Jason Arndt, jarndt@shawanoleader.com
Renovations planned at two Shawano schools this summer are intended to help keep students and staff safe.
Changes to the entry areas at the high school and middle school will force visitors to pass through the office area before entering the main portion of either school.
Although visitors now have to be buzzed in by school personnel, the “blind” entrances at both schools enable guests to enter the building unseen by staff, other than via a security camera.
Both schools were built when school safety was not considered an issue. School shootings, most notably in Columbine, Colo., in 1999 and Newtown, Conn., in 2012, have raised awareness of the issue and prompted districts across the U.S. to improve security.
“As parents and community members are concerned over school violence across the country, you want to make sure it does not happen to us,” said Jeff Easter, district maintenance director.
Easter said the entry areas will be similar to both Hillcrest Primary School and Olga Brener Intermediate School.
“This is the way most schools are operating now,” he said. “Hillcrest was built in the manner where it was addressed immediately.”
Scott Zwirschitz, principal at Shawano Community High School, has lobbied for the changes for two years.
“We have been looking to always make our school as secure as possible,” Zwirschitz said. “When you look at school security, the biggest thing that keeps a building secure is being proactive, not reactive.”
The work, which will begin in July and be completed prior to the start of the 2014-15 school year, is expected to cost less than $10,000 and will be done by Felts Construction.
Both schools have two sets of doors, exterior and interior, at the entrances. Workers will cut a hole in the wall between the entrance and office at each school, install a locked door there, and add locks to the interior doors leading into the school from the entrance.
Visitors will still need to be buzzed in to gain entry to the office area before proceeding into the school.