Safety first for school kids

Seeking additional taxpayer dollars to strengthen school security isn't a knee-jerk reaction; it's the right thing to do. Taxpayers should prepare to pitch in, ensuring North Idaho school kids are as safe as possible.

Districts nationwide are considering additional safety measures in the wake of the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut. Coeur d'Alene School District is planning to tack roughly $1 million onto its supplemental maintenance and operations levy, which will go before voters on March 12. Other districts in the area are considering further security investment, as well.

If taxpayers approve it, Coeur d'Alene's $1 million will pay for a variety of safety efforts, from additional police officers in schools to bulletproof glass in strategic places. The district's school board will decide by Jan. 24 how to word the levy request.

One possibility is that the security request could be sought separately from the main levy request of $12.9 million per year for two years or $25.8 million for the main levy. If the security portion were sought separately and approved, that would bring the total levy package to $26.8 million.

Another option would be to simply add the security portion to the first year of the two-year request, or $13.9 million for the first year and $12.9 million for the second year, again for a total of $26.8 million.

Some could argue the logic of including the $1 million in the basic, overall request, because support for that component of the whole will be overwhelmingly high and might help the rest of the measure pass. On the flip side, if it's included as part of the whole and the entire levy request fails, our schools will be every bit as vulnerable going forward as they are today - an option that we believe few taxpayers in the district find acceptable.

Our intent today is not to suggest one option over another for the school board to consider, but to emphasize the added importance of this year's Coeur d'Alene supplemental levy request. Most districts in the state have become increasingly dependent on supplemental levies every two years as state funding has decreased, and Coeur d'Alene remains one of the most levy-dependent districts in Idaho. Failure of the levy would cause untold damage to the quality of education for roughly 10,000 students.

The need for heightened security only increases the urgency. As unlikely as another massive assault on the scale of Sandy Hook might be, the vast majority of public schools are far too accessible to anyone with evil intent - armed or otherwise. Most schools were not designed to thwart small- or large-scale terrorism, so corrective measures like one secure entry point to any building are bound to be costly.

We applaud district officials in this region for not standing idly by and counting on the law of averages to safeguard their students. Without feeling secure, the daunting task of teaching our children well becomes even more difficult.