Parents are taking safety from school shooters into their own hands. Ever since last week\u2019s massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, Fla.,…<\/b>
\nParents are taking safety from school shooters into their own hands.
Ever since last week\u2019s massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, Fla., caregivers have been stocking up on bulletproof backpacks, tracking devices and doorstops \u2014 anything to give children a fighting chance at surviving a gunman\u2019s attack at school.
Lisa Singer, mother to a 6-year-old girl, Dylan, preordered a Jiobit, a GPS tracker designed specifically for kids, after hearing the horrific news of the 17 slaughtered in Florida on Feb. 14.
\u201cI was thinking about what I could buy that would help her,\u201d said Singer. \u201cI worry about her every single day but I\u2019m not going to have her wear a bulletproof vest to school.\u201d
Singer settled on the $99 device (plus a monthly $9.99 fee), which weighs less than four quarters. Still in the pre-order stage, the tracker signals a child\u2019s real-time location to parents via an app. Users can denote \u201csafe zones\u201d and get alerts when the child has arrived or leaves that location.
Singer, who works in real estate and lives in Midtown West, plans to attach the Jiobit to Dylan\u2019s shoe.
\u201cShe\u2019s already been on lockdown once for a suspicious package outside her classroom,\u201d said Singer. \u201cThis way, God forbid something happens, I\u2019ll know exactly where she is\u2026 I\u2019d spend anything to make her safer.\u201d
She\u2019s not alone.
BulletBlocker, a company that sells bulletproof backpacks ranging in price from $199 for a girly pink one to $490, has seen sales jump 300 percent since the Florida shooting, according to owner Joe Curran, who started the company in 2007 to protect his two school-aged children after the Virginia Tech massacre.
Four days ago, Larry Gilbert, a 53-year-old from upstate Syracuse, shelled out $95 for a metal device called the \u201cJustinKase\u201d that is placed under a door and latches to the door\u2019s jamb to prevent entry. It was invented by a 17-year-old Wisconsin high school student, Justin Rivard, to keep active school shooters out of classrooms.
\u201cMy wife is a teacher at a local school and with what has gone on lately, I\u2019ve become more and more concerned with her safety and her students\u2019 safety,\u201d said Gilbert, who has two daughters, ages 10 and 14.
\u201cThey have first aid kids and fire extinguishers, so you know what? Why not throw a little extra door security at my wife\u2019s school? Something for the piece of mind,\u201d he said.
\u201cJust like a fire extinguisher, I hope it sits in the corner and is never used.\u201d
One New York mother, who lives in Inwood and asked that her name not be used, said she\u2019s even toying with the idea of forming a group homeschool to guarantee her two young children\u2019s safety.
\u201cIt would be like a co-op, where ten families share the cost of a teacher\u2019s salary and insurance, each paying $6,000 or $7,000,\u201d said the 37-year-old actress.
\u201cIt\u2019s not anything I ever thought I\u2019d ever do,\u201d she admitted.
Katie Cornelis of Southbury, Conn., is still surprised by the thousands of messages she\u2019s received after posting on Facebook last week about the doorstops she gave her two nieces after the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
\u201cUntil something changes in our world, I think people are just needing to feel that they can do something,\u201d said Cornelis, who says if a gunman shoots out the door lock, a doorstop can keep the door shut.
Doorstops are \u201ccheap and effective,\u201d said Cornelis. \u201cSchools don\u2019t have budgets for armed security guards or bulletproof backpacks.\u201d
\u201cOne mom messaged me and said, \u2018I bought ten of them and distributed them to people,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s small but it\u2019s powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n

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