MARBLEHEAD — Marblehead High School plans to repurpose its current entrance with the goal of increasing school safety and protecting against active school shootings and other unexpected threats and emergency situations.
Students and faculty members, including substitutes, will follow through with Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counts, and Evacuate method. ALICE is a common safety guide taught by police to ensure safety through all school levels in case of an emergency situation, such as an active school shooter. It will be practiced before and after school. Substitute teachers will receive training through online modules provided, and they will have lockdown keys so they know exactly what to do if an emergency happens.
On-site, MHS only has one School Resource Officer (SRO) assigned to the school within its district. For the next school year, students and staff will get IDs with a new barcode feature so that students can enter the building through the new scanner that’s being added into the entrance. Additionally, other schools that have this feature have access to the same data, and can quickly identify who the person is trying to enter the building.
The main doors will be the entry way, where there will be a desk to scan the IDs. This is so everyone has the same entrance point, instead of being scattered in different directions. The cost of the new entrance is $125,000 including the desk, the doors, the monitor, and the attendance taker. The repurposed entry way creates a clearer line of vision from the inside. It will become a lot easier to see who’s trying to enter the building in case of an intruder.
Concerns were brought up about other doors surrounding the building and the “what if” someone tried to enter that way. However, all doors are set with an alarm to go off when opened, and staff and teachers will carry “walkies” — a type of transportable radio system that allows for communication between staff throughout different parts of the building. Each outside door entrance has a number, and when opened, the alarm and door number will be sent through the “walkies” to notify staff that it’s been opened. These doors are secured to remain locked at all times, with the exception of lunch time, where a staff member will be standing outside.
Wearing badges with their ID picture showing will be a rule for students. The visitor and swipe system will allow anyone coming into the building to scan their ID and provide a brief description of who they are.
“Right now, we are trying to close school and get things going,” said Principal Bauer.
Before COVID, this plan was put in place and ready to go. Now that the pandemic is no longer at its peak and things are starting to return to normal, this plan can now be put into place starting as early as fall 2022; one step at a time.
Magella Cantara can be reached at [email protected].
