ORION TOWNSHIP, Mich. — As students left Lake Orion High School Monday, things were different. The most obvious sign of change: Only clear backpacks were allowed.
Lake Orion is one of many Michigan schools adjusting their rulebooks or their calendars in response to the Nov. 30 shooting rampage at Oxford High School, which left four people dead and seven others wounded.
For parents like Sharri D'Annunzio, the precaution at the high school just seven miles south of Oxford's, is "a Band-Aid on a much bigger problem."
D'Annunzio, mother of Zackary, a 17-year-old senior at Lake Orion High School, and Victoria, 21, a recent graduate, said the mandate for clear backpacks was a good idea — at first. But now she worries "it's not going to change anything; people will still find a way."
While metal detectors would be inconvenient, D'Annunzio feels they would be more effective. "I would rather my child go through a metal detector than go through losing a life," D'Annunzio said. "Better safe than sorry."
Mark Snyder, a spokesman for Lake Orion Community Schools, said the district opted to move toward clear backpacks rather than eliminate them as students resume in-person learning following a week of virtual instruction "because students need items to continue their quality education."
"We've had tremendous community response, including donations for families in need, around the announcement of the shift to clear backpacks when students returned to in-person learning today, and we appreciate that connection," Snyder said in a statement to The Detroit News.
Other school districts are opting for a more muted approach, doubling down on tactics already in place, such as active-shooter training, while viewing relationships within the school building with newfound importance.
In Utica Community Schools, Michigan's second-largest district, the first semester will be stopped short. Half-days scheduled for Dec. 20 and 21 have been canceled and the semester will end with a half-day on Friday.
"The revised calendar is the right thing to do for our students, families and staff," Superintendent Robert Monroe wrote in a letter to the community last week.
Monroe cited twin school safety woes for the timing of his decision — COVID-19 and threats of school violence — along with one burden many institutions now share: staffing shortages.
In Oakland County, more than 10,300 people had signed a Change.org petition as of Monday night to move county schools to remote learning "until threats are addressed or until winter break." Organizers are seeking 15,000 signatures.
In the petition, addressed to Oakland County school administrators, organizers are calling for all districts in the county to release "detailed and concrete" plans for keeping students safe.
"Threats to schools cannot be taken lightly and our administrators need to prioritize the safety of students," the petition reads.
In the week since a shooting at Oxford High, schools in southeast Michigan have experienced a rash of social media threats followed by arrests of students found with guns, authorities said.
More than two dozen people have been charged in Wayne County in connection to school threats or bringing weapons to school, and the number of cases is expected to rise, local prosecutors said Monday. Charges have also been filed in Oakland and Macomb counties.
On Monday, West Bloomfield Schools announced that it would go virtual for the rest of the week following a social media threat.
The district, in a letter to families, noted that the Oakland County Sheriff's Office in conjunction with the West Bloomfield Police Department had "located the threat and apprehended the suspect."
Even so, due to "potential ongoing threats and heightened stress levels," the district shifted all of its schools and programs to virtual learning for the rest of the week. The regular schedule will resume on Jan. 3.
But as school administrators review their safety plans after Oxford, "we need to be really careful not to overreact," warned Dr. Steve Brock, a past president of the National Association of School Psychologists.
"Overreaction can be traumatizing, and it could promote or facilitate the school-to-prison pipeline — things we just don't want to occur," said Brock, who leads the school psychology program at California State University, Sacramento where he teaches.
Brock said schools need to find a "balance" between physical and psychological safety.
"Do we need to attend to visit protocols and procedures or access to the school campus? Do we need to instill a sense of pride in our building or territoriality? Yeah, we need to do that," Brock said. "But we also need to make sure that psychological safety is attended to and perhaps the most important thing we do in that regard is promoting a sense of school connectedness."
We 'can always do more'
On April 16, 1987, in Detroit, Murray-Wright High School student and star football player Chester Jackson Jr. was shot in the head at school and died. Two other students were also shot.
Michigan's largest school district has had metal detectors in certain schools ever since.
Dr. Nikolai Vitti, superintendent of Detroit Public Schools Community District, said he thinks of metal detectors as a tool, not the final answer. They're not even at every school in Detroit, just at some of the larger high schools, he explained.
Those decisions are made between the district's police force and the building principal, Vitti said.
"The best 'detectors' of violence are positive and open relationships between students and staff and among students," Vitti said.
Jon Dean, superintendent of Grosse Pointe Public Schools, said "it's too early to say exactly what's going to change."
The eastern Wayne County district covers six cities — the five Grosse Pointes, plus part of Harper Woods. Dean said he meets regularly with their chiefs of police, but after Oxford thought it was important that they all meet at once. The district also has a safety consultant.
Grosse Pointe schools conducted a safety audit in 2016, Dean said. It made two categories of recommendations: physical updates to "harden the target," and "processes, protocols and procedures." The physical updates started in 2018, and are mostly done, he said.
"We've done many of the physical things they recommended through some construction bond work," Dean said. "We've added secured vestibules, we've added doors that lock from the inside of the classroom, but don't require a key."
The audit gave the district several protocols to follow in different emergencies, Dean said, whether an active shooter or a chemical spill. Grosse Pointe schools also do regular drills, and each school has a "specific off-campus evacuation site," to lessen confusion.
"We can always do more. We can always do different," Dean said. "We have to balance that with: what's the right thing to do?"
Like Vitti in neighboring Detroit, Dean said "relationships" between the police and the community, especially with children, are important in creating a safe school environment.
Asked whether the district has considered metal detectors, Dean reiterated that forging relationships is the priority, but "that doesn't mean we take any one security measure off the table, or it's something we'd never consider."
"But even our chiefs of police said the most important thing that we can do is have relationships," he said.
One thing that probably won't change is the prospect of arming teachers, an idea often floated after school shootings.
In a Detroit News op-ed, Paula Herbart, president of the Michigan Education Association, wrote: "We must dismiss the fallacy, already being promoted by some, that more guns in schools will make anyone safer. To think an educator could or should fire on a student amid the chaos of violence is utter nonsense and lays waste to the nurturing role of teachers and classrooms."
In the Legislature, an initial proposal for change post-Oxford has been offered in the opposite direction, to limit the damage any one gun can do before being reloaded.
State Sen. Rosemary Bayer, D-Beverly Hills, whose district includes Oxford High School, authored a bill banning "high capacity magazines," limiting them to 10 rounds.
Accused Oxford High School shooter Ethan Crumbley had three 15-shot magazines on him the day of the shooting, police said.
The Republican-controlled Legislature has consistently resisted imposing new restrictions on firearms. Earlier this month, Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey, R-Clarklake, told reporters there would be a time to determine whether the lawmakers should act after the Oxford mass shooting.
"If we get obsessed with eliminating all risks, we will then develop and evolve into a country we won't recognize," he said.
For Oxford Community Schools, the high school remains closed, and it will until at least January, officials said.
But K-8 students returned to the classroom Friday. When they did, no backpacks were allowed and therapy dogs were made available in each building. The district canceled all classes Tuesday due to a threat on social media.
