North Carolina Still Takes Lessons from Columbine
By Sean Maroney

On the morning of April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold entered Columbine High School, killed 12 students and a teacher and injured 24 others. State Board of Education Chairman Howard Lee remembers that day and says it continues to affect North Carolina.

"Obviously, the Columbine tragedy sensitized a lot of us to our need to focus more heavily on insuring the safety in our schools," Lee said.

But with more than 2,000 public schools across the state, Lee admits it's difficult to mandate a uniform plan.

"It is my contention that the principal, the SRO officer, the teachers and anybody who sees an individual in the school who looks like he or she doesn't know where he or she is going should turn to that person and ask if they may help," said Lee.

After speaking with Lee and the Chapel Hill-Carrboro superintendent's office, I visited some local middle schools. I wanted to see how long I could wander around before an administrator approached me. My first stop was Guy B. Phillips Middle School.

“Can I help you?”

The total time before principal Eileen Tully approached me in the halls - two minutes.

"As you can see, it's easy to walk in our front door and take a left and the
main office doesn't even see you,” said Tully. “So I'm glad you did the experiment. I'm glad that we passed."

I then tried Smith Middle School.

"You gotta go to the front office."

I didn’t even make it through the door before a custodian stopped me.

My last stop was McDougle Middle School. The door was locked, and a school resource officer met me in the parking lot. All in all, our schools seemed to be following Lee's advice - even seven years after a tragedy.

"When the crisis comes, people react, and they beef up their security, and they make a different response,” said Lee, “but as the crisis impact wanes, people tend to go back to the natural behaviors."