WILKES-BARRE - James McGovern, superintendent of the Lake-Lehman School District, called it "a new normal."
"We're living in a different world than we did perhaps in our childhood," Mr. McGovern said about armed officers in schools. "I don't believe it would be a distraction to the students."
Each high school in the Wilkes-Barre Area, Hazleton Area and Wyoming Valley West School Districts already has one or more full-time armed police officers patrolling their buildings and grounds. The Wyoming Area School District employs an officer who covers all five of its schools.
Yet Mr. McGovern and other school officials were quick to point out that an armed officer is only one layer of school security, and far from a foolproof method. Several officials mentioned the fact that Columbine had an armed police officer on duty during the shooting. The deputy exchanged fire with the shooters twice, but failed to completely prevent the rampage that left 13 dead.
And adding one to every school would require a lot more cash, a resource of which nearly all districts are in short supply. School officials estimated the cost of adding a police officer at anywhere from $20,000 to $40,000 per school. That's a lot for any district, and especially for one like the Wilkes-Barre Area and its nine schools.
School officials said they have made changes in their security since the shooting at Sandy Hook, where a single assailant killed 20 kids and six adults with a semiautomatic rifle.
In direct response to the Newtown shooting and right before the deadline at the end of the year, the Wyoming Area School District applied for a state grant that would allow it to add bullet- resistant glass to the main entryways of all its schools. The perpetrator in Connecticut forced his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School by shooting in a locked door with his rifle.
"If someone wants to do harm, they're certainly going to do it," said Raymond Bernardi, the district's superintendent. "However, the idea is to delay them so we can get the first responders there."
The tragedy at Sandy Hook has forced districts to re-examine their security systems, officials said, and nearly all are now probing for weaknesses, looking at everything from cameras and alert systems to the simple task of walking around the school ensuring there isn't an unlocked door somewhere.
If the funding issue could be solved, a police officer in every school would be welcomed, nearly all school officials said, but it's only part of the solution in preventing school shootings, not the final one.
"It's such a complex problem," said Charles Suppon, the superintendent of the Wyoming Valley West School District. "It extends way beyond guns. We're talking about mental health, we're talking about different issues."
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