Safety is important in schools and that is why the building is going through construction and adding safety measures. The construction is expanding the front entryway. It will have admin and security officers closer. Current safety measures include Dial 2000 and continuing to have practices of fire, lockdown and weather drills. With all these measures and practices the school still learns new things and continues to change and add to these measures to make the community as safe and secure as possible.
The school is remodeling the front entryway to enhance visibility and improve the safety and security of the area. With the many students and visitors that come in daily, the small office gets crowded quickly and can have a long wait time to get checked in. The remodel can help improve the traffic flow within the front office.
“They have a plan in place for a new entrance to make it more welcoming and a bigger place so we don’t have kids waiting out in the hallway,” School Resource Officer (SRO) Dave Wynia said.
Along with improving traffic flow for students or guests checking in, the remodeling will help create a space for more supervision and supervisors in the area. With creating this space instead of having only one person checking people in and out, there can be now multiple people with the larger space.
The focus is to allow a space that can handle more people to work and have a better traffic flow Assistant Principal Shelly Phernetton said.
Dial 2000 started last year and is similar to dialing 911 but it is just within the building. There are nine phones connected with each phone with a trained supervisor to ask a series of questions. As these questions are being asked security officers, nurses or whoever else is needed is already informed and is heading to the situation to handle it.
“When you dial 911 someone asks a series of questions. Dial 2000 is pretty much the same thing but within the school.With this, we can all get there much more quickly,” when explaining what Dial 2000 is Phernetton said.
At school, it is required to have five fire drills, a weather emergency drill and five lockdown drills. The lockdown drills can include a hold drill where kids and teachers are required to stay in classrooms but class continues as is. Lockdown is where doors are locked, windows are shut and kids and teachers must move to a safe location out of sight from doors and windows.
“The five lockdown type drills include like a Shelter In Place, which is a weather emergency, or a whole drill where we ask people to stay in their classrooms, a full lockdown drill would be if there’s something of extreme safety concern within the building, and in that process, we can either run, hide or fight,” Phernetton said.
In school, there are six security officers along with a SRO which is a certified law enforcement officer assigned to a school. Between all of them, they help check doors, monitor halls and bathrooms and help check in around the school parking lot.
“We all have a job and switch off every week. We patrol, make sure kids are where they are supposed to be and that the school building is secure,” security officer JoAnne Sandahl said.
“Also with the new construction, I think it’s going to lessen their responsibilities up here in the front, because they’re gonna be able to funnel the kids through the that main door easier,” Wynia added.
With all the new measures and existing measures in the building, it creates a safe and secure place. Although we already have many safety and security measures the school is always open to changing and improving these so there can be a safe school community. They use safety and security threats that have happened to learn and analyze how these could have been prevented or how the situation could have been handled better. They apply these ideas to help add to creating a safe and secure school building for students and staff to be at almost every day. Also the addition of more safety classes, more confernce rooms and having admin and security officers closer will help increases school safety.
