School security: How safe are our schools?

Keeping children safe at school is a top priority. With the number of school shootings in recent years, some are left wondering if we do enough.
Schools try to prepare for the worst in many ways.

Most adults probably grew up doing fire drills in schools. Now, students also do intruder drills called lock downs. An administrator announces the school is in a lock down, students file to a designated corner and huddle quietly while a teacher blocks windows and turns off lights.

“It’s kind of scary because you think that it’s a real one, but it really isn’t,” says Madeline Cutts, a third-grade student at Rimrock Elementary.

Her mom, Jeni, volunteers in her classroom and says, “It’s scary, because you think something like this could happen. It is nice to see how they do it here, and get them prepared for something that could be really scary.”

Schools do their best to make sure that an intruder doesn’t even make it to the classroom. At Rimrock Elementary School, only the front door is unlocked. Visitors have to go through the office, where they drop off their keys, sign in and get a pass. That’s common practice for newer schools. Some schools, like Bonneville High School, are older and don’t have that set up. At Bonneville, school resource officer Daniel Sperry stresses the importance of keeping an eye on entrances, including using security cameras and staff. Sperry says there are more than 100 cameras in the school.

Of course, cameras can’t actually stop someone from coming into a school. Shelley School District Superintendent Bryan Jolley says that sometimes, if people know they are on camera, it’s a deterrent.

High schools can be pretty vulnerable; they can’t lock doors the way elementaries can. Students leave the building to go to classes outside, or even off campus. Those students can use back doors.

So schools have to count on “See something, say something.”

“We encourage kids if they see something unusual, talk to adult, talk to a teacher, talk to a resource officer, the principal, say ‘I have a concern about this’,” said Sperry.

School are also relying on technology for communication. Some schools use a panic button that can alert the front office there is a dangerous situation.

Century High School is trying out a mobile app developed by a local dad, called Secure Point. It allows a teacher to get in touch with an officer or administrator instantly, and silently.

“It opens up a live chat feed, if they need to be quiet, which was the case at Sandy Hook. They were in a closet and couldn’t have audio,” said Jesse Wakely, owner of Secure Point.

The app does more than messaging, the responder can choose to turn on the caller’s microphone and camera, so they can see and hear everything.

Even with cameras, officers, and technology, reality is, it’s very possible that students could be the first ones to run in to a bad guy.

Shelley Superintendent Bryan Jolley took a visit west earlier this week, where he discussed a security tactic Boise School District already uses, called “Move, hide, fight.”

“The whole concept was to empower our staff to make decisions in any kind of emergency situations that kind of reflects what they really do in real life….Rather than be a victim, without any effort to stop a threat, you don’t sit there and take it.”

That’s a possibility in the future.
It’s tough to prove if what we are doing now works, but third-grade teacher Carmen Manges says she feels safe.

“I really do feel confident in our abilities as teachers and as a district, we have discussed possible scenarios. We really do keep it on the forefront of our minds. At the same time, we never want the kids to feel afraid, so we tried to be prepared as we can be,” said Manges.