Local schools increase safety measures

The safety of students and faculty is increasingly becoming an issue for schools across the country. In his video below, Bill Hughes examines two Portage County schools’ safety plans. In her corresponding story, Angel Mack compares the money spent to keep up with changes in security by several different school districts in the county.

by: Angel Mack

Aurora, OH — On a Friday morning in October, at Aurora High School, a mother approaches the front doors quickly, with a lunch bag in her hand. Before entering the building to drop the lunch on a table with other students’ forgotten items, she must be allowed into the building by a faculty member using a buzzer by the door.

“We had a bond issue here in Aurora in 2008,” said Russ Bennett, superintendent of the Aurora City School District, “and, what we did was, we renovated schools. Partially because of size and number of students that were coming in for enrollment, but also to address safety issues.”

One of the first issues to be addressed, Bennett explained, were the vestibules where people enter the buildings. A way in which to ensure this area appear secure was to add a sort of buzzer system.

Ravenna School District and Waterloo Local School District also have similar systems installed at the main entrances to their schools. Though installing and maintaining security systems, such as buzzers and cameras, may be costly, the efforts are worthwhile.

[rpavideo float = “right” width = “300” caption= “In this video, TV2 reporter Bill Hughes looks into two local schools’ safety plans.”]RPA_03_Hughes_safety[/rpavideo]

Dennis Honkala, superintendent of Ravenna School District, described keeping up with changes in security and technology as a financial burden, but also money well spent.

Bennett said that, after the larger, initial purchases are made, upgrading and repairing things like cameras and buzzers is a small part of the school district’s budget.

“I’ve got a $30 million budget, so if I have to put $5,000, $6,000 or $7,000 dollars into some equipment or repairs, it’s well worth the money,” Bennett said.

Aurora City School District spent approximately half of $1 million dollars on security and renovations in the district’s five schools after the 2008 bond, Bennett explained. That money went toward the buzzer system on the doors, cameras in the schools and on the buses, radios to communicate between schools and the police, keycards for teachers and visitors passes for others.

Though there are cameras all around Ravenna’s recently built high school, the other schools in the district have fallen a little behind the safety standards assumed by the high school and districts like Aurora.

“Part of our levy we have on the ballot in November for additional money, part of that is promised to go for technology upgrades and camera systems in the other schools,” Honkala said.

The safety measures implemented by districts like Aurora City School District, such as alternating visitors passes and camera systems, can not solve a crisis, however, with out well-prepared faculty.

Another side to school safety

“What we’ve found out mostly is, secretaries are our first line of defense,” Bennett said. “They’re the ones who are going to have to make the call. They’re probably the first ones to see it. So, their jobs have changed. Their jobs have changed into a more stressful kind of job.”

Every month, to help the secretaries in the school district to prepare for the worst, Bennett said they go through safety training, acting out what could be real crisis scenarios. The administrators in his district also engage in tabletop exercises, in which the faculty practices working out worst-case scenarios.

Many schools have introduced ALICE Training to the staff and students. While Field Local School District’s Superintendent David Heflinger said that one teacher on the high school staff is trained to be a trainer in the program, both Honkala of Ravenna and Matt Montgomery, the superintendent of Waterloo Local School District, said the ALICE Training program is utilized across their districts. Bennett said that even the substitutes in his district are trained.

Another popular choice for preventative safety in schools is the hire of school resource officers from the local police department.

Though Waterloo Local School District does not have the funding for an SRO, Ravenna has one on payroll and Aurora and Field each have two.

Bennett said Aurora City School District splits the cost of the SRO with the city—the school district paying 40 percent of about $40,000 per officer.

[pullquote]”(O)ur most precious commodity is sitting in five of our buildings.” — Russ Bennett, superintendent of the Aurora City School District[/pullquote]

“We have a great relationship with our city,” Bennett said. “They realize, when we take a look at the population of Aurora, it’s about 15,000 people or so. We have 3,000 of those people in our buildings at five locations, so with parents being at work, our most precious commodity is sitting in five of our buildings.”

The threats that society faces and the technology and training we use to guard against them will continue to change, and schools will adjust, as they have in recent years.

“Safety continues to be a focal point in our society and in our schools. We are always evaluating the safety measures we have in place, and are continually looking for areas to improve,” said Montgomery, Waterloo Local School District superintendent.