Seneca Valley Considering Additional Security at Secondary Campus

Seneca Valley will once again consider adding additional school safety measures to the middle school, intermediate high school and senior high school at the district’s secondary campus in Jackson Township.

At Monday’s school board meeting, Robert Cook, the district’s director of buildings, grounds and security, presented plans for captured entrances at the three buildings.

The district already has captured entrances, sometimes called mousetraps, in place at the elementary schools.

With a captured entrance, visitors to the school open a first set of doors that gives them access to a lobby. They wouldn’t be allowed to enter a second set of locked doors, which lead into the main body of the school, until they complete a face-to-face check-in procedure with staff members.

Visitors also are screened through the Raptor visitor management system, a program that mines a database to make sure those entering the schools aren’t registered sex offenders.

Cook said the district bid the captured entrances project at the secondary campus buildings and at Evans City and Haine elementary schools in April 2011.

While the board decided to move forward with plans for the security measures at the elementary schools, plans for the entrances at the secondary campus were put on hold because of budgetary constraints.

After the school shootings in December at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Conn., that left 20 students and six teachers dead, Superintendent Dr. Tracy Vitale said officials asked her to review the district’s safety measures.

“I think the added security of having a school resources officer and security guards on campus critically helped in that decision,” she said the board’s decision in 2011 not to add the captured entrances to the secondary campus. “But now, with the emphasis on school security, I have many board members asking me to revisit captured entrances at the secondary level.”   

Cook said there already are plans designed for captured entrances on the secondary campus from the last time officials considered the project.

“Next month, I will be asking board again to rebid these projects to see where we come in dollar wise to see if we can afford to do these projects,” he said.

Vitale said the costs came in at about $150,000 three years ago when the district bid the project for the three buildings.

“So certainly costs have gone up,” she said. “It’s likely that those bids are going to come in higher but don’t know.”

Officials are expected to vote on whether to move forward with the captured entrances on the secondary campus at the May school board meeting.

If the plans are approved, Cook said construction could begin on the project over the summer and continue into the early part of the 2013-14 school year.   

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