The issue of security brought to the Annandale School Board last month by district principals has raised questions among parents and community members.
For the first time in school board member Mary Barkley Brown’s memory, parents have expressed concern about the school’s safety plan.
At a parent-student-staff advisory meeting Oct. 2, parents not only questioned issues, such as the effectiveness of the volunteer desk at the middle school and elementary school, but requested security updates be sent home with children’s report cards.
“There is a lot of security hysteria going on,” Supt. Steve Niklaus told the board at the Monday, Oct. 22, school board meeting. “No one wants to be the one school in the nation like Columbine.”
The school board’s goal Monday night was to review a proposal presented last month by elementary principal Jim Unger and middle school principal Dean Jennissen to incorporate two-way radios into the school’s security plan.
Though no decision was made on the actual proposal, the board discussed several changes the district has made in the past few years to beef up security.
Part of parents’ concern was that they didn’t know what kind of security measures the school was taking, Barkley Brown said.
According to Niklaus, in the last three to four years security has increased dramatically at the school.
Among those updates is a new rule that requires faculty members to wear name tags when in the building.
“With over 200 part-time and full-time employees we have a lot of people in the buildings,” Niklaus said. “If they are an adult, people assume they are a staff member. Now if they are not wearing a name tag, people ask what their business is here.”
The district has also enforced locking every door in the building except the main entrance. At the middle school, volunteers greet visitors, sign them in and direct them to the office.
The elementary school has a similar desk but it is unattended because of a shortage of volunteers and staff. Niklaus hopes that will change with the addition of a new part-time volunteer coordinator.
The high school has no need of a volunteer desk since the front doors are visible to staff members in the office.
If visitors don’t have a reason for being there, volunteers will not allow them to enter further into the school, Niklaus said.
The real test Niklaus said, is to keep students safe while remembering that the school should be an open place to the community.
In an effort to keep the school open, but safe, the school participates in general security audits performed by local law enforcement and has formed a safe school committee that meets three times a year. The committee consists of representatives from each of the schools in the district, from the sheriff’s department, court services, public health and social services. The goal is to facilitate communication between the organizations to enhance security, Niklaus said.
He added that the five organizations often have contact with the same clients.
The school has also hired three full-time social workers to offer services to students with emotional needs.
During fall workshops, staff participated in a “mock lock-down” for an extreme emergency in which a student or stranger in the building is posing a threat. Staff went through the procedures that should follow such a threat, including locking themselves and students inside the classrooms. According to Niklaus they went through several mock situations.
“We have done quite a bit already,” Niklaus told the board. “Now I need to know what direction you want to head in.”
They talked about the possibility of hiring independent contractors for additional security audits and the possibility of working in Jennissen and Unger’s plan to use radios to increase communication at the three schools.
“We just have to make sure we are guarding against the right things,” school board member Tim Young said. “Will we be spending our money in the right places instead of on issues that get a lot of attention in the media, but are not likely to happen here?”
One concern principals had was students lingering in the building after school hours.
“Our greatest exposure is from 4 p.m. until 4:30 p.m.,” Niklaus said.
“If they are not under the supervision of a responsible adult, they should not be here,” Jennissen said, adding that at the middle school students are encouraged to be out the door by 3:30 p.m.
Solving that problem may be more of a staff or procedural dilemma.
The school board did not pass a motion Monday night regarding security. They agreed to address the problem again at the next board meeting.
In other news, the school board:
– Approved a contract with Sally Klingelhutz at the district’s part-time volunteer coordinator. Klingelhutz now works in the food service program at Annandale High School.
– Approved a contract with Tonya Klug of Maple Lake as a management assistant at the school district.
– Accepted a $2,000 donation from George and Anne Flannery, which will be applied toward the scholarship fund.
2018 Annandale Advocate Privacy Policy