With school shootings rising in America, school safety has become more important than ever; despite online threats, Heritage’s security team is prepared and taking active steps to ensure maximum safety for Heritage students and staff.
Security is one of the most important factors in a school. Students have the right to walk onto campus and feel safe rather than unsafe or on edge. This year the administration is taking multiple new security measures to increase the level of safety here at Heritage. Some of these measures include new brighter exterior lights, assigned parking spaces for students and staff, and new staff members dedicated specifically to safety and security.
“We have a full time resource officer with Officer Ochoa, who’s on campus all the time. We have multiple other police officers that are on our campus additionally all the time. We have multiple trainings for the staff before students get on campus regarding safety and security. We have a full safety team of about a dozen administrators, teachers, and counselors that meet monthly with police officers to review where we are at and what we need to continue to work on,” said Principal Chip Greenwell.
Heritage also has an anonymous tip line that admin uses frequently. Greenwell estimates roughly 30 different tips from students every day. Essentially the school has five full time staff members who are focused specifically on safety and security including a staff member dedicated to patrolling the parking lots.
“One of the biggest things for security is prevention; the biggest prevention that we have is locking doors, exterior and interior doors,” said Greenwell.
Officer Jeffery Ochoa, Heritage’s onsite police officer, spends his time here patrolling the halls, answering the tip line, and watching the security footage to insure protection.
“I think our team here is very good and does a very good job with security. We take security very seriously, every person here has a role that they play,” says Ochoa. “I think that it’s impossible to be perfect, the only thing we can do is progress.”
Shortly after The Talon interviewed Officer Ochoa, a threat nearby the school caused Heritage to institute a modified hold in place order per police recommendation, with students not allowed to leavethe building and parent and bus drop off directed to the front of the school as a precautionary measure. This event caused a lot more concern for how safe Heritage really is.
“I think today is proof that we can move quickly to make sure that all [students and staff] are safe. We re-routed the parents, we re-routed the buses, we made sure that the kids were safe, and at no point in time were we in any intimate danger on campus, but we had to make some maneuvers for things off campus. It’s the constant collaboration of the team that allows us to be able to navigate any type of safety issue quickly,” said Teacher on Special Assignment (TOSA) Brian Walker.
Safety in and out of the classroom is a worry for any person in this day and age. Despite threats and safety concerns, Heritage’s administration has proven that the school is as safe as it can be even with the simple act of locking all doors. Yet there are always ways to improve. For example having ID badges, or having a gate blocking the courtyard have all been in consideration within administration for years.
“I like the idea of ID badges, it is something we have been talking about for years, [but] there are a lot of people that have to be on board with that idea in order for us to implement it. We need everyone, like all three high schools, central office, and the Board of Education on board. Having ID badges [would be] nice, though there is no one singular answer. We could search every person who walks on our campus, but that’s not the reality and it makes it feel like a prison. I don’t want us to feel like a prison, I want us to feel like a school, but I want us to feel like a safe school,” said Greenwell.
Greenwell additionally states that he believes the best way to stay safe is to be properly trained and have proper awareness of the situation since unforeseen attacks can happen at any time.
“Security is always our priority and I think that it is something that we are doing a good job of, it is also something that will never be 100%,” said Greenwell. “Our job is always to figure out ways we can continue to improve things, continue to grow things, and continue to make things better.”
