Eight months after the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown left 26 people dead, many schools across the state are preparing to welcome students back from summer break with increased security measures in place.
Eight months after the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown left 26 people dead, many schools across the state are preparing to welcome students back from summer break with increased security measures in place.
But which types of safety measures and how they should be funded has been a source of debate, with no clear consensus on the best way to protect children and staff members.
In Enfield, each of the town's 14 public and parochial schools will have an armed guard at the door when they open for the year Sept. 3. Enfield Police Chief Carl Sferrazza said he believes armed guards are the best deterrent for an "active shooter" like Adam Lanza in Newtown.
"These people are homicidal and suicidal individuals. Their intent and their planning is all geared toward killing as many people as they possibly can," Sferrazza said.
All Glastonbury schools also will have guards at the doors when school starts Aug. 29. The high school and Smith Middle School already had guards stationed there, and the town added seven additional guards at a cost of $315,000 for the school year.
Other school districts have chosen to add cameras, door buzzers, card-swipe entry systems or other, less drastic, security measures.
"We don't necessarily believe that having an armed guard in front of a school is the most productive way to make a school safer, for a variety of reasons," said East Hartford Superintendent Nate Quesnel. The father of six said, "I don't want to live in an America where we have to have an armed guard in a school that my children go to."
