GREENFIELD — School Committee members are pushing to improve communication and address how facility problems are reported after hearing concerns from parents, teachers and community members regarding the school district’s response after someone unexpectedly gained access to Federal Street School last week.
“You were failed, because you should have been spoken to the day it happened. I’m sorry that happened to you,” School Committee member Melodie Goodwin said, speaking to the teachers who gathered at the John Zon Community Center on Wednesday evening. “Communication has been bad in Greenfield for over 20 years. This is not about [interim Superintendent] Roland [Joyal Jr.]; this is about Greenfield. We like to pretend everything is wonderful. … Communication is key because everyone — me, parents, teachers — would’ve felt better with open and honest communication.”
On Friday, June 5, a shelter in place was called at Federal Street School under the advisement of the Greenfield Police Department, as police were monitoring the location of a young man with autism who was struggling with a mental health crisis. The man was able to enter the school through a door with a faulty latch.
Earlier this week, Police Chief Todd Dodge said that after being removed from the school by police, the individual was returned to Baystate Franklin Medical Center.
Parents said that while this individual did not intend any harm to the students, the incident proved that the School Department needs to improve communication, and address how incidents and facility concerns are reported.
“There is no standardized incident reporting across the district. Mayor [Ginny] Desorgher, you’re responsible for all the buildings across the district. If there was a failure of the door lock that was brought up multiple times by staff and it was never handled or escalated to you, that is a failure of communication,” Virginia Haskell, who has two children who attend Federal Street School, told the School Committee. “There are several issues of accountability that I’ve brought up with the principal that haven’t made it to the superintendent’s office. … If I am forced to trust my children with you for so many hours a day, you need to do better.”
Samantha Slater, a teacher at Federal Street School, told the School Committee that teachers had no information as to what was occurring in the moment or why a shelter in place was needed, leading to confusion and fear.
“On Friday, at approximately 11:55 a.m., an unauthorized young male entered our school building through the middle doors and was able to gain access all the way to the second and third floors of the south side [of the] building. For reference, I was testing students in the second-floor classroom directly across from the staff room,” Slater said. “When the shelter in place was called, I did a quick sweep of the hall to check for any students that needed a space. In doing so, I observed police officers at the top of the staircase, to which I immediately closed and locked my door. This is when I knew the scenario was more serious than a shelter-in-place call.
“I’ve asked now, twice, the question: was the shelter in place called before the person entered the building? Still no one seems to be able to give me a concrete answer. The timeline does not line up,” Slater continued. “While we now understand that this individual was not believed to pose a threat to himself or others, that was not known in the moment. Staff and students were faced with an unknown person in that building, and the fear and uncertainty experienced during that time was very real.”
William Gordon, Greenfield’s retired deputy police chief, called for an independent investigation into whether it was known that the door lock was faulty and, if so, how long school leadership had that knowledge. He said that “our students are Greenfield’s greatest assets, and the most vulnerable.”
Joyal, interim superintendent, said that if it was known that the door was broken, the information was not shared with his office, and at no point in the past two years was any work order or repair request submitted in the district computer system.
“We’ve heard rumblings — I’ve heard them myself — that people knew the door was compromised. OK, well, we still haven’t gotten to the point yet with telling me who knew,” Joyal said. “I can tell you I didn’t know the door was compromised. I can tell you I talked with the principal, the principal didn’t know that door was compromised. I talked to the daytime custodian, who’s been there for three years, [and] he did not know the door was compromised.”
Committee member Melissa McKenzie Webb spoke up to say she was aware the door was faulty, and that she had mentioned the issue during a tour of the schools that was part of the capital expense planning process.
“I’m gonna be honest — I was aware there was a fault with the door. My son has opened that door. When we did our capital planning walk-through, I walked up to the door and I yanked on it. Someone said, ‘I’ve gotta get my key card,’ and I said, ‘Why? It opens if you yank on it the right way,'” McKenzie Webb said. “Of course, in that moment, it did not happen. Part of me wishes it had because I don’t feel we would be having this conversation, but I did during the capital walk-through say there was a fault in the door.”
Goodwin said teachers and parents need to alert the school district when something is wrong, and if they are not seeing responses at the school level, to elevate them to the superintendent and School Committee.
“I encourage teachers, you yell bloody murder. If something’s not working, if you’re not heard, you start calling School Committee members,” Goodwin said. “Because it’s not about the money. Safety is always first.”
Joyal said he met with the Police Department, the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office and the State Police school safety liaison to review how the intrusion was handled, and that while further review of school safety policies will be conducted, he believes the response to the incident was handled appropriately.
“We’re trying to learn from this and heal, and we do think that overall, the incident itself, the time frame of whatever it was, the five to 10 minutes, went really well in that sense. I’m not saying it wasn’t scary in that sense, but it was handled appropriately at the time being,” Joyal said. “We’re still gathering some more information, we’re looking at our written policies. … I do have a commitment to our parents here because they do trust us.”
School Committee Chair Stacey Sexton said the topic would likely return at a future meeting.
