Concerns regarding security in light of several high-profile school-shooting incidents nationwide have the Washoe County School District stepping up safety efforts that include securing perimeters and giving campuses a single point of entry.
Perimeters have already been secured with fencing at the county’s 63 elementary schools and the district is in the process of securing them at middle schools, said Joe Gabica, chief facilities management officer.
Meanwhile, Gabica said single point of entry has been established at all middle schools and the district is in the process of completing this at elementary schools.
Having a single point of entry means visitors must go through a school’s main door and sign in at the front office before being allowed access. This prohibits visitors from entering a school through a side door that might not be monitored.
“We’ve been working on safety and security in schools since 2011,” Gabica said. “You can’t do that overnight. It takes time to get pieces and parts in place.”
Security measures would’ve been in place sooner but a funding shortage in 2013 stalled efforts, he said.
Projects must be bid and permitted. The elementary schools with the “pinwheel design,” which were built between the mid 1980s and early 2000s, require a small building addition if single point of entry is to be made possible, Gabica said.
Of the district’s 63 elementary schools, 24 remain without a single point of entry.
“In the morning, everything is opened up because there’s lots of comings and goings,” Gabica said. “Once school starts, custodians lock all the gates and exterior doors. So anyone who comes in (after school starts) will have to go through the front door to get allowed in. At the end of the day, everything gets opened up.”
Nine more elementary schools should have single entry points by this summer and the remaining 15 with the “pinwheel design” by summer 2019.
The district initially planned to do seven or eight schools per year but this week decided to step up efforts, Gabica said. It costs about $100,000 per school and funds are coming from proceeds of a countywide sales tax increase passed by voters in 2016.
School police recommended which sites to do first, Gabica said. A school’s proximity to police was also considered, as was age of each facility.
Most high schools consist of multiple buildings and are more challenging to secure, although Sparks High School and the Academy for Arts, Careers and Technology do have single points of entry. Both schools are among the smallest high schools in the district and are housed in older facilities.
“Once they get to high school, there’s a lot more activity so it’s more difficult to control,” Gabica said, noting that digital closed-circuit television cameras are being installed at secondary schools and that some already have them.
Other security upgrades either planned or already completed include updating public address systems, more efficient sign in/sign out systems, allowing doors to be locked from inside the classrooms and a districtwide door-numbering system that would allow emergency crews to quickly reach a specific spot on campus rather than going through the front office.
