School security comes in two parts: physical and technological. Security specialist Steven Williams outlines the protocol the administration and faculty take to ensure the safety of the students and staff.
“If we have to evacuate from here somebody has to be in control of the schedules of the people being taken to the new place and somebody has to be in control of all the emergency contacts,” Williams said. “I think it’s about 18 pages long, and it’s got emergency phone numbers, emergency locations, safety rooms and things like that.”
There are also different categories of critical incident situations that all Fairfax County Public Schools are required to prepare for. Section IV of FCPS Regulation 8613.13 outlines the various crisis plans and procedures. They vary from “Lockdown,” which means there can be no students or staff in the halls due to a security threat inside the building, to “Onsite and Offsite Evacuations,” which would involve moving the entire student body and faculty to a secure location.
“I interact with the security staff daily,” principal Jeffrey Litz said. “Ultimately, the safety of everyone in the building is my primary responsibility. It’s my job to review our evacuation plans, our safety plans, to make sure appropriate personnel are first aid trained.”
The regulation also mandates that lockdown drills be run twice a year—one in September and one in January—and tornado drills once a year in March. Other drills include fire drills once a week during the first month of school and once a month thereafter as well as two bus emergency drills—one during the first month of school and another during the first month of the second semester.
“My biggest issue, my biggest concern is something coming into the building from the outside,” school resource officer Tom Harrington said.
Harrington has 26 years of law enforcement experience and has worked at four other FCPS schools prior to Marshall. As a Fairfax County police officer, he is also the only person in the building authorized to use and carry a gun.
The main job of the security staff during the school day is to make sure students are accounted for and in a safe environment.
“As soon as you guys get in school, let’s say approximately at 8:20, we lock every single exterior door for the day,” Williams said.
Most interior doors are open during the day, excluding the courtyard doors during learn to push students to go to academic classes, and the gym and locker room doors when there is not a class, to deter thieves. There is also a tedious process to close up the school each night.
“The last person with an alarm code who leaves is responsible for going around to every room and checking to make sure every door is locked and every light is off,” Litz said. “They go around and check every external door, typically they walk around the grounds as well because we have storage sheds and spaces out there. Just basically making sure everything is properly locked and stored away.”
Security officer Renee Royle, who has three decades of law enforcement experience under her belt, stresses the importance of staff awareness of the student body and how it acts as a method of security risk prevention.
“Something might happen to them when they’re gone and supposed to be here and their parents think their kid is safe at school when they’ve actually gone out and maybe have gotten hurt or ran away,” Royle said.
Sometimes, it’s just enough to be present and available during school hours to stop security issues. The logic is as follows: if students see administration or security staff patrolling the halls, students are less likely to act up.
“Visibility is a big thing,” Harrington said. “The tough part about my particular job as a police officer in the building is that you never know just what my visibility has stopped.”
Harrington also mentioned the network that all the police officers in FCPS have with each other regarding public school students. Anytime a student is caught committing a crime or violation by any officer in Fairfax County, such as possession of illegal substances or speeding, that officer will let the resource officer of the offender’s school know.
“For example,” Harrington said. “If we get a big party on a Saturday night and a couple of kids get busted with possession of marijuana or possession of alcohol, that’s the type of information I’d pass onto Mr. Litz so that number one: the substance doesn’t come back into the school, and number two: if the kids need some kind of assistance the school can make it available to them.”