After false school shooter alarm, a school board makes five policy changes

FRAMINGHAM — In the wake of a false shooter alarm on the day before the start of winter vacation last month at Framingham High School, the School Committee passed a flurry of motions aimed at ensuring that such an incident never occurs again.

Committee members passed five motions in all during their most recent meeting last Wednesday, all of which addressed issues stemming from the false alarm on Feb. 17. The incident, which erroneously alerted students and staff to an active shooter being in the school, resulted in widespread panic as hundreds of students fled the school and others were forced to shelter in place.

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The false alarm was triggered by the replacement of a battery in the school’s alarm system, which Superintendent of Schools Robert Tremblay said should have been done outside of school hours. Committee member Jenn Moshe, whose daughter was in the high school that day, made a motion to refer the topic of alarm maintenance to a policy subcommittee to ensure the district's policy for battery changes is "official" in the future.

"While the district reported that it has been an established practice to not engage in alarm system maintenance during school hours, this has not been memorialized in policy, and that now needs to be done," Moshe said.

Since the alarm incident, Framingham Public Schools has provided counseling for students, faculty and staff. Counselors visited Framingham High during the ensuing school vacation week to work with students and faculty. To that end, Moshe proposed examining the long-term possibility of providing such support, referring to the health and wellness subcommittee to examine the issue.

“Whether through a virtual mental health support phone number, virtual or in-person mental health services, or another mechanism, the trauma of what occurred could last years for some," she said. "The district is responsible for this trauma, and this motion ensures that health care access, funding and other barriers for students and staff are studied so we can learn about the options we have to hopefully offer coverage for years after their departure from FHS if ever needed."

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Moshe also made a motion to allow for the school district's emergency response plan to be reviewed, updated and posted online after what school officials have learned since the incident.

Communication cited as major area for improvement

A major criticism made by students and faculty about the false alarm was the amount of time it took to communicate that it was in error. Tremblay acknowledged the school’s PA system was ineffective, as many people who were in the building had fled. During his report to the School Committee, Tremblay said the best way to communicate this type of event, going forward, would be via a text alert system — specifically, the Blackboard system that's already used for snow days.

“It could send an immediate emergency alert text or a phone call to students, families and staff,” he said. “Even if that message was just ‘false alarm,’ that would have eased that fear.”

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School Committee member Adam Freudberg made a motion to look at wireless service and cellphone coverage in Framingham Public Schools buildings, and to fund any infrastructure changes necessary to improve those services.

“Our district, like many other organizations, has many old buildings that do not easily allow cellphone and wireless signals to consistently go through," Freudberg said. "We must do better and quickly study this and install new technology in a much more thorough manner than in the past."

Freudberg also made a motion to examine the district’s contract with Schneider Electric Buildings America, a vendor who manages the school's EAGL system the school uses for active shooting alerts. The company had reported the system was inactive when the school district went to change the battery. Freudberg’s motion called for an examination of the district’s relationship with Schneider to determine whether the company is doing an adequate job as a partner in school security.

“The School Committee has a fiduciary and contractual obligation to ensure vendors are doing their jobs per the respective contract," he said. "While the vendor in this case was not on-site, they were the ones reported to have told the district to replace the batteries, and told the district the alarms were inactive. Therefore, we need to seriously review their contract for compliance, investigate insurance coverage, and pause any vendor funding distributions until this review is done and brought back to us for a decision."

School Committee members also took time to address issues raised by the incident. Committee member Jessica Barnhill encouraged parents to talk to their children about gun violence and the causes of it, from improper firearm safety to mental health.

“As a city, state, nation, there is more work to be done," she said. "This is my work environment, this is my son’s learning environment, this is all of our children’s learning environment, and I’m hoping we can partner together and work to end gun violence, especially in our schools."

This article originally appeared on MetroWest Daily News: Framingham School Committee responds to false active shooter alert