Last fall, 28 people were killed in an elementary school shooting in Newtown, Ct. From 2000-2010, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 431 school-associated violent deaths.

In 2008, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, 89 percent of public schools in the country locked or monitored their doors during the school day. Another 55 percent used security cameras. Brookline High School does neither.

Assistant Headmaster Hal Mason said that the lack of security measures helps to shape the school environment.

“This is a high school that is pretty unique in that it has open campus, and to make some of those changes as have been made in other places we think takes away a fundamental part of what Brookline High School is,” Mason said.

Instead of having locks or metal detectors, the school employs two plain-clothed, unarmed security aides.

They monitor the front of the building in the morning and the cafeteria during lunch time, but the rest of their days often vary, they said. The biggest key to their job: relationship building.

“A huge part of the job is us having the ability to go and meet students and really connect, to spend a lot of time building relationships and getting to know kids and letting kids know that we are a safe, reliable resource,” security aide Aaron Kimbro said.

The informality of the security aides and the school in general is intentional, according to Mason.

“We don’t want this to be a prison. In some places they’ve locked things down and sealed
off doors and they make you swipe ID cards,” Mason said. “We don’t believe that is the way a high school should be. It’s about the philosophy of how we give freedom to students and what we think a proper educational environment is like.”

Sophomore Brooke Overton and senior Aubrey Johnson said they felt safe.

“We live in Brookline. Nothing really happens here,” Overton said.

“I think locks often provoke people who wouldn’t normally think to go into a build- ing,” Johnson said.

Still, Mason said the school must strike a balance between freedom and safety.

“We try to be somewhat realistic about what the best way is to protect ourselves in the event of some type of crisis, so it’s a fine line,” he said.

Over the summer, the town revamped security in what Mason called preventive measures. All doors were strengthened and given new locks. Signs were placed on exterior doors to explain that they were intended only for students and staff and that any guests must go to the main office to receive a visiting pass.

Mason also said that lock- down procedures are under discussion and a change will likely be instituted later in the year.

Right now, signs posted next to the doors of some classrooms state that during a lockdown, students are “to sit on the floor quietly, away from the windows and away from the door.”

Teachers are instructed to hold students in place and wait for announcement or further directions.

According to the minutes of a Sept. 19 School Committee meeting, School Superintendent William Lupini said, “The Brookline Police Department is reviewing final changes to procedures for classroom staff, in the event of a lock down, to emphasize that staff should use their discretion and best judgment in certain situations, rather than always consider a lockdown/shelter-in-place to be a fixed decision. There may be instances where the professional judgment of the teacher would lead him/her to choose evacuation over lockdown.”

This change in philosophy is meant to give teachers more leeway to make situational deci- sions in the event of a crisis.

Mason said that, despite trying to keep the school an open space, the town cannot ignore the tragedies across the country.

“It’s certainly linked to looking at those specific events and seeing what worked and what didn’t,” he said. “It’s not an exact science. There’s no simple protocol that works every single time, so there is some talk about modifying some of the procedures and some of the things that we do in order to give people a better chance should something terrible happen.”

Jeremy Margolis can be contacted at [email protected].