Open letter to the community about safety in our schools

As a parent, community member and your superintendent I spend much of my day and many nights worrying about threats to our children and our schools.

Our district's security goals are to equip our schools with multiple layers of deterrents and direct security measures that weave together layers of protection for our students and staff.

Thursday morning a young adult entered the main doors at Lake City High School, walked around the building and entered an unoccupied classroom where he is suspected of stealing a teacher's car keys, then exited the school building.

After school was over for the day, the teacher alerted authorities that her car had been stolen from the parking lot. Once district officials were aware of Thursday's incident, administrators worked closely with police to review video surveillance footage.

The video of the suspect was disturbing to me, as I never want to see our schools as vulnerable targets for crime.

Our district has been open with the public that, short of turning our schools into prisons, we cannot prevent every possible safety or security situation from happening. We can, however, learn from incidents that occur within our district and across the country to better understand our vulnerabilities and act strategically to strengthen our security.

Investigative work by multiple School Resource Officers (SROs) has led to the identification of the suspect. Police are still working on tracking down the suspect, but through previous police knowledge have determined he is a low risk threat to our students and staff.

Prior to the district receiving the affirmation from police that this was not a threatening situation, school administrators initiated an enhanced SRO presence at Lake City High School on Friday as a follow up to Thursday's activity at the school.

Security upgrades across our district began last December and showed first in January 2013 when students came back from winter break with the reinstated sixth SRO position at Canfield Middle School.

Since the passage of the safety and security levy last spring, our district continues to add multiple layers to our schools' security. Beginning last March (Phase I), our district completed perimeter fencing at each of our schools. Perimeter fencing at all facilities helps limit access to a single-point at each building.

Our students, staff and families began to see the implementation of other security enhancements in September when our buildings changed to a narrower point of entry system. All outside doors are locked except for the schools' front doors and other primary points of entry at schools that have outbuildings and portables.

Our district has installed new video surveillance cameras at school buildings across the district, increasing cameras at entry points and outside to view the approaches to all buildings. All camera upgrades will be installed within the next month.

Last spring, the district "piloted" an access control system for doorways that will allow for automatic locking and keyless card entry. In June, with the success of the pilot program, we determined this was the right technology to use for all school buildings and a new district-wide door control system.

Phase II of our security enhancements will include the ability to lock the front entry doors at all our schools once the school day has started, and require a visitor buzz-in style identification system. Cabling and wiring installation has begun at our schools for this next security layer. We are expecting the new door control system installation to be complete in December/January.

Front office reconfiguration construction will take place during the December/January winter break at Lake City High School and Coeur d'Alene High School. Front office reconfiguration has already occurred at Sorensen Elementary and Canfield Middle School as part of major remodels this past summer. Bryan Elementary, Borah Elementary and Winton Elementary will also receive front office reconfigurations in 2014 due to our school bond remodel projects. Hayden Kinder Center's entrance is also being evaluated for reconfiguration.

The incident last week reminds us that time is of the essence as we implement our safety and security upgrades, even if our district must be strategic in implementation. We must coordinate a process that includes our law enforcement and our administrators. We must legally undergo a bidding process in order to competitively manage our tax dollars wisely. We take into account that our upgrades take place within a time frame that has the least impact on our students' education.

In the interim, we rely heavily on the vigilant human component of our security measures and layers of deterrence. Even the simple visual of our SRO patrol cars parked near the entrance of our schools acts as a deterrent. District administrators are working with police department personnel to determine back up systems to help keep our security staff levels solid during SRO absences. School administrators continuously review with staff our protocols for adult coverage in the hallways and training on approaching individuals who seem out of place in our schools.

For our district, having safe schools is a priority. For our community, it is a promise. I write this letter to reassure you that we continue every day to strategically implement our security upgrades throughout all of our schools in order to protect our most precious asset - our kids.

Matthew Handelman is superintendent of the Coeur d'Alene School District.