U-46 installing new locks, cameras to enhance school safety
An estimated $3 million worth of upgrades are planned for several Elgin Area School District U-46 schools this year and next to improve security.
This school year, the district will change master key systems and exterior door locks at nine schools, minimizing entry points and moving to electronic access control systems with camera monitoring, officials said.
All district school buildings - except four high schools, four middle schools and an early learning center - already have been upgraded to the new security systems through an earlier Illinois Emergency Management Agency grant, said John Heiderscheidt, U-46 director of school safety and culture.
"We're expecting that work will be finishing up before next school year," he said.
A new visitor management system will allow school officials to perform background checks on all visitors or volunteers by scanning their ID cards and cross-referencing them against a web-based national database of registered sex offenders.
Officials also plan on changing the locks on all classroom and office doors to where they can be locked from the inside.
"Our interior security is our top priority," Heiderscheidt said.
While it's been a goal for several years, the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut added impetus to the cause, he added.
"Sandy Hook really brought it to the forefront. It's just finding the resources to make it happen," Heiderscheidt said. "At this time, we are dedicating funds from the operating budget to start the initial phase of this project. We do have buildings with interior door locks. They tend to be our newer buildings or a building (where) we have changed the locks."
Officials are doing an inventory of all doors that need interior locks, including offices and common areas. Exactly how much the entire project will cost is yet unclear.
"It's a quite comprehensive project," Heiderscheidt said. "We have buildings that are over 100 years old."