After advisement from the school board, administrators decided to boost protocols on security for the new school year. Enforcing lanyards, hallway duties, locked doors, and much more has ultimately changed the environment, Junior Tegan Cline said. Cline  feels like the safety precautions are necessary, but an awkward adjustment for students.

“The new security precautions definitely make everyone feel safer at school.” Cline said,”but it’s definitely hard not having as much free range.” 

A huge adjustment that was put into place is that at 8:35 am all side doors lock. In previous years, the side doors would stay unlocked until class started at 8:45. This means students must walk to the front of the school to enter if they arrive after 8:35 and a teacher is not holding the door open. Cline says this is the only precaution she isn’t a fan of. 

“I really just do not like how at 8:35 they lock outside doors,” Cline said. “It takes a lot of time to walk to the front door since I park by the gym, which sometimes makes me late for class.” 

Students aren’t the only ones that have made major routine changes because of these new safety precautions. Teachers like Taylor Hall and Natalie Davey have also had to adapt to enforce these new rules. 

 “We have teachers doing duties monitoring different parts of the school to make sure students aren’t skipping,” Davey said. ”The only thing that can be annoying is that we have to keep our doors locked at all times, which is hard because so many students go in and out and it interrupts the class.” 

Even with the interruptions, Davey understands the importance of these new precautions and is happy to enforce them because she feels they are extremely necessary to keep school safe. Hall also thinks that these new rules are important because school should be a secure place to come and learn. 

“These new precautions were set in place to avoid things like school shootings,” Hall said,” which is important for keeping students and staff safe.” 

Over the summer, many Northwest Arkansas schools met to discuss what they can change to be safer. Head principal Dr Paul Griep feels that to maintain a healthy environment for learning, schools must start with a safe one.

“I mean everyone has watched the news and knows what’s going on in our world.” Dr Griep said, “ and there is no more important piece of schooling and safety.”

Obviously in a school full of 2200 students, there are some challenges: adjustment, communication, and commitment.The administration and Dr. Jared Cleveland came up with an efficient solution for helping keep our school grounds safe, including adding SRO’s (School Resource Officers). These officers, such as Officer Sergeant Treat’s,  job is to patrol the school grounds and to be ready for anything. 

“They’re a new form of security that are going to be able to respond in the event of a situation   and are networked with Springdale PD.” Griep said. 

Enforcing lanyards and hall passes, locked doors, students may think the new hallway duties are silly, but it’s an essential piece of making a safer education. 

“There is no higher priority than a safe school. If it’s not safe, then how do you have teaching and learning?” Griep said, “So that’s the highest priority, but it’s also making everyone realize that everyone has a part in this.”