MCC, NEMLEC Join for Higher Ed STARS Partnership

Two members of the administration of Middlesex Community College have been certified as members of the School Threat Assessment and Response System (STARS) with the Northeastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council (NEMLEC), the first such higher education partnership of its kind in the state.

MCC Dean of Students Pamela Flaherty and MCC Dean of Social Sciences and Human Services Clea Andreadis have both joined the STARS team, and are eligible to partner with the NEMLEC team for future response calls involving threats or public safety incidents at education sites throughout the NEMLEC service region.

NEMLEC is a consortium of 47 police departments from throughout northeastern Massachusetts that serves as a regional resource for a myriad of police functions.  After the Columbine shootings in 1999, NEMLEC created the STARS team, which is designed to be able to assist the region's 500 schools in working towards enhancing school safety.  This year, though, after the shootings at Virginia Tech College, Middlesex Community College reached out to NEMLEC to explore possibilities to expand the program to serve higher education institutions, not just elementary and high schools.

Flaherty and Andreadis have been attending STARS training for months, and have officially joined the team, which also consists of police officers, school department representatives, mental health providers, and fire personnel.

"We're thrilled to be the first in higher ed to be able to partner with an organization that has such dramatic resources and capabilities at its fingertips," said Flaherty.  "It allows MCC to access expertise and stunning levels of school safety knowledge that the STARS team has developed since its formation."

Andreadis said the STARS team does so much more than just respond to critical incidents on school grounds.  "The team is all about developing plans to ward off problems, not just respond to them," she said.  "Yes, they're top shelf when it comes to handling a crisis in progress, but the STARS approach looks to help communities and schools be diligent about what they can do to prevent them from happening in the first place."

The NEMLEC STARS team has access to handwriting analysts, computer experts, and psychologists.  Medford Police Chief Leo Sacco is the chief in charge of the program, with the assistance of Lt. Edward Nolan of the North Reading Police Department and Officer Daniel Perenick of the Winchester Police Department.

"It really is the complete package done right when it comes to keeping our schools safe," Flaherty said.

For the past three years, NEMLEC and MCC have partnered on a law enforcement technology training that has seen more than 350 members from law enforcement agencies be trained in computer courses such as basic computer classes, crime analysis and cybercrimes, including a hugely popular class that focused on investigating cases on the popular website My Space.

MCC President Carole Cowan said she was thrilled that MCC was able to further its partnership with NEMLEC through the STARS team, and is hopeful that the partnership will be replicated at other colleges throughout the state.

"The challenges that institutions of higher education face can be dramatically different than those at the high school levels," Cowan said.  "Our student populations are older, some colleges have dormitory issues, the physical layouts of the campuses - all of these can pose problems in dealing with emergency response.  But I'm confident in the resources NEMLEC can bring to bear, and that we now can access at MCC to help establish our campuses as a place where the safety and security of all of our students, faculty and staff is optimized."