By Vanessa Lenz
SLN Staff
The East Troy Community School District will accelerate security improvements at all of its school buildings.
On Jan. 14, the board authorized administration to work with Bray Associates Architects to immediately proceed with plans to upgrade security at all school entrances.
Board president Brian Wexler urged the board to move quickly on its security plans following the fatal shootings of 20 children and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., last month.
“If we don’t do anything, especially considering what happened out east, it would be worse than bad,” said board member Murry Mitten.
District Administrator Dr. Christopher Hibner said the district was already working to make security changes throughout its buildings prior to the Newtown tragedy, but the district has taken a second look at its security measures.
“We do look at our safety protocols and crisis management plans continually throughout a school year. Obviously when there is a tragedy like that, we absolutely will examine and reflect upon how are we handling things in our district,” Hibner said.
Currently the main entrances at East Troy High School, East Troy Middle School, Doubek Elementary School and Prairie View Elementary School are open and accessible.
“That is something that after the tragedy occurred, we have reexamined and looked at…trying to balance that approachable, accessible school district and the safety and security of our staff, our buildings and community,” Hibner said.
While Hibner didn’t detail every step of the plan for security purposes, he said his staff would work with Bray Architects to look at every building entrance.
Anyone entering school buildings will need to request entry via a video system. Plans also call for each entrance to have a foyer with two sets of doors.
The rough projected estimated cost is $30,000 per entrance.
Hibner said the district has already made additional improvements to increase security in the schools, including installing door access readers to secure doors around the district.
On Dec. 11, Hibner, Village of East Troy Police Chief Alan Boyes, school liaison officer Bev Rhode, Building and Grounds Director Bob Ellis, Dean of Students Stacey Kuehn and Business Manager Kathy Zwirgzdas met to review the district’s emergency procedures and safety plans.
The district is currently working with the village police to create new lockdown protocols and procedures.
Hibner said Kuehn is working to develop standardized language for emergencies so each building is using the same type of verbiage if a lockdown were to occur.
The district also purchased a cell phone to be used in the case of an emergency and is looking at emergency capabilities of its current phone system.
A training session has been set for March for professional staff.
“We want to look at our safety and crisis management plans, reviewing how are we being preventative, proactive and unfortunately, you have to look at being responsive in the case that a crisis were to occur,” Hibner said.
Hibner said the biggest thing the district has promoted in past years is constant awareness.
“All of the families, parents, guardians, siblings and friends being very vigilant and always being aware of their surroundings. That can’t be stated enough. There is usually always signals and signs,” said Hibner.
Hibner said the district’s buildings are safe, but the proposed changes will make things more secure.
The board plans to earmark the estimated $200,000 from its fund balance to make the necessary improvements to school entrances.
The school referendum on the April 2 ballot includes $340,000 in safety and security upgrades throughout the district.
Wexler said he didn’t want to wait to make the recommended improvements.
“We wanted to be proactive on this. No matter what the referendum says. Even if we have to use the fund balance, how much is a life worth?” Wexler said.
Since planning alone for the security upgrades could take up to eight weeks, Hibner said the district would likely wait for the referendum results before any construction begins.
He said the planned improvements to the entrances are in line with the referendum plans.
It’s shameful that ET is combining essential security upgrades in a package with the highly controversial multi-million dollar auditorium. In order to vote against the auditorium, we also have to forfeit funding for security. This decision entirely appears to be allowing the historically weak auditorium vote to capitalize on parents’ increased security concerns following the Newtown tragedy. We should be allowed to vote to keep our children safe, make their schools more handicapped accessible, and provide educational upgrades without having to accept a multi-million dollar tag-along that the community has already voted against twice. Read the fine print parents- to gain a couple hundred thousand dollars for security, you pay approximately 9 million dollars for an auditorium in the process.