The Kingston City School District notified its school community of a threat against J. Watson Bailey Middle School on Friday, September 27 that was ultimately deemed non-credible. But at the start of a school year marked by gun violence in other states, and an altercation at Kingston High School where one student was found to be in possession of an unloaded flare gun, some students and parents are questioning the district’s safety protocols.
According to an administrative post on the Kingston City School District (KCSD) website, J. Watson Bailey administrators were notified of a possible threat that was brought to their attention by iWitnessNY, the district’s anonymous tip reporting system.
“The student in question was quickly identified by the Bailey School Resource Officer (SRO), with support from the Kingston Police Department (KPD), and the threat was deemed not credible,” read the districtwide post. “Disciplinary action will be taken in accordance with the school’s code of conduct…We are grateful that our SRO and building administrators, with the support of the KPD, were able to quickly conclude this investigation and deem the threat non-credible.”
The non-credible threat was revealed two days after a meeting of the board of education, where parents and students expressed concerns about school safety, including the decision to spend money on implementing the Yondr system in its secondary schools rather than installing metal detectors.
The Yondr system sees students seal their cell phones in a lockable pouch as they enter their building, and then unlock the pouch at the end of the school day. Centralized magnetic unlocking bases are located at school entrances. Each of the three schools using the Yondr system also have delineated spaces in administrative and nurses’ offices where they can unlock their phones if they need to contact parents or guardians. Students who use their phones for medical reasons will have different pouches allowing them access when needed.
The KCSD also uses the Raptor visitor software, which checks a visitor’s ID against law enforcement records and other databases, and are conducting bag checks and using metal detecting wands on random days.
“So some days kids might show up and find out there’s a bag check, or some days people find wands,” said KCSD Superintendent Paul Padalino earlier this month. “And we do use the wands at indoor sporting events, especially larger basketball games and those kind of things.”
At the September 25 school board meeting, KHS student Matthew Lundy questioned the wisdom of the Yondr system.
“The first few weeks of being a student at KHS this year have been unlike anything I’ve experienced in the three years of being here,” Lundy said. “Instead of implementing effective safety devices like metal detectors to keep firearms out of our school, the district has opted to spend tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars to fund Yondr pouches being implemented into the district. As a result of this on the second day of school, one firearm has already been discovered within one of the district’s buildings. As a result of this misappropriation of funds, who’s to say that there won’t be more incidents like this without using funds effectively?”
Lundy added that the addition of random bag searches will exacerbate an already intolerable bottleneck at school entrances. He also asked why classrooms couldn’t simply have their own cell phone drop areas, and said he believed the no-phone policy should extend to staff.
Diana Martinez is a KCSD parent who said tension in schools and her inability to connect with her children because of the Yondr pouches is untenable.
“I am very concerned for the safety of my children, especially at the high school and at Bailey Middle School,” she said. “To be honest, I’m thinking of homeschooling my children, because I don’t want them to attend at these schools anymore…I think that we have to do better for our children.”
Last week, KCSD parents and students alike spoke to Hudson Valley One about their safety concerns.
The daughter of Elizabeth Porter said she feels relatively safe as a KHS freshman, but added, “Sometimes, yes, it can be iffy, especially with other kids bringing in weaponry that are not allowed in the school. But overall, I do feel safe there.”
Even so, she called the Yondr pouches “a bunch of crap” implemented in part to spare the district from lawsuits if a student uploads footage of a fight shot with a smartphone. She added that the Yondr pouches aren’t as secure as the district believes.
“Kids are going to be kids,” she said. “I already know of multiple people who have figured out how to open them without a magnet, and some kids just put a fake phone in the pouch.”
She said her feeling of security in schools would likely be shaken by news of violence elsewhere in the country.
“I’d definitely feel unsafe at KHS when there’s a school shooting somewhere else, especially with these Yondr pouches and the fact KHS takes forever to communicate with our parents,” she said. “You can’t trust them to say anything quickly, because most of the time, it’s always at the end of the day that they say what’s going on; hours after the situation, I wouldn’t be surprised if it took a day or two for them to actually reach out with the situation.”
Robyn Playford is the parent of three KCSD students — a KHS senior, an 8th grader and a 4th grader. Though Padalino confirmed last week that it was a student found with a flare gun, some parents believe they were an intruder using an old ID badge. Playford said if a flare gun could make it into a school, so could a more dangerous firearm.
“Had that been a handgun instead of a flare gun, we could have easily had a mass casualty event and parents would have been burying their children,” Playford said. “I think that the (school) board needs to reconsider installing metal detectors in the high school and both middle schools. I also think that additional security personnel should be hired and they should all be full time employees. The middle schools only have ‘greeters’ at the doors. I think the elementary schools should also have SRO’s. This will provide an additional level of security and also allow younger students to form positive relationships with officers and help to combat the cops are bad beliefs they may hear.”
Padalino could not be reached for comment after the J. Watson Bailey non-credible threat was reported.
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