After ramping up security at all of its elementary schools last summer, the Anoka-Hennepin School District is making plans to do the same at all secondary schools this year. The shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012 prompted the district to make schools harder targets for someone who wants to cause harm.

“Our secondary schools – our high schools and middle schools – have had an advantage in the past over elementary schools,” said Chuck Holden, chief operations officer for the district, in a presentation to the school board Feb. 24. These schools share police liaison officers and boast multiple security cameras and all of the high schools have some system for keyless entry currently in place, according to Holden.

After input from local law enforcement, the district added vestibule entrances, a system that scans driver’s licenses and keyless entry points in all 24 elementary schools, two early childhood centers and a special education center in 2013. Now, staff recommends those same modifications be implemented in secondary schools this spring and summer.

Anoka Middle School for the Arts and Roosevelt Middle School in Blaine are the only two schools of the district’s 11 regular secondary schools that require the construction of vestibules. In total, Holden estimates the cost of secondary security modifications will be close to one million dollars.

The money will come from the existing capital budget, funds that typically finance routine replacements – windows, ceiling tiles, carpets, etc.
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