Schools adding building security as part of summer maintenance

Schools are beefing up building security and updating lock-down procedures while students are away for the summer.

Local districts are making the changes as part of routine and ongoing summer maintenance projects.

The security measures are not in response to any specific event. They stem from parents, local law enforcement and school officials all identifying student safety as the No. 1 priority, school officials said.

Added security measures at Port Huron schools involve changes to building entryways so that all visitors will be rerouted through the main offices, said Kate Peternel, the district’s executive director of business services.

Other changes at local districts such as Brown City are the addition of surveillance cameras in school buildings and parking lots.

At the county level, a safety planning committee representing area schools is in the evaluation stages of a unified plan that includes stress debriefing training and mass casualty exercises, said Jeff Friedland, director of St. Clair County Homeland Security Emergency Management.

Michigan State Police awarded a school safety grant to Marysville Public Schools.

“The district was fortunate enough to get a portion of the Michigan State Police Competitive School Safety Grant Award ... to be used for upgrading our security systems at each of our schools’ entrances,” Superintendent Shawn Wightman wrote in an email. He added that Marysville was the only district in the county to receive the grant.

The $12,500 award will be used for upgrading security systems at each of the school entrances during the summer, and it does not cover the cost of all safety measures.

Port Huron is using its capital projects funds to install secured entrances at Thomas Edison and Keewahdin elementary schools. Spokeswoman Keely Baribeau said those schools were priorities for summer security changes because of the layout of their entrances.

“They were the most basic to complete first. Woodrow, Roosevelt and Cleveland have been completed. The rest are in either the ‘pending approval’ or draft planning phases,” Baribeau said.

The cost for the secured entryways was not available. They are part of larger projects ongoing this summer that includes parking lot and playground improvements. Those projects are part of building maintenance costs that includes ceiling, floor and window repairs or replacements as needed, painting, mechanical repairs and deep cleaning, Peternel said.

The summer building security projects are a continuation of changes that local districts have been making over the past few years.

Marlette already has secure entrances at its elementary and high schools as well as access control systems in place. Those projects were carried out two years ago with bond money, Marlette Junior/Senior High School principal Kyle Wood said.

This year the district continues to expand a new lock-down procedure that was first adopted in the 2013-14 school year, Wood said.

The new procedure is based on best practices for survival in a traumatic situation and is different from the procedure previously in place in that it includes evacuation measures.

“A traditional lock-down has teachers and students lock the door and sit in the room and wait,” Wood said. The new procedure “builds on the lock-down by allowing teachers and students to make decisions based on the information they have. For example, if the threat is on one side of the building, the other side would evacuate.”

Wood said the district has received positive comments from students and community members who said the new emergency procedures better prepare students for a life-threatening situation.

Cros-Lex Community Schools also made changes to its security by adding safe entrances during a bond project a few years ago, Superintendent Julie Western said.

Other safety procedures that are in place are the use of security cameras in the buildings.

“Over the past four years with the bond project, cameras have been installed at the high school and the middle school. There are cameras on the school buses. For the coming school year, we are adding extra cameras to the bus garage area and the two elementaries along with the new alternative education building,” Western wrote in an email.

Contact Syeda Ferguson at (810) 989-6276 or email her at syeda@thetimesherald.com. Follow her on Twitter @shossainfe.