Student safety takes a front seat

SANDPOINT – Plans to make safety a priority before school starts on Sept. 6 are coming to fruition at the Lake Pend Oreille School.

With a new superintendent, come new policies and practices. Among them is the Superintendent Report, given by Dr. Becky Meyer at every trustee meeting. Meyer told the board that District Safety Task Force had met for the first time on July 11 and would continue to do so weekly, transitioning to monthly meetings after the start of the school year. During those first meetings, Meyer said the team outlined short-, mid- and long-term goals while leaving room for “ongoing matters.

At Meyer’s second board meeting since taking over as superintendent, the task force addressed the board, laying down concrete plans and priorities to improve school safety that will be tackled before school starts.

With a total of 15 members, Meyer told the board that her team consisted of active law enforcement, retired law enforcement, district administration for elementary and secondary education, parents, and more.

“I just want everyone to know I’m not trying to leave anyone out of the task force in the community. We certainly can expand it after we’ve gotten started. But right now I want everyone to know that I took the lead on this because I wanted a very small committed group that could take swift planning and swift action, that could say what we could get done before school started,” Meyer said.

After introductions of several attending task force members including T.J. Clary, Southside Elementary; David Watkins, security monitor at Sandpoint High School; and Kelly Fischer district board clerk. The task force told the board that a comprehensive plan had been created based on the recommendations of Mark Feddersen, a task force member and an analyst with the Idaho Office of Safety and Security. Feddersen and several other members visited each school to begin carrying out the team's plan of narrowing down safety priorities.

The plan was also created with the assistance of stakeholders and parental feedback. Earlier in the meeting, Meyer told the board about her efforts to include the community via surveys sent out to stakeholders and parents earlier this summer.

“[Survey responses], we have 111 responses as of today, which is great. I don't know what the typical is in this district, but I thought 111 was awesome,” Meyer said.

Presenting the plan to the board became a group effort that included Sandpoint Middle School assistant principal Crosby Tajan who told the board the first items on the agenda are things that can be accomplished within the projected deadline while some other items would take more planning and funding.

The first item would be lock boxes similar to those used by real estate agents, providing an extra layer of security during a school lock-down. First responders on the scene during a lock down would use the boxes to gain access to the building. Trajan told the board another item on the list is key-less entry to school buildings and mandatory secured single entry doors. With more district security updates to come the task force told the board that list would include updated safety policies and protocols.

“The task force met, and we immediately started brainstorming the kind of critical deeds for safety in our district. It was interesting to see after our first few weeks, then we started getting stakeholder feedback coming in, [and] the priorities matched with our stakeholder feedback. So the group feels confident right now that we are addressing what the stakeholders also thought were very important. We have a good plan for those critical areas that we got to get established before school starts,” Tajan said.