St. Charles School Security Upgrade Could Begin Soon

The last day of classes for St. Charles Community Unit School District 303 this school year is Tuesday, June 4, according to the district’s website, and district officials hope to have $309,093 in improved security technology and procedures in place before classes resume in the fall.

Given an initial thumbs up by the Business Services Committee on April 23, the full District 303 Board of Education is expected to consider the package of security upgrades and procedural changes at a meeting later this month.

The board’s Business Services Committee got its first look at the scope of the proposed changes in March, a little more than three months after the massacre of 20 children and six adults at a Connecticut school sparked an examination of security issues at local schools.

But even before the mid-December rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School, District 303 officials were looking at reducing “soft spots” in security. The Newtown, Conn., tragedy sparked a broader look at security concerns.

While some of the upgrades are tech-related, one of the larger expenses in the proposed $309,093 price tag is the replacement of 630 locks on classroom doors, Assistant Superintendent for Operations John Baird told committee members on April 23.

Those classroom doors cannot be locked from inside the classroom — if an issue were to arise requiring the classroom doors to be locked, teachers would have to step out into the hallways and use their keys to lock the door before entering the classroom and closing the door behind them.

The new locks — at a cost of $109,000 — can be locked from inside the classroom, Baird said. Originally, the cost of replacing the locks had been estimated at $189,000.

Baird said one of the tech upgrades in the package comes at the recommendation of law enforcement: The installation of a “panic button” at each of the district’s facilities that immediately would alert police of a problem and at which building. Squad cars could be dispatched even before the a phone call could be made to 911.

Other parts of the proposal include adding an element to the school intercom systems that would allow personnel anywhere in a building to use a phone to access the intercom system and communicate to the entire building — say to warn of a lockdown because of an approaching storm or an intruder.

Baird told committee members that now, if someone were to see a funnel cloud, for example, the individual would have to call or go to the main office to relay the information, which then would be relayed on the building’s intercom. A dial-in system will eliminate that step and enable a speedier response to the situation.

The $39,000 cost of the change is for all the district’s schools except Thompson Middle School, where the aged intercom system is is failing. The security proposal includes another $32,000 specifically to replace the Thompson system.

Other aspects of the proposal include additional security cameras and conversion to a full digital recording system allowing images to be stored for weeks.

If the full board approves the security upgrades package, Baird told the committee the door locks, panic buttons, call-in intercom access, and camera changes — plus the work at Thompson — could be completed over the summer months and in time for the start of school in the fall.

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