To: David Wooly, Alma School District Administration
From: Michele Ikenberry, Faculty Member
Date: February 12, 2017
Re: Task Force for Alma School Protection Program In recent years protecting our students while at school has become a significant issue for our nation, and the thousands of individual schools throughout the country. Tragically, many of the worst mass shootings in our country have taken place in public institutions to include Columbine in 1999 with 13 victims, Red Lake, Minnesota where 7 victims were killed at the high school, and most recently Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012 with 26 killed including 20 elementary school children. These recent tragic incidents has stirred an intense debate in communities …show more content…
In addition, three of Alma’s schools including the Alma Primary, Alma Intermediate, and Alma Middle School have an open floor plan where most of the classrooms are open and without actual doors to close or prevent access by an armed intruder. While these open floor plans may have seemed like a good idea and conducive to learning when built in the early 1980’s, today they place our children at risk because teachers are totally unable to lock down their classrooms. I would like to form a task force for the Alma School District in order to work together to effectively increase the level of protection for our students and staff at each of our four campus locations. The task force will look at each campus individually and the district overall and explore options to reduce vulnerabilities for each school location. This task force will also research state and federal law on issues such as arming security guards and teachers, consult with city officials on increasing police resource officers, and consult with local architects and construction companies in order to remodel and retrofit each campus with doors so that each classroom can be secured in the event of a lockdown. The task force will provide a recommendation on how to best secure our schools and associated costs with each recommendation. I would like to recommend the following staff members, parents, centers of influence within the community to work collectively on the Alma School Protection Program. The following members and credentials are indicated
From: Michele Ikenberry, Faculty Member
Date: February 12, 2017
Re: Task Force for Alma School Protection Program In recent years protecting our students while at school has become a significant issue for our nation, and the thousands of individual schools throughout the country. Tragically, many of the worst mass shootings in our country have taken place in public institutions to include Columbine in 1999 with 13 victims, Red Lake, Minnesota where 7 victims were killed at the high school, and most recently Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012 with 26 killed including 20 elementary school children. These recent tragic incidents has stirred an intense debate in communities …show more content…
In addition, three of Alma’s schools including the Alma Primary, Alma Intermediate, and Alma Middle School have an open floor plan where most of the classrooms are open and without actual doors to close or prevent access by an armed intruder. While these open floor plans may have seemed like a good idea and conducive to learning when built in the early 1980’s, today they place our children at risk because teachers are totally unable to lock down their classrooms. I would like to form a task force for the Alma School District in order to work together to effectively increase the level of protection for our students and staff at each of our four campus locations. The task force will look at each campus individually and the district overall and explore options to reduce vulnerabilities for each school location. This task force will also research state and federal law on issues such as arming security guards and teachers, consult with city officials on increasing police resource officers, and consult with local architects and construction companies in order to remodel and retrofit each campus with doors so that each classroom can be secured in the event of a lockdown. The task force will provide a recommendation on how to best secure our schools and associated costs with each recommendation. I would like to recommend the following staff members, parents, centers of influence within the community to work collectively on the Alma School Protection Program. The following members and credentials are indicated