County schools lack basic security

Three of the five schools I visited did not stop me from getting inside. But one principal did call police after I spent about 20 minutes roaming around her school.

I walked in just minutes after the children were in their seats at West Annapolis Elementary School. I walked right in through the front door, which is usually locked and requires ringing a buzzer to get in.

I wandered around, made a few laps around the office, and smiled and said hello to several adults.

After almost 20 minutes inside, I got bored and decided to leave. I noted the sign on the door that said not to let any visitors in, and walked out.

Then I thought maybe I should have written down exactly what the sign said. Too late.

I decided to try and get in again, and went to the front door. It was locked. I didn’t even notice the sign saying to buzz the office. I just kept yanking on the door. A nice lady came out of the office and pushed the door open so I could get inside, but didn’t ask what I was doing there.

Then I heard the principal calling me barely 15 paces from the door. “Who are you?” she demanded.

I tried to tell her I came to the wrong school. It was a little white lie. But Christine Stockett was too smart for that. The principal asked why I was lingering for 20 minutes.

As I headed on to Annapolis High School, Mrs. Stockett called my boss. She told him I looked like “a third grader who got caught in a lie.”

Then she called the police and notified school officials about our test.

Good and bad in Glen Burnie

At every school I visited, some version of this sign greeted me: “All visitors must report to the main office.”

But at Corkran Middle School, there was nothing inside the front door to back up the warning. The glassed-in office was off to the right and there was no one around, so I decided to take a stroll.

I was surprised. Corkran was the last school I checked, and it was the only one where I was never challenged.

I walked by the music room, cringing at the out-of-tune strains of band practice, and past the cafeteria, still dark and empty awaiting the lunch mobs.

I walked down a long main hallway lined with red lockers on both sides, passing about 20 classrooms with hundreds of students. Since it was during a class, I didn’t pass any teachers, but custodial staff and workers who seemed to be doing maintenance exchanged only friendly nods.

Finally, after exploring for about 10 minutes, I made my way back to the main entrance. I considered sticking around for lunch — a Mexican pizza and a Hawaiian Punch, perhaps? — but time was short.

Corkran Principal Deborah Montgomery didn’t return my call later.

Her school’s polar opposite, it seemed, was Marley Middle.

As I walked into the gleaming lobby — the school just opened this fall across the street from its 47-year-old predecessor — there was no question about where I was going.

A friendly staffer greeted me with “Good morning,” opening the door to the office and gesturing for me to go in. There was no way I could have gone anywhere else.

A woman checked my driver’s license and asked why I was there. I told her I was a reporter, and Assistant Principal Cordell Hunter agreed to show me around. We toured the school for about 20 minutes as we talked.

Later, told of the purpose of the visit, Mr. Hunter was curious about why The Capital used such tactics, but then said he supposed it was OK if it helped improve security. He quoted Malcolm X, who spoke of achieving goals “by any means necessary.”

But he was sure to note that the school has security cameras.

“We do have a picture of you,” he told me.

South River: A mixed bag

Maybe it was because of the size of the buildings, but it was easier to get through the high school unnoticed than any of the three elementary schools.While I was able to get past the front desk at Davidsonville and Central elementary schools, staff members later stopped me and asked me what I was doing inside the building.

It was also difficult to wander too much around either school, since the buildings weren’t very big. Staffers later directed me to the front office, where visitors are supposed to go, and then I left.

At Edgewater Elementary, I was unable to get past the office without giving the secretary my information, which would have been entered in the computer if I hadn’t come up with an excuse.

But at the larger South River High, I signed in near the front doors and proceeded to walk around the building. The hallways were empty and the few teachers I passed greeted me. Unlike the elementary school level, there were several areas to wander around in the high school. I went to the area just in front of the auditorium doors, as well as a few wings on the second floor. I went up and down a few stairwells and hallways to the point that I got lost and visited a few areas twice. After about 15 minutes, I was able to find the set of stairs that led to the front door. I signed my name to the sheet and left.

A read at Northeast

It was easy to head into Northeast High’s gymnasium through the wide open side door. And it was even easier to get to the second-floor library, and pick up a book.

A short walk across the glossy basketball courts led me to a main hallway. I passed two teachers, who smiled and nodded. Maybe I passed for a substitute teacher with my button-down shirt and dress pants.

Thirsty, I stopped for refreshment at a nearby water fountain.

I continued down the hall toward the main entrance, where it seemed like a woman was asking visitors to sign in. A left turn took me down another hallway, and led to a stairway.

I trudged up the stairs into another hallway, where I looked into classrooms and smiled at more teachers. One crossed the hall in front of me, said hello, and kept going.

My last stop was the library, where I picked up a copy of “Cry the Beloved Country.” A lecture continued next to me, even as my cell phone rang.

A few minutes later I walked out the front, past the sign-in desk and out to my car. Never did I have a visitors pass, and not once was I stopped.

Obvious at Old Mill

I wish I could say I was a sneaky person, and that’s how I walked around Old Mill High for 15 to 20 minutes.

The truth is, I had never been in the building before, and I was lost. No one seemed to notice the confused woman walking around the building, even when I was one of the only people left in the hallway after a class change. Not even as I stumbled through the administration office while I was trying to find the exit.

I spent time in the English wing, the science wing, and classes with foreign languages; I made sure I was a well-balanced student. But nothing, not even hall monitors bearing walkie-talkies, stopped my travel.

The case was similar earlier in the day at Severn Elementary, where I walked around the small building for about 10 minutes. Here, I was detected by three school employees, who smiled and said hello. They did not ask for any identification nor did they notice that I was not wearing a visitor’s pass.

I also spent about 10 minutes in Old Mill Middle South. Old Mill Middle North stopped me upon my entry and asked me who I was and where I was going. I did not get any further than the front desk of that school.

At Millersville Elementary, I got a hybrid reaction. At first, I walked in apparently unnoticed. However, when I came up against a dead end (I thought it would lead to another hallway), an employee asked if I needed assistance and escorted me to the front office.

It’s nice to know that a look of confusion is sometimes taken as a bad sign.

Roaming Brooklyn Park Middle

When I called Brooklyn Park Middle Principal Raymond Bibeault Thursday and told him I roamed the halls of his school earlier that day, I thought he had hung up on me.

“What?” he eventually asked. “You were in MY school? Brooklyn Park Middle?”Not only was I in his school, I was in there for about 10 minutes, freely walking through the front door, past the signs telling me I should sign in, past the main office, peering into the gym, the cafeteria, the library and even a few classrooms. I was never challenged once and I walked past the office, not once, but twice. Heck, I was even greeted by at least two faculty members.

Needless to say, Mr. Bibeault was shocked.

“Obviously, I believe this is a very secure building and we pride ourselves on it,” he said. “I don’t believe we have a system that needs to be changed but I do need to check that the doors do close and function properly.”

The school he believed to be so secure, equipped with a door buzzer and intercom system, still didn’t pass security muster and all it took was one set of open doors and a stranger was inside the middle school.

Invading South County

I hadn’t even turned off my car’s ignition before I knew how I’d be getting into Southern High School without being noticed. The double blue doors lining the school’s visitor parking lot were propped wide-open, and I could see from the driver’s seat there were no administrators walking the long, empty hallway behind them.

I pulled into a spot and made my way through the doors, stopping briefly to read a sign flapping in the wind.

The sign alerted visitors that the doors remain locked after 7:17 a.m. At 9:20 a.m., I walked right through them, past the cafeteria and to the main entrance of the school.

At this point I got a little nervous. The office was right in front of me and I was sure someone would be asking what I was doing there. A woman walked out of the office, smiled at me and said “Hello.” I smiled back and took a turn down a side hallway and eventually, through just about every hallway in the school — including upstairs and to the library.

After every hall had been covered, I got bored and exited the building, making sure I walked past the office on my way out. I even locked eyes with a few administrators inside the front office, but no one seemed to notice me. Back in the parking lot, I noticed a police car parked in a front space. I wonder where the officer was during my adventure.

Southern Principal Jason Dykstra never returned my calls to discuss my intrusion.

The first half of my next stop, Lothian Elementary, started out the same way as it did at Southern.

I walked right into the school, past a smiling staff member, in front of the office and down a hallway. After a few minutes, I ran into another woman, who asked if I was a “student teacher.” I told her I was with The Capital and then commented on a stained-glass art display. After a little small talk, she told me to have a nice day and left me to roam the hallways on my own.

I covered half the school before I got lost and ran into the first woman I’d met. She asked if she could help me with something. I told her who I was and was immediately directed to the office, where a principal greeted me with a smile and a handshake.

I was pleased when the secretary asked for my press badge to verify I was truly a reporter. And the principal insisted on joining me for my walk through the school — for the second time that day.

Hanging out at Chesapeake

A nod and a smile is all it took to get past the security of Chesapeake High School.

Shortly after walking into the school at 8:41 a.m., a young staffer sitting at an apparent sign-in table only said “hi” as I walked through the door. Not wanting to be rude, I said “hello” back — but kept walking.

Then, a second later, I was confronted by another adult holding the door open to the main office. There, I simply exchanged nods with the man and kept strutting down the hall.

After that, I knew was in the clear. For 21 minutes I literally walked laps around the school’s two floors, smiling at dozens of teachers, peering into occupied classrooms, and even checking out some of the flyers and awards posted in the halls and cafeteria. Only one person ever said more then “hello” to me the entire time I was in the building, and that shop teacher only quipped a friendly “How you doing” as I walked down a hall that dead-ended at his classroom. A quick “Doin’ good,” and U-turn was all it took for me to evade his questions.

As I searched the building — walking through the library and cafeteria — a bell rang and young students flooded the halls. For at least five minutes I was surrounded by children, getting bumped into by fresh-faced teens, and even mistaken for a young girl who kicked a friend’s backpack. The victim of the prank turned around and stared in the direction of the kick, only to quickly realize the bearded 26-year-old behind him probably wasn’t the culprit.

“She kicked his bag and he looked at him,” laughed another student in the hall.After making sure I walked down every hall I could find in the school — some three or four times — I finally headed back out the front door.