While I like having police around schools I feel this is a knee jerk reaction. Why don't we focus on what can be done to make schools a safer place all the time not just when a horrific incident has occurred. Starting with keeping the doors locked at the schools and making sure there is always someone who can see who is walking in the front door would be a good start.. I can not tell you how many times I have walked into my son's school to find no staff in the front office at all for an extended period of time. Anyone could walk in and nobody would know until it is to late..

I can't help thinking that with all of the senior citizens we have, and I'm one of them, I think many of them would consider sitting at the door to observe anyone coming in during the day. As a matter of fact, aside from being just "people power", it would give a lot of seniors a sense of purpose that perhaps they may lack from time to time. Just a thought!

Just a Police State exercise...a drill..

Really? This was an isolated event in another state. Could something like this happen here? Unfortunately, yes. The peripheral patrolling of our local schools is no more than "show" and, as others have said, a knee-jerk reaction.

There will be police presence for a few days, but we can't station police at every school indefinitely. This is just am attempt to make parents feel better, but in my case it is not working.

What can parents do to help the situation..?? Are there opportunities for parents to have a say?

If someone wants in, they'll come in. Doors, cameras, senior citizen monitors, staff...nothing will stop an heavily armed intruder with intent other than an armed responder.

+1 Ed

Why do some people persist in the notion that we must live as we lived in the 1950s? Clearly, it isn't the 1950s anymore. We need meaningful, daily, consistent security measures in our schools. We lock our doors to our homes, we lock our car doors, we need to lock our schools.

We may not be able to forestall all dangerous people bent on getting into schools to do harm but we have a responsibility to our children to increase security beyond where it is now. At my son's school, anyone can just walk in. There was no security to speak of at an evening dance last year. Once the dance got under way, anyone could come in or go out the main doors without being stopped.

Now, we're supposed to reassure our kids that everything's OK. But we've seen this before. A copycat shooter will surface in the next few weeks or months. But nothing will have changed and we'll be crying over someone else's body. Everything isn't OK. But the powers that be will claim nothing more can be done. And the folks who want to pretend it's still the 1950s will clamor that we can't live in fear and the best thing we can do is resume our lives as if nothing had happened. That's not good enough anymore. Pry some money out of the budget; administrators salaries are ripe for cutting. And now that the biometric scanner lunch pass program is kaput, that should free up some money.

Why not move the palm scanner to the front door instead? If it is already in schools it would just be a simple adjustment of software to have it unlock doors. Those who help in the schools as volunteers can get their hand scanned. Surely parents will give up "supposed " privacy issues in order to help children learn in a safe environment. I would not put a person out front...unless you want to be the first one shot.

If the palm scanners weren't going to slow down the lunch line...that is why they were installed remember? Why would it slow it down before school? Point 2...they open doors only for student and then lock then again when students have arrived like they do in preschool. A student only needs palm scan if late. I have worked for government contractors for many years...would you quit your job if they installed palm scanners? If have worked where tbey are used. There is an incredible amount of ignorance how these palm scanners work and if you are fearful of them please ask someone who codes them so they can explain. Its actually very interesting if you would like to learn something new. And it has never cause a back up or slowed down entry at any job where I have used them. But then again your right nothing would stop someone determined...not even locking il guns. Because then they would go for knives and bombs. How many kids have been killed in China recently from knives? If the doors were locked or put on lockdown and you could only get in threw palm scanning then it would a little difficult to let and 20 year old non student non faculty in the school if records are deleted every year.

And I have to correct you...palm scanning doesn't use fingerprints or hand prints. Please look it up..it is easy to find and quite cool what it does scan.