Southern Boone Schools Step Up Door Security

Southern Boone’s school board spent a good chunk of its October meeting on something simple and easy to overlook: keeping exterior doors shut and locked.

At the Oct. 19 meeting, Assistant Superintendent Jacob Watson told the board the district is replacing its “Stop the Prop” signs on every exterior door — the ones that remind staff not to prop a door open for convenience. Board member Jeremy Galloway asked Superintendent Tim Roth whether propped doors were a constant battle. “I would say yes,” Roth answered, though he added it’s better some days than others. Both he and Watson said checking doors is now part of their own daily routine when they’re in the buildings, not just something left to staff.

Galloway raised the issue in the context of a shooting on Oct. 15 at an elementary school in Bend, Oregon, where a 16-year-old reportedly shot through locked doors, killing three children and a teacher and injuring two others, according to the Associated Press. Galloway said it was one more reason doors need to stay secured — a reminder that even a locked door is only as good as the habits around it.

What else is the district doing on safety?

Door discipline isn’t the only piece. Watson said the district is reviewing security camera coverage building by building, looking for blind spots and deciding where more cameras might be needed. Each school already runs drills through the year for a range of situations — severe weather, bus evacuations, bomb threats and armed intruders among them.

The board also talked through reunification planning — how a school would get kids safely back to parents after an evacuation or lockdown. The district’s Reunification Committee, a subcommittee of the Safety Committee, held its first meeting of the school year and plans another next week to update those procedures. A board member thanked the Boone County Office of Emergency Management, which recently delivered reunification supplies to the district’s schools.

Is anything happening outside of safety?

Yes — the board also heard a pitch for a new outdoor space at the middle school, an idea that came out of a September PTO meeting. Possibilities on the table include a walking trail, hammock swings, a gaga ball pit and a course sized for kids. Roth said the district wants input from students, teachers and parents before deciding anything. It’s a smaller echo of what’s already happened at the Southern Boone YMCA, which opened its own new walking trail in Ashland this month.

On the academic side, Karen Pfingsten, the district’s director of school improvement, told the board attendance ran 95.96% from Sept. 17 to Oct. 14, and that students scored above the state average in nearly every MAP and End-of-Course category this spring — eighth-grade math and high school Algebra II were the exceptions. “We have a lot to celebrate,” Pfingsten said.

For Southern Boone families following the district beyond the board room — the school year’s other headline this fall has been on the football field, where coach Tyler Tanner’s Eagles are in year two of his rebuild. (Boone County Journal / Columbia Missourian)