MIDDLEBORO — In September and October, the Middleboro police log had 18 entries corresponding to the Nichols Middle School, which include several investigations as well as various calls or alarms, one of which was noted to have been caused by human error.

During that same two month period, Nichols Middle School parents were not contacted once by the administration about that police or fire activity. In total, between Jan 1, 2020 and Nov. 20, 2023, Nichols Middle School parents were only contacted three times about police and fire activity by the administration, according to information obtained from a public records request.

At a Jan. 4, 2023 school committee meeting, some Middleboro parents expressed concern about what they felt was inadequate communication on the part of the school administration. 

However, Superintendent Carolyn Lyons and Middleboro School District’s Communication Director Sean Siciliano said that the schools’ communications policies have to balance the need to inform parents of safety concerns with students’ and parents’ right to privacy.

Lyons told parents that they would always be notified about safety concerns at the schools. “Any time there is a safety concern we will communicate it,” Lyons said.

But Lyons and Siciliano explained that not every entry on the police log corresponded to a safety concern that affects the entire school, even if the location on the log entry was listed as the middle school.

Lyons said that just because a police log entry lists the middle school as a location, it does not mean that a crime occurred at school. 

She explained that, for example, if the police log says that an officer conducted an investigation at Nichols Middle School, that could mean that a police officer was gathering information about an incident that occurred off campus.

“You're assuming that the police are investigating something that happened at school,” Lyons said. “As I've just explained to you, if something has happened you would have been notified.”

Lyons added that privacy concerns require the district to be cautious about what information it shares about students, even if they were being investigated or arrested in connection with an alleged crime.

“It is our job to protect all children, the ones that make a mistake, the ones that are not making a mistake in that particular moment, the ones that are having a bad day, [and] the ones that are having a great day,” Lyons said. “Our job is to create a setting that is not errorless. We are a school district. We anticipate that children are going to make mistakes.”

“If you’ve ever had your child involved in something, in some dispute with another child, you’ve been told: ‘You will not be told what the disciplinary action taken with that other child is,’” Lyons added. “The reason for that is confidentiality and privacy.”

Some parents, however, expressed a wish for more communication.

One Middleboro parent of two children, Tanya Rahwan, said at the school committee meeting that a lack of communication from the school district left her “losing the trust for the safety of my children in Middleboro.”

School committee member Marcy Fregault echoed Rahwan’s comments. 

“There are some things in the police log that are concerning, so I’m trying to figure out where that communication fits in from the district communication,” she said at the committee meeting.

Specifically, Fregault said that several entries in the Middleboro police log, which is publicly available online, had given her cause for concern. In September and October 2023, the police logs had 18 entries with a location listed as Nichols Middle School.

However, during the same two month time period, Nichols Middle School did not contact parents once about any police or fire activity, according to documents obtained from a public records request.

In total, between Jan. 1, 2020 and Nov. 20, 2023, the middle school only contacted parents three times about police and fire activity on school grounds.

The first time in the three year period when middle school parents were notified about police or fire activity was on Dec. 15, 2022, when former principal Heidi Letendre sent an email about a student who told two other students “about a gun in their locker.” 

After a search, it was determined that the student did not have any sort of weapon at the school, according to the message sent to the parents.

Then, on April 10, 2023, the school notified parents about a “brush fire” near the middle school. 

The message was sent through a system called “classtag” by Interim Principal Heather Tucker. According to the message, the fire was estinguished and there was “no interruption” to the school day.

Finally, on June 13, 2023, the school notified parents through “classtag” about a medical incident that occurred during an eighth grade awards ceremony. 

Although the incident “did not occur during the event itself,” the ceremony was closed in an “nontraditional” way, according to the notification. 

After June, 2023, no messages were sent to parents regarding police activity up until Nov. 20, 2023, which is the extent of the public records requested from the school. It is unknown at this time if any notifications were sent after Nov. 20. 

In an email, Lyons and Siciliano said that in addition to school wide communication, the district also communicates privately with individual parents. Those communications “would not be appropriate to share or discuss,” they said.

Another type of communication that the school uses, Lyons explained, are “stay put” warnings that are used while students are at school. These warnings can be used to prevent students from navigating school corridors while there is a medical emergency.

“It is not always indicative of a safety emergency for the entire building,” Lyons said. “More often than not it is used to eliminate students traveling around the building in the event that there’s a medical issue. That medical issue can involve a student [or] that medical issue can involve an adult. There are over 500 employees in the Middleboro Public Schools so it is statistically very likely that the adults sometimes need something.”

Lyons and Siciliano said in an email that the district had consistently followed their communication strategies in the past, and that parents “can expect … continued consistency in the future.”

Lyons and Siciliano said that the police logs were not produced by the school district and that anyone with questions about the police logs should contact the Middleboro Police Department.

“The Middleborough Public Schools is confident that we have communicated about all incidents that warrant communication home to families over the last year and half,” Lyons and Sicilliano said.