Regarding the article “District 9-R ramps up school security” (Herald, Aug. 26), I disagree with Superintendent Dan Snowberger’s characterization of the measures as a “small inconvenience.”

When I went to drop off my children on the first day of school at Needham, instead of being greeted by their teachers and cheerily festooned classrooms, I was met by a chaotic crowd of confused parents and children. In short order, the students were swept into the building while their bewildered parents stood shuffling and blinking uncertainly at the brick wall behind which their children had disappeared.

Say what the district might about the myriad threats facing those children, I still felt deep in my heart that something essential had been lost in the trade off between openness and more security.

I believe the casual interactions that happen between parents and teachers in the hallways and at classroom thresholds are the lifeblood of a wholistic eduction. This is why the most innovative companies in Silicon Valley design their offices to encourage those informal encounters. The district can’t say it wants parental involvement and then literally lock us out of the building (permitting us in through a prison-like gamut of security isn’t a substitute).

I don’t deny that threats exist, but are these measures really going to stop anyone intent on inflicting harm? Have we objectively evaluated the true level of risk to determine whether all this is justified?

More people die from lightning strikes each year than school shootings, but the district hasn’t abolished recess because of that risk. Noncustodial parent situation? As soon as the bell rings, kids scatter in all directions, so a potential kid snatching is no less likely than before.

By inflating the true nature of the danger, we are painting a perilous and paranoiac picture of the world for our children. Thusly imprinted, they’re primed to operate throughout their lives on a false foundation of pessimism and fear.

Instead, let’s align our actions with our ideals and show them how free and open societies operate.

Katie Burford

Durango