Weeks ago, an intruder allegedly trespassed onto campus with a knife, principal Denae Nurnberg stated. My phone buzzed with frantic messages from friends and family, asking if I was okay and if I had heard about it. Days later, I was still deeply unsettled that they were able to step onto campus in the first place.
The fact that this dangerous physical altercation had happened so close to me made me soon realize that HHS lacks any effective protections for student safety. Ultimately, campus safety and security should always be prioritized to ensure that every student feels comfortable in their learning environment.
Throughout the school year, 5% of students ages 12-18 reported feeling unsafe in a 2019 survey conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics. Additionally, 16.1% of California ninth graders felt unsafe or very unsafe at school from 2017-2019, according to KidsData.
This illustrates that student fear at school is more common than many people realize, and it can cause students to feel additionally stressed or anxious in an atmosphere where they should be focused on learning and growing.
Many campuses in our district rely on only minimal supervision from school resource officers, making internal campus security measures especially important.
Since we have an open campus, anyone can enter the school without resistance. The most glaring issue is that, although our gates are locked most of the time, they can easily get pushed through by reaching under them and pulling the drop pin up.
To address this gate issue, particularly at the horseshoe, administration must begin using combination locks to keep them closed at appropriate times like before and after school. Alternatively, the school can permanently bolt one of each pair of the gate doors to make pin tampering no longer possible.
Additionally, to ensure students are properly prepared even in the event of intrusion, the school should consider implementing one lockdown drill per semester, instead of the minimum of one per school year as required by state law. This way, students can proactively be trained to preserve their own safety, on top of relying on effective campus security measures.
When campuses are easy to trespass onto, unauthorized or sometimes, even dangerous, individuals can incite confrontations or disrupt learning time, creating an unhealthy environment for students and staff alike. Campus violence can never be completely prevented, but HHS can expand measures to maintain the highest level of school safety that it can.
