Aycock tightens security
By Steve Herring
Published in News on December 5, 2014 1:46 PM
Classroom doors were kept closed and locked.
Wayne County Sheriff's Office deputies patrolled the grounds.
Students were, according to several who spoke to the News-Argus, required to have an escort to use the bathroom, and attendance was noticeably down Thursday at Charles B. Aycock High School following threats of possible violence made via social media in the aftermath of a Wednesday fight on campus.
Ken Derksen, public information officer for Wayne County Public Schools, confirmed that "rumors" of potential violence had surfaced prompting the school system to take action.
"We partnered with the Sheriff's Office and they sent out some extra deputies," he said. "Of course, we had our own staff out there to help show a heightened presence.
"This is to help ... have a more watchable eye on the campus and also to help give parents and students peace of mind that we (were) having increased security."
But Derksen said that despite the extra security and state of heightened awareness, the school was never on lockdown.
"We received a lot of parent calls, too, (Thursday) -- things like, 'We heard there was a shooting at the school. We heard our school is on lockdown,'" he said. "Of course, there is no credibility to those types of rumors that parents may have heard or posted on social media."
As for classroom doors being locked, Derksen characterized it as typical protocol for the school.
"We had a crisis symposium last February, and that has been a protocol for teachers to do since that symposium last February -- to lock doors," Derksen said. "That is not unusual for teachers to lock their doors. That has been in place for months.
"It is just a protocol and not because of anything that happened (Wednesday). As far as patrolling the grounds, there was some staff out in front of the building. Whenever we have heightened security at the schools, which today we did."
Students also said that the front door was "being guarded" -- that parents were being stopped as they came, in the middle of the day, to remove their children from school.
Derksen, though, said there was nobody guarding the front door -- but that it is possible somebody was there as people were moved around at different positions at the school.
"You might have had a staff member out by the driveway," he said. "It might have been where the deputies were. Of course, (Thursday) morning, there were four deputies on campus for part of the morning. Then we had two deputies on campus all day. Also, some of the county's roving patrol deputies would stop by from time to time just to show a presence."
School officials were aware of social media threats that something might happen, but Derksen said they "found no truth to the rumors."
"But it would be no different than if we would find where someone had written on a bathroom wall that there is a bomb that will go of on this date at this time," he said. "We are still going to evacuate the school. We are going to take a pro-active approach because we are always going to err on the side of caution when it comes to student safety -- especially when it helps to show that we hear the rumors that we don't believe them, that we have not found any truth to these rumors, but we are still going to take them serious, and we are going to have a heightened presence on our campus and let parents, students and staff know we are taking a pro-active approach to promoting a safe learning environment."
Some students texted their parents Thursday -- telling them that they wanted to be picked up.
There are approximately 1,272 students at the school, and on any given day about 85 are absent.
"As for (Thursday), we were down by about 150 students," Derksen said. "I asked how (much) of that was attributed to the rumors that might be circulating and what I was told was approximately 55 to 65 students (were) believed to have either not come to school or called to go home as the day went on."
Derksen said there was no truth to reports from students who said they were told they could not leave class to go to the restroom.
"There was no lockdown or anything like that," he said. "Students were not being kept in the class and not allowed to leave, that sort of thing. That is a safety and security protocol, so if there was ever something to happen on that campus, the door is already locked."
Derksen said that Principal Earl Moore sent automated messages to parents on Wednesday and Thursday to let them know about the fight -- that in the messages, Moore also encouraged parents to talk to their children about the seriousness of fighting and the importance of cooperating with law enforcement.
Some parents, though, said they were never notified.
Calls to Moore were not answered by press time.