Sand Springs District Overhauling Security Procedures Before School Starts

A Green Country school district is making big changes to keep its students safer by overhauling its security procedures.

Sand Springs High School, like almost every other school in the district, is being reconfigured to meet new security policies.

The biggest change is that students will only be allowed to enter on the east and north sides of the building.

The amped up security comes after the massacre at Sandy Hook last December.

"We had a lot of concerned parent calls wanting to know what we were doing with security," said project manager Jeanie Kvach.

The Sand Springs school district says it's giving parents what they've asked for: safer schools.

"I think the biggest change that parents will note is we will have secured foyers in all of our schools," Kvach said.

Angus Valley Elementary is in the process of having its two new security doors installed in its lobby.

Kvach said students will be able to enter through the lobby during designated times, then the interior doors will lock for the day.

"It will secure the lobby from an intrusion and keep our kids that one more step safer, and that's what we all wanted," Kvach said.

The doors to the main entrance will always be unlocked, so parents or visitors won't need buzz in. But once inside, they'll only have access to the school office, where they'll sign in and get a visitor's pass.

"We want to make sure that parents feel comfortable, that they can enter the school and check on their child at any time and we didn't want to lock them out," Kvach said.

She said the district worked with police to come up with a plan on how to best protect each school and they still have problems to solve.

While the windows stay locked at all schools, she said they're the most vulnerable to intruders.

"That is an opportunity. If someone wants to break a window, they could get in there. We haven't talked about that issue yet," Kvach said.

She said the district didn't have the money to buy bullet-proof glass for the new lobby doors, but said the glass has tough laminate coating.

"So a bullet can go through it, but it will still stay intact. But you can't take a ball bat and even beat your way through it once they've shot through it," Kvach said.

Kvach said the project cost about $156,000.

Security camera are mounted throughout every school in the district.

But Kvach said what should give every parent peace of mind is, if something should happen, police can get to any campus in less than four minutes.

With the exception of the main entrance, the exterior doors to every school in the district will be locked at all times. Teachers will be able to get in using a key fob.

School in Sand Springs starts on August 20 and the district expects to have all school lobbies secured by the first day of school. There are 10 schools in the district, and the two newer schools were designed with secured foyers.