Norfolk School Board votes to keep pepper spray

NORFOLK

The School Board agreed unanimously Wednesday not to change its policy of equipping civilian security guards with pepper spray as a last resort for quelling student fights or for protection against outside intruders.

"The use of pepper spray, when absolutely needed, is a much less invasive way of ending a conflict, without putting anyone else at risk," interim Superintendent Michael Spencer said in recommending that the policy stay unchanged.

Public debate flared in the fall after guards used the spray three times within a couple of weeks, in incidents at Blair and Lafayette-Winona middle schools and Granby High.

No other South Hampton Roads division equips its civilian guards with the spray, although all, including Norfolk, have armed police officers also assigned to many secondary schools.

Elsie Harold-Lans, Norfolk's senior director of pupil personnel services, said fewer injuries resulted from violent incidents controlled via pepper spray, compared with incidents in which the spray was not used.

The spray itself did not cause injuries, she said.

"It's a temporary effect."

Spencer said instruction on when and how to use the spray remains a cornerstone of security guards' training.

Board Chairman Kirk Houston, who'd said previously that board members should consider the ethics of using pepper spray on schoolchildren, accepted the recommendation. He said the division still needs to be aware of how parents might perceive the spray's use.

Spencer reported that 10 employees have been trained as instructors in nonviolent crisis intervention. They will teach the techniques, which include verbal and physical intervention, to more than 100 employees later this month.

The board agreed to review in June how often pepper spray was used during the school year.

In other business, board members swapped questions about whether the division could or should try for $500,000 in savings by depending on licensed practical nurses to serve as school nurses. The division relies mostly on registered nurses, who have more training, can perform more complicated tasks, and are generally higher paid.

"Do we want to provide adequate service, or above-adequate, because we're talking about people's lives," member Linda Horsey said.

Brad Robinson, another board member, said all schools can call 911 to get highly trained medical help. "We can't be everything to everybody," he said.

The state wants to eliminate over the next three years the roughly $2 million annual subsidy it had been paying the public health department to provide the division's school nurses, Associate Superintendent for Budget and Finance John Maniscalco said Wednesday.

Steven G. Vegh, 757-446-2417, steven.vegh@pilotonline.com