the district implemented weapons detection systems at several schools. Security Director Bryan Dalporto says that was expanded when to all schools this fall. He says there are more people inside the school. "We've increased the amount of security safety officers within the school district, as well as enhance their training that they receive to be security officers within the school," says Dalporto. There are off duty police officers working special events and an additional presence of the Niagara Falls Police Department within the school district.
Dalporto says the weapons detection system has worked well. "We painstakingly studied to find the least invasive way to monitor to monitor if a student were to bring in some type of weapon. So really, it hasn't really detracted at all, from the student experience within the school," says Dalporto. He notes there have been some minor glitches. "There's always things that get detected that are false positives, different types of metal obviously get detected that aren't really a weapon or a threat," explains Dalporto. But he says overall things are things are good, and it keeps everybody on their toes to do those secondary measures when the weapon system actually detects something to take a look and take it a step farther.
Superintendent Mark Laurrie agrees. "The students, in particular this year, have come back with I would say just a renewed sense of understanding of rituals and routines and being in the right place," says Laurrie.
Laurrie says more enhancements are coming. "We had our last board meeting and are embarking on a new capital project that will create secured vestibules in every single one of our schools, meaning that there is a double buzzer system for anyone to access entry," says Laurrie. Laurrie adds the Raptor identification check of your license has been added.
He notes he learned a big lesson from Uvalde. "We need to arm and camera all 221 of our exterior doors that are currently not cameras are alarmed. So the board passed that and we're putting that to a referendum on January 17," says Laurrie. He says he's confident that the public will pass that and that construction will begin soon thereafter.
Laurrie says the last thing he wants to be is complacent. " We need to continually stress to our staff that you've got to be ready at all times in every way and pay particular attention to words you're hearing and things that you're seeing that may look askew so that we're on top of it," says Laurrie.
During its meeting Wednesday, the Buffalo Board of Education voted to add concealed weapons detection systems, hand-held metal detectors and two-way radios.