One Lee school board member wants to verify that the dais is, in fact, bulletproof, and also suggests a discussion about adding metal detectors.
Lee County school board member Jeanne Dozier said she asked interim superintendent Larry Tihen to make sure the dais is actually made of bulletproof materials because sometimes what's promised isn't delivered.
"I wanted him to make sure that in fact it is what it is," Dozier said.
Though she feels safe when attending meetings, she said Tuesday's shooting warrants a discussion about security measures in the county, including possibly adding metal detectors.
"At the same time, we don't need to do a knee-jerk reaction," she said.
Metal detectors aren't used at meetings of the Lee County commission, the school board or the Fort Myers or Cape Coral city councils.
Cape Coral did, however, employ metal-detecting wands last year at one or two council meetings during the height of the hysteria over the utilities expansion project, said city spokeswoman Connie Barron.
In Collier County, the commission building has used metal detectors since 2006. Phillip Reid, the county's public schools security director, said Tuesday's incident has prompted a security review.
"Anytime something like this occurs, you look at what happened there and then you take a look at your own security measures and procedures," Reid said.
While Tihen said he believes security at school board meetings is adequate, he said the district will also examine its procedures, and he talked with security staff on Wednesday about beginning that process.
"We're reviewing what were doing and how we're doing it," Tihen said.
In 1994, he was one of the first people to rush to the aid of former Lee superintendent James Adams, who died after being shot five times in the chest and once in the head while sitting in his office by disgruntled former teacher Larry Shelton.
Shelton, like Duke, turned the gun on himself.
"It was certainly something that we went through that none of us who experienced it will ever forget," Tihen said.
The previous district administration building, the Dr. James A. Adams Public Education Center, was named after the former superintendent.
Sheriff Mike Scott, whose office provides two deputies for security during school board meetings, said he will sit down with officials if they want to discuss new measures.
"Does that mean we're gonna put a third deputy or a fourth or fifth or 20th? No," Scott said. "The reality of it is we just hope nobody goes in there with ill intent."
There is a limit, Scott said, to how far security can be taken at public meetings.
"People don't want to turn federal buildings into prisons," he said.
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