Following tragedy in Fla., school security top of mind in Wake, Cumberland counties

Voters passed a bond referendum five years ago to put a buzz-in entry system in all Wake County Schools, but some schools are still waiting, and parents are frustrated.

Lisa Luten, a spokeswoman for the Wake County Public School System, says all elementary schools do have the locked front-office doors and a buzzer entry, and all new schools are built with the buzz-in security system. In the next few years, every school in the county will have the same system, she said.

All schools have a visitor check-in system and a detailed security plan for entrances and exits, Luten said. Each school also has numerous cameras.

Wake County school board member Keith Sutton said not every door in every school can be looked at all times. He pointed out high schools where students can come and go for lunch.

"You've got a number of schools that have separate buildings and mobile modular classrooms, so as kids change classrooms, move from building to building, classroom to classroom, obviously you can't lock all the doors," he said.

According to Luten, all but five high schools have at least 64 security cameras, and more than half of the county's middle schools have no fewer than 32 cameras. Each elementary school has 16 cameras.

Stephen Xavier, who has a child at Apex Middle School, says the staff is vigilant - like when he forgot to check in.

"Someone immediately came come and asked who I was and [what] my purpose was here," Xavier said.

Xavier, along with other parents, said security is good on campus, but they would like to see better control of the access points.

"I know that the kids move freely form building to building, so I don't know how you do that," said Avaisha Turner.

Cumberland County is no stranger to an active shooter on a school campus. In 2011, a 15-year-old girl was shot by another student at Cape Fear High School.

"We go into lockdown. We train for it," said Bruce Morrison, security director for Cumberland County Schools. "We do it at least once a year. We do a drill for the whole system."

Morrison is responsible for making sure all of the more than 52,000 students at the 87 campuses in the county are safe.

Like other schools across the state, locked doors and security cameras greet most visitors.

"Once they get into the school, a lot of them, they will actually have to go through a control area where they have to wait and be acknowledged by the school staff before they can actually go on to the other portions of the school," Morrison said.

While teachers patrol campuses between classes in golf carts, school resource officers keep a watchful eye along hallways in many of the schools across the state.

Cumberland County Sheriff Ennis Wright has 43 student resource officers. He says they are highly trained in active shooter scenarios.

"We're not trained to wait for someone to come up before we get a pack in there," Wright said. "We're trained to go toward the gunfire. Once everybody gets there, then we would regroup and go back in. There's no way a child should be going to school with fear that someone will possibly walk into that school and open fire on them."

Cumberland County Schools officials say they usually have one active shooter drill a year, which takes place in September.