MARTIN COUNTY, Fla. — As we look at school safety five years after the tragic and deadly mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, a lot has changed in Florida.
The Marjory Stoneman Douglas Public Safety Commission was born out of the tragedy to make recommendations and streamline safety and security measures.
Some of the most impactful regulations include having an officer on every school campus, a panic alert system to notify law enforcement of an emergency, a school safety assessment at every school, and the Fortify Florida app to report suspicious activity.
WPTV went to the Martin County School District to see the changes they've implemented and what still needs to happen.
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The fear of a school shooting is always top of mind for Martin County parents.
"It's scary right now being a parent of school-aged children," parent Sydney Thomas said.
"I'm worried every day," parent Michelle MacFarland echoed. "It's just a different world."
A different world with changes at their children's schools over the past five years.
"After Parkland, you're not getting into the school without having to be beeped in," Thomas said.
"Would you say the schools are safer than when you got here?" WPTV education reporter Stephanie Susskind asked Frank Frangella, the director of safety and security for the Martin County School District.
"I would want to hope so, yes," Frangella answered.
Frangella was hired just months after the Parkland tragedy.
"What do you think is the most significant change in school safety and security you've been able to make in the past five years?" Susskind asked Frangella.
"I would say awareness," Frangella replied. "Knowing that we had a problem. Knowing that we had a lot of different issues and different things we could improve upon. And the tragedy made everybody in the state of Florida recognize that we did have vulnerabilities and we needed to fix them."
One of Frangella's first priorities was a new panic alert system, putting Martin County ahead of the curve.
"We did it, probably, a year-and-a-half before it was even talked about or state mandated," Frangella said.
Schools are also getting new fencing, like at Martin County High School. It's taller, up to 8 feet, it's stronger, and the holes are smaller to make it harder to climb.
Frangella showed WPTV around the new office entrance to J.D. Parker Elementary School, with multiple phases of locked doors. All schools will soon have this same type of entryway system.
"There’s layers before you get to the exclusive zone, which is our children," Frangella said.
There are new security cameras at schools and more technology that changes the game every day.
But Frangella said that's not the only part of the puzzle. Mental health is the other.
"We have everything done, or pretty much what we need to do, as far as the hardening side," Frangella said. "Now let’s get to the other side of the problem, or whatever is going on to try to fix that, before it escalates to something else."
These moms agree.
"The biggest area that needs to be focused on and allocated resources is mental health and the social emotional learning aspect of all of this," Thomas said. "That's the root of where a lot of this is coming from."
"Extra mental health, behavior interventions," MacFarland said.
Thomas has two children in middle school in Martin County.
"It's scary and it's unprecedented times in that regard. So I never feel completely relaxed or comfortable and there's always going to be gaps in security and ways to get around it," Thomas said.
Thomas said it is comforting to see the presence of Martin County sheriff's deputies on school campuses.
"That's probably the biggest change is how involved now the sheriff's department is with the security on the school campuses, and it's a discernable difference [since the Parkland shooting]," Thomas said.
Thomas hopes to see resources put toward mental health.
"At a time when our resources and energy should be put toward those types of programs and awareness and support, they are being pulled and, instead. it's being focused on giving more people guns, which I think is the opposite direction that we should be going," Thomas said.
When taking her kids to school, the possibility of "what if" is always on Thomas' mind.
"Often times, I'll have the thought and go through it in my mind. What if something like that were to happen there on that day? But then trying to tell myself the likelihood of that happening is so low, don't think like that. But I do think about it pretty frequently," Thomas said. "It's such a normal part of their lives to think about school shootings, and it's almost like a fancy fire drill. And when I was growing up, we never even thought about it. So it's weird to see it being normalized in their academic career."
MacFarland has two kids out of school and two kids still in the Martin County School District.
"I would love to see gun bans, but it's not going to happen here," MacFarland said.
Frangella said it's key that everyone is on the same page for school safety to be successful. He said the district has a mental health coordinator to make sure different service providers are aware of what resources a student is receiving. He said school security and safety is a working document that is never done.
"You are always checking your vulnerabilities, doing everything you can. And there’s so much new technology coming out every single day. So we’re not going to stop. We’re going to keep going," Frangella said.
And as we move forward to the next phase, Frangella said it's a collaborative effort to keep Martin County ahead of the curve.
"What do you want to tell the Martin County community about the safety of the schools?" Susskind asked Frangella.
"To trust us," Frangella answered. "We are doing everything we possibly can to keep your children safe."
