The Board of Education approved five new safety initiatives on Thursday, Feb. 7, which includes hiring additional hall monitors, employing personnel to staff the main doors, leasing four more police cars, increasing police presence at the school and buying security station desks, all accumulating to a budget impact of $258,000.
Superintendent Dr. Bruce Borchers said the five initiatives are effective for the remainder of the school year and in addition, the Board authorized the hiring of 19 hall monitors total for the 2013-2014 school year that will spread out among the four high schools and
six middle schools. The four new police cars, provided by the Eureka and Ballwin Police Departments will be used at the elementary school level.
“We are committed to continuing to improve our safety practices and we’ll continue to look at both short-term and long-term safety measures to enhance the safety of our schools,” Dr. Borchers said. “The five new initiatives that were presented to the Board on Fed. 7 address some of the more immediate needs in our schools.”
Dennis Griffith, Assistant Superintendent for Administrative Services, said the $258,000 came from existing fund balances from the 2012-2013 budget, and there will be adjustments in next year’s budget to allot for these initiatives.
Griffith said currently there is one hall monitor at each middle school and one to two at the high schools. However, a couple of years ago there were six hall monitors at MHS.
“There was some decisions made in how staffing points were used that resulted in fewer hall monitors,” Griffith said. “Additional hall monitors will give the schools better knowledge of who is entering our schools with a chance to intervene if necessary.”
Before the new initiatives, there was only one day-time and one afternoon hall monitor at MHS. Now, the afternoon hall monitor, Lynn Soneson, has switched to all day with Peter Kahn.
“Extra hall monitors provide safety, especially in light of all the shootings that have been happening,” Soneson said. “The Connecticut shooting made us realize all of the safety things that are already in place and how we can improve them, like putting someone at all doors and having them locked at all times.”
Soneson said putting a buzzer at the front door, like at the elementary and middle schools, would further improve security. With the money for the safety initiatives, it is possible buzzers would be put in place, but currently only a new security station desk has been ordered for the front door.
Kahn agreed and said it would be a good investment to spend more money on security. Kahn said a new hall monitor will be hired in the future to replace Soneson’s old afternoon shift.
“You can never plan or prepare for something that happened in Newtown,” Kahn said. “You can take sensible precautions and steps to try to minimize the possibility of likelihood of that happening, and I think that can be done very cost effectively as well.”
Griffith said various chiefs of police have increased their patrol presence at schools. Currently, there are 10 school resource officers, one at each middle and high schools.
Along with police presence, Assistant Principal Carl Hudson, who is in charge of supervising all the security aspects at MHS, said it is important that administrators are in their proper positions at the beginning, the end and during school because the key is to be visible.
“The biggest thing that I always believe is there are 2,400 security officers at MHS,” Hudson said. “Everybody, not just the administrators, not just the officer, but everybody has to be security.”