Photo: Alexander Lukin/RIA Novosti
The third wave of «false schooling» has been sweeping across Russia for a week now. Only in the first days, January 12-13, more than 300 educational institutions in Krasnoyarsk, Samara, Nizhny Novgorod, Arkhangelsk, Saratov and other cities were evacuated. The morning of January 19 began with reports of bombs in schools in Novosibirsk.
It would seem that the algorithm of actions is unified and understandable: a call or an e-mail with threats arrives, the school management calls the employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and special services, evacuates the children, then the security forces with dogs begin to look for an explosive device.
However, after five days in Yekaterinburg evacuations, the authorities decided to go the other way. On January 17, local media published a letter from the Ministry of Education of the Sverdlovsk Region to school leaders with the following recommendations:
“In order to ensure the smooth operation of an educational organization:
1) Create a commission to inspect the building from senior officials of the institution (at least three people), including employees of private security organizations under the leadership of the director.
2) Every day, one hour before the start of the educational process, conduct a comprehensive survey of buildings.
3) When receiving information about an impending terrorist act, assess the reality of its commission; evacuation of employees, students and other persons only if there is sufficient evidence of the reality of the threat«.
The recommendations were immediately implemented. On January 18, three Yekaterinburg schools received reports of mining, and none of them began to evacuate students. “For each message, the operational groups of law enforcement agencies carried out a full cycle of verification activities. Information from the messages was not confirmed. The educational process was not interrupted, ”the Yekaterinburg Department of Education said. On January 19, evacuation was also not carried out after reports of mining in gymnasium No. 104.
Photo: Alexander Ryumin/TASS
The innovations caused an uproar in the parent community: the parable of the boy and the wolves seems to have become one of the leaders in terms of being mentioned in the public of the Ural capital.
— New security measures are questionable— Lyudmila Zolotnitskaya, chairman of the Sverdlovsk regional parent committee, told Novaya Gazeta. — In order to search for explosive devices,
you need to have certain skills. At least understand where the bomb might be planted. Do school workers have these skills?
She emphasizes that directors and employees make rounds an hour before the start of classes — that is, while the schools are empty, but the students themselves can attack the institution: Zolotnitskaya recalled the sad the experience of «schoolshooting».
“At the same time, it is clear: if calls are received on a daily basis, then it is necessary to think over alternative response options that do not involve interrupting the educational process. But this should be accompanied by increased security measures. Maybe with the equipment of the entire territory of the schools with video surveillance: so that the security staff would be sure that no stranger even penetrated the fence. It is also necessary to strengthen the screening at the entrance to the school.
Oddly enough, from a regulatory point of view, evacuation when a mine is reported is really optional.
Both in the memos of the Ministry of Emergencies and in the recommendations of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, it is considered only as one of the options for possible actions.
“The decision to evacuate is always made by the head of the institution or the owner of the building,” explains the official representative of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Sverdlovsk Region, Valery Gorelykh. — It all depends on the circumstances: it also happens that calls and letters arrive, for example, in the evening — at a time when there is no one at school anymore. At the same time, in any case, the director is obliged to report each threat received to law enforcement agencies. And all these reports are processed as soon as possible.
Gorelykh notes that if dozens of schools receive reports of mining at once, then not only law enforcement officers, but also representatives of non-governmental organizations can be involved in the checks.
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—In Yekaterinburg, for example, there is a company called Ural-Vympel, which specializes in explosion safety,» he says.
Photo: Alexander Muzyka/TASS