Students to find better security at many Maine schools

Projects too big to do after the Newtown shootings were done during the summer break.

By Noel K. Gallagher ngallagher@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer 

http://www.pressherald.com/news/students-to-find-better-security-at-many-schools_2013-08-26.html#

More security cameras. Double sets of locking doors. Classroom doors that lock from the inside. Entryways in which secretaries sit behind thick glass so they can see who is arriving before buzzing them inside.

These are some of the new security measures that students will find in Maine schools this fall, prompted in part by last December's massacre in Newtown, Conn.

"We feel it's money well spent," Lewiston Superintendent Bill Webster said of the $370,000 the district has used for security upgrades. The district got approval to spend the extra money out of construction funds.

"I feel pretty good about where we are," Webster said.

Many security changes were made in the immediate aftermath of the mass shooting in December at Sandy Hook Elementary School, where Adam Lanza killed 26 students and teachers. Larger projects, usually involving new construction in a school entryway, were delayed until the summer months when students were on break.

At least one more drastic measure that came about after Newtown, a bill that would have given schools in Maine the option of allowing teachers and other staff members to carry concealed handguns in school, failed in the legislative session.

Several schools have added security upgrades to plans already in place to renovate certain buildings, using construction funds.

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