Safe Students. Safe Schools. Safe Community

The world has changed over the past few years in regard to schools and school safety. Over the past several months, we have enlisted the help of our community and outside agencies to determine the best methods for ensuring the safety of our students while at school and to help us meet our commitment to protect our students and staff.

We have great facilities that we take pride in; however, many of our buildings were not designed with the safety and security measures needed to address the threats we are currently facing in our society. Our community has continued to support our schools, and we have worked extremely hard over the past few years to be fiscally responsible while continuing to provide a safe environment for all.

We need the assistance of our community to continue to put safety and security measures into place for our students and our staff. Many of the measures identified through our strategic planning process are costly and recurring. Preschool teachers should not have to be thinking about how to protect four and five year olds from an active shooter, but it is our current reality.

Overview of Proposition Safe Schools

What have we as a district done so far?

During the September 20, 2018 Board of Education meeting, the Board approved over $106,000 in safety and security items from this year’s budget. These approved items include the following:

-A resource officer from City of De Soto

-500 door barricade devices

-Exterior door proximity locks at main entrances (requiring card activation for entry)

-Playground security gates at Athena and Vineland Elementary Schools

-Replacement of glass sidelight panels by classroom doors

-Replacement of 20 interior classroom doors


Items approved by the Board of Education were identified as priority items by students, parents, community, and staff during the strategic planning community meetings over the past year and will be paid out of our current operating budget for the current school year. There are many additional items on the list, and the passage of Proposition Safe Schools would allow the district to complete safety and security items listed and pay for the recurring cost associated with many of them.