TOPSHAM, Maine — Concern about school safety in Maine did not end with Saturday’s national protests.
A group of Mt. Ararat High School students — one of whom traveled to Washington, D.C., on Saturday to join hundreds of thousands of young people in the March for Our Lives demonstration — met with local legislators Monday afternoon to talk about how they might better work for school safety.
“It’s hard to feel safe at school,” Ivy Dennen, 18, of Topsham told Rep. Seth Berry, D-Bowdoinham, and Rep. Jay McCreight, D-Harpswell, at the Fairgrounds Cafe.
Earlier this year, Mt. Ararat High School students heard over the loudspeaker that a “Code Yellow” was in effect — a shelter-in-place order due to a potentially violent incident or a medical emergency — one day after a previous threat had been identified. Students said they heard “obvious panic” in the assistant principal’s voice and realized it was lunchtime, a time drills never take place.
“I immediately thought, ‘Should I call someone to let them know I love them?’” Dennen said.
“I got those texts from my son,” said Berry, whose children attend schools in the Mt. Ararat district.
That day — the day after the Parkland, Florida, shootings — Topsham police and school staff received reports that a threat had been made at the high school, School Administrative District 75 Superintendent Brad Smith said. Law enforcement deemed it not credible, according to Smith, but the next day a bomb threat led administrators to evacuate Woodside Elementary School.
In addition, a communication between two students prompted another “shelter in place” until school staff resolved the matter, he said.
But the 1970s-era open design concept of the high school, much of which has no walls, also concerns the students, who have learned about different safety plans and wonder if Mt. Ararat students should be told to shelter in place or to leave the school in an emergency.
“Mt. Ararat is not conducive to lockdowns,” said Mae Flibotte, an 18-year-old senior from Bowdoinham.
Smith said Tuesday that of the three law enforcement agencies that represent towns in SAD 75, only the school resource officer from the Topsham Police Department has been trained in the ALICE (alert, lockdown, inform, counter, evacuate) protocol, which provides a plan for an active shooter incident.
Dennen said her father has encouraged her to buy special doorstops that would prevent a shooter from entering her classroom.
Flibotte advocated for teachers “having some level of training,” but other students said they’ve been told that local and state police and the two counties that send students to the school “are not on the same page” when organizing safety plans.
Flibotte drove on Saturday with four other Mt. Ararat seniors to Washington, D.C., to join the March for Our Lives, an experience she described as “amazing” and “poignant.”
“I’m a physical and social wreck,” she said, smiling.
As part of the #Enough National School Walkout day, the same group of students organized a walkout earlier this month at the high school. Despite being delayed because of a snow day, the event drew between 200 and 250 students, or about one-third of the student body, they said.
Dennen said students organized the walkout as “a neutral event” about safety, rather than gun control.
Flibotte wrote a letter of intent explaining just that, and the committee met with Mt. Ararat High School Principal Donna Brunette and the school resource officer to coordinate, they said.
“It was not political and it was a memorial for the Parkland students,” she said. Still, those who participated saw “pushback” from students who don’t agree with gun control.
“When they realized it wasn’t about gun control, some of them joined us,” said Hannah Wilson, 18, of Bowdoin.
Smith said district administrators “opted to respect that this was a student activity, needed to be planned by students without staff involvement, and limited to the 17-minute walk.”
He said administrators supervised those who walked out as well as those who remained in classrooms, and no students were disciplined for taking part.
But the students were surprised at parents’ comments on Facebook, insisting the event was political.
“Parents were calling us out,” said Dalton Streeter, 18, of Bowdoinham. “They said, ‘Just stop [the] bullying in your school,’ but the parents were bullying us! We were like, just look in the mirror.”
“One parent posted, ‘She just did what a good liberal does,’” Wilson said.
Students said after the walkout, another high school student whose name they don’t know printed anti-Semitic fliers “calling out [former President Barack] Obama and saying gun control caused the Holocaust,” and left them in a school printer, as well as distributing them around school.
“A lot of us are able to vote this year,” Dennen said. “And we feel like we could do more.”
“What can we do to further push gun safety in school?” Dennen asked Berry and McCreight.
Berry commended the students and spoke of several bills proposed that, if passed, would address their concerns, including one that would add security screenings at schools.
He encouraged them to testify at legislative hearings about the bills, to continue to educate each other, and to write letters to the editor of local papers.
“What you’re doing now is fantastic,” Berry said.
“It’s the students who are going to change this,” Dennen said. “People are obviously riled up by this.”
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