School security heightened
A decade of shootings across the United States has brought school security up to new levels – and posed a tough question for North Idaho administrators: How much is too much?
Police must be able to quickly identify exactly where in the building the shooter is, what weapons he has, and the location of other students. To that end, administrators have doubled the amount of security cameras at several area schools. All students know the cameras are there, and some don’t like it.
“I think a lot of people don’t see why it’s necessary to have so much increased security,” said Coeur d’Alene High School senior Larissa Langersmith. “I understand that it’s a good idea to increase some security to make the school safer, but it’s kind of overboard. They can see literally everything, everywhere to see if people are getting in fights or to make sure people are in class. They can see in the cafeteria, the hallways, the parking lot, everything.”
Area principals, however, believe better monitoring is a good thing.
“There’ve been a couple of fender-benders where kids came in and we were able to check the cameras and help them out (by identifying who hit them) and I think they realize it’s a service we’re providing, not a “big brother” aspect,” said Post Falls High School Principal Steve Smith. “We’ve had kids come and tell us someone stole something out of their lockers and we’ve checked the camera and saw who did it.”
Security at Post Falls High has increased in other ways as well.
“The terrorists will be reading this so I don’t want to tell you all the good stuff,” said Smith. “But we’ve secured all the entrances and exits so people have to enter through certain doors, we’ve updated our security cameras so we can see down hallways. We’ve instituted a ‘no hat’ policy so we know that people coming into the building wearing a hat is not ours, and we can identify a stranger fairly quickly. We also have a safety resource officer, a Post Falls policeman, on staff the entire day.”
Other schools are also using security cameras as a safety measure. “We went from having less than 20 to almost 50 cameras mounted both internally and externally,” said John Brumley, Lake City High principal. “Our kids have adapted really well. We don’t have much trouble with vandalism or destruction of any kind, but even with things like harassment we can roll the tape back, identify the people involved and hold them accountable.”
School officials say the watchful eye of the many cameras throughout the campus is slowing down student hazing, fights, vandalism and inappropriate behavior.
“You always know in the back of your mind the cameras are there,” said Coeur d’Alene High sophomore Kara Schultz. “A lot of people feel it’s really creepy, like people watching them all the time.”
Rikki Nunnes, also of Coeur d’Alene High, agrees. “I know it’s safety precautions, but I think it freaks some students out, and with all the new rules, it’s just outrageous. I don’t think we really need it at our school, it’s not too dangerous. I guess it’s for the better, but it’s hard to get used to.”
What are the odds of a tragedy happening in local schools? What were the odds of it happening at Virginia Tech, Columbine, or Moses Lake? And how prepared are area schools to handle an extreme emergency?
“The first measure would be for us to be able to immediately identify where in the building the problem is, and get assistance or law enforcement there as quickly as we can,” said Brumley. “With the protocol that we have, we can have a lot of assets here in less than three minutes. That’s how good our capabilities are.”
“Our No. 1 concern is how we treat each other, safety concerns and the whole agenda of how we go about putting almost 1,650 people in one building and trying to make it as good a place as we can for everybody,” adds Lake City’s Brumley.