By LINDA KELLETT

C-S-E News Staff

ST. JOHNSVILLE — On the heels of a lone gunman’s deadly assault on 20 innocent children and six adults at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school in mid-December, St. Johnsville school and police officials took a hard look at potential security risks at St. Johnsville district schools and implemented the first of a number of new safety procedures.

Grant applications and increased state funding stemming from the district’s merger with Oppenheim-Ephratah may make it possible to address some additional physical changes at local school buildings.

That’s according to District Superintendent Laura Campione-Lawrence, who recently talked about some of the changes that stemmed, in part, from a January meeting of the St. Johnsville Community Policing group.

Police Chief Diana Callen, Hamilton-Fulton-Montgomery BOCES Health-Safety-Risk Management representatives and St. Johnsville District officials were among those present for that meeting.

Campione-Lawrence said, “The community had an informational meeting on safety. We  actually opened it up to the community on suggestions they had to improve the safety in the buildings.”

By some accounts, it was an emotionally-charged meeting; however Campione-Lawrence characterized it as a “very productive meeting with a lot of good recommendations.”

Immediate steps taken prior to that meeting included the closing off of the multiple entryways that formerly were accessible at the junior and senior high school building. “Now we only have one entryway,” said Campione-Lawrence.

Additionally, St. Johnsville Police are now patrolling the buildings.

Callen on Monday said, “We decided we’d try to do daily walk-throughs at unscheduled times.”

She explained that St. Johnsville in the past had a school police officer, but the officer’s salary/benefits were paid for through a grant-funded program. When the funding dried up, the department was not able to fill the position.

Despite the lack of funding, Callen said, “We can make a presence daily.”

She said officers go to both the junior-senior high and elementary schools. Because the patrols are unscheduled, she said officers are sometimes present when the students are out and about. Other times, they’re there when the students are in class.

“This gives [the officers] an opportunity when they’re on the day shift to know the surroundings,” she said.

Callen said the department will be conducting a training session at the school so all of the officers will be familiar with the layout of the buildings “in the event an unfortunate event did occur.”

 She said it will be a mandatory training session.

“You can never train too much. That’s for sure,” Callen said.

Campione-Lawrence said the training, which is scheduled for later this month, will be an “active-shooting drill” with Ilion police officers.

In addition to the above measures, she said some community members provided her with a list of recommendations. Among those are changes requiring an outlay of money.

“We’re going to look at that. One concern was walking into the elementary school. That’s open, especially the kindergarten area. We’re going to look at closing that off so [visitors] are walking into a vestibule. They would be checked by an attendant,” Campione-Lawrence said.

District officials are also exploring safety grant funding with the assistance of the Capital Region BOCES.