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Kate Fowler became principal of St. Mary's/St. Alphonsus School in Glens Falls five days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Safety measures there, as at many of the Diocese's 22 other schools, have been evolving ever since.

"We've always been on sort of heightened alert," Mrs. Fowler said. "As we get reminded by certain incidents, it makes you think about [safety] even more."

During Mrs. Fowler's first few years at the helm, the school installed two-way communications systems in its classrooms, as well as security cameras and motion detectors. After the 2006 Amish schoolhouse shootings in Paradise, Penn., St. Mary's/St. Alphonsus locked the front entrance and appointed a staff member to watch the monitors.

Now, in the wake of last winter's school shootings in Newtown, Conn., two employees man the monitors and door buzzers. The school is limiting groups allowed to use the building after hours, and playground gates are locked and guarded during use.

Along with other diocesan schools, St. Mary's/St. Alphonsus recently teamed up with police, county sheriffs and state police to discuss procedures and get recommendations. The school will be locking vacant classrooms and lockers and researching new building locks.

Schools have also been updating emergency resource guides with maps, schedules and contact information and holding more lockdown drills. The Albany diocesan Catholic Schools Office has been updating and centralizing emergency plans since last fall; an emergency preparedness committee was formalized after the Newtown tragedy.

"It's of utmost concern to us that all of our students and staff are safe and feel safe at all times," said Julie Sica, director of education technology for the CSO and a committee member. The committee has hosted several meetings with principals; they've pored over possible scenarios and heard from national school safety experts. "People have stepped it up quite a bit in the past few years nationwide," Mrs. Sica said.

The CSO mandates that schools keep visitor logs and check identification, lock doors at all times, have only one main point of entry, record when and how often fire drills and lockdown drills take place and use a district-wide emergency notification system. The office also recommends communities "within their means do anything that is possible to secure their buildings," Mrs. Sica said.

The schools have taken this seriously: St. Jude the Apostle School in Wynantskill recently updated its security system to cover all doors and playground areas and numbered windows and doors to meet police and fire department requirements. Sacred Heart School in Troy also marked classrooms from the outside, installed locks on classroom doors, assigned two-way radios to every teacher and identified three panic rooms.

At St. Ambrose School in Latham, new staff, volunteers and others are being briefed on procedures, according to principal Terri McGraw. Officials are identifying evacuation sites for possible situations and lockdown drills are becoming more prevalent, even among the 67 pre-schoolers.

"You don't want to scare them," Mrs. McGraw said of younger students. "You just say, 'This is practice in case something happens.' I spend a lot of time thinking about this. Safety is really paramount to everything we do here."

Jane Kromm, principal of St. Clement's School in Saratoga, also studies how to make her school "safe without frightening the children, how to make it as normal as possible for them.

"We don't want to make it a fortress," she said; police officers "remind us we're an elementary school. But there are certain things we can do."

Construction creating double vestibules at St. Clement's main entrance will be completed by Thanksgiving. The school is looking into a security system that scans visitors' driver's licenses to watch for sex offenders. Another security camera is being added, and more outdoor lighting will eliminate possible hiding places. Swipe cards will replace keys for faculty.

In the past year, Mater Christi School in Albany expanded its public address system to reach far corners of the building and outdoor play areas and upgraded its locks and security system. Its card access system is being replaced, and officials are researching a film that prevents glass from shattering.

The measures "lend a comfort level," said principal Theresa Ewell, "but the greatest challenge is to get everyone to comply with what you've set up. There's more of a shared responsibility with this.

"Our parents have been very grateful for the increase," she continued. "[I tell them], 'Don't worry about being polite; worry about being safe.'"

Mrs. Fowler said vigilance is one of the strongest weapons schools have against threats: "My own husband was stopped at the door one day because a new mom didn't know who he was."

Safety is "not something that looms over us, that we're terrified of, but it's a concern," she said. "You just worry about those precious little beings." [[In-content Ad]]

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