Harford school system changes key practices, ups security

A former practice that allowed non-school employees to have keys to school buildings was changed at the start of this year.

Prior to this school year, according to Manager of Communications Teri Kranefeld, each building administrator was given a number of keys to be distributed based on the needs of the school, provided the individual receiving the key signed for it.

In some cases, the administrator could determine the need for leaders in the school community, not necessarily employees, to have a key, but that part of the practice has since changed.

"The practice will now only allow school system employees to have access to keys," Kranefeld wrote in an e-mail.

Kranefeld could not, for the sake of safety, release the types of leaders and individuals who could have had access to keys in the past, but acknowledged that non-school employees could have been identified.

Starting this school year, that practice has been ended and a new one, mandating that only school system employees have access, has been instituted.

"We are always working to improve and tighten security measures to ensure that situations, such as the one at Patterson Mill, won't occur again," Kranefeld wrote.

The Patterson Mill incident occurred over a 10-month period from December 2009 through September 2010, according to an article in The Aegis.

The thefts at Patterson Mill High School amounted to more than $10,000 in stolen cash which, according to a police report in January, school Coordinator of Safety and Security Robert Benedetto said had been taken from cash boxes at various sporting events.

Following the theft, Patterson Mill Principal Wayne Thibeault was issued the only new key for the vault where cash boxes are kept, according to the article.

After months of investigations, however, in July the Harford County State's Attorney's Office decided against filing criminal charges because of how many people had access to the money.

Since then, Thibeault said in a phone interview recently, financial protocols at Patterson Mill have gone "above and beyond what Harford County's protocols are."

The thefts at Patterson Mill weren't the first in Harford County Public Schools. One incident back 25 years, when a former Edgewood High School principal admitted to stealing more than $4,500 from the school in the early 1980s, according to an article in The Aegis.

The most recent incident occurred in June, when, according to the Harford County Sheriff's Office, a wallet was stolen from a teacher at William S. James Elementary School between 12:45 and 3:15 p.m. Police Spokeswoman Monica Worrell said they were unsure if the culprit was associated with the school but "it was not someone that the staff member recognized."