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Column
Fences, cameras at schools chip away at innocence
By GREG HAMILTON
Published September 12, 2005
It's another sign of the times: Several of our schools are being wrapped in sturdy, 6-foot-tall chain-link fences. More than 5,000 feet of fencing will be installed at Citrus High School, Inverness Primary and Homosassa Elementary.
There is nothing wrong, of course, with taking steps to protect students and staffers, and the school district certainly would be criticized for failing to provide adequate safeguards if an emergency were to occur.
Still, there is something troubling about this trend.
When we turn our schools into locked-down, fenced-in facilities with surveillance cameras scanning the halls and sexual offender screening in the front office, we act out of prudence but also fear.
We are responding to perceived threats to our safety, but we are sacrificing our openness in the process. We diminish the welcoming nature of the schoolhouse, the image of the campus as a place of learning and socialization.
The changes are subtle, and most people probably do not notice. Adults understand that these added security measures are necessary and accept them as the price we pay for living in a volatile and sometimes violent society. Children take them in as they would a fresh coat of paint or new asphalt on the parking lot.
Yet they are more than mere cosmetic alterations.
When officials begin removing trash cans because they might be a security concern - a possible place to plant a bomb, say - and shrubs are severely cut back because they could provide a hiding place for a predator or some other invader, the atmosphere at our schools has soured.
That these projects are paid for by the Homeland Security Department, a federal agency that arose in response to terrorist attacks, is a sobering reflection of the troubled world we live in.
School officials have no choice but to take these steps to enhance campus security, and who knows, turrets, searchlights and guard dogs may be next. Fifty, even 30, years ago, who would have thought that students would have to pass through metal detectors on their way to class?
In Citrus County, where we have long prided ourselves for our hometown feel and our country openness, a little more of our innocence is lost every time another fence or camera is installed.
[Last modified September 12, 2005, 03:15:25]
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