Highland Park ISD Will be Even More Secure

RAPTOR will keep the bad guys out, and now new doors at all Highland Park ISD campuses will keep kids inside in case of an emergency.

The district’s board of trustees approved a $770,000 expenditure last night to pay for new interior doors and door hardware so that, when campuses go on lockdown, rooms inside buildings can remain secure. It’s called “secure-in-place,” and can help keep students and staff safe in the event of an intruder.

By Joanna England Mar. 10, 2010 | 6:49 pm | 24 Comments | Comments RSS
24 comments to "Highland Park ISD Will be Even More Secure"
  1. AD @ March 10, 2010 at 6:54 pm
    $770k. Unbelieveable. Couldn’t you just hire a full time guard for each school and save the money.

  2. mtm @ March 10, 2010 at 8:22 pm
    More plastic doors… Has anyone else objected to the new front door at Hyer? It looks terrible.
    I hope they have a “yard sale” of the old school doors. I’d love to buy a few of them. Classics- beautiful wood.
    Do we really need this???
    I can think of a few better places to spend our money.

  3. grump @ March 11, 2010 at 8:15 am
    Let’s redo the parks again. Smith Park was a great renovation. It now looks exactly like…the original Smith Park. We also have the redo at Hillcrest & Lovers. I thought Congress was moronic. Who do we need to call out on these ridiculous expenditures?

  4. James Tucker @ March 11, 2010 at 8:29 am
    Are these doors that keep our kids safe in their rooms 100% guaranteed to open if there is a fire? No chance of short-circuits or the like? Not made by a subsidiary of Toyota?

  5. A.B. @ March 11, 2010 at 8:38 am
    Let’s just call schools what they really are. Prisons.

  6. Gagree @ March 11, 2010 at 10:09 am
    This is a terrible use of taxpayer $. And I have one child currently in school and another will be there in a couple years.

  7. mtm @ March 11, 2010 at 10:24 am
    Seriously, the fire issue is huge… who makes the doors? I think this has really gone too far.

  8. kmom @ March 11, 2010 at 10:36 am
    My kid would agree wiuth @A.B.

  9. LM @ March 11, 2010 at 6:15 pm
    What is driving this expense, is it legal liability, a new state law? My sister taught in a high school that had these doors, and they were locked down for 5 hours one day because somebody escaped from the city jail who was charged with a non-violent crime. The jail was 3 miles away. Kids were crying because they couldn’t go to the bathroom.

  10. Bradfield Mom @ March 11, 2010 at 8:36 pm
    …..but we can’t afford to offer Spanish in the elementary schools?

  11. DemBones @ March 11, 2010 at 9:07 pm
    @A.B. & kmom: They even use prison talk, like “Early Release” on shorter school days!

  12. You're kidding, right? @ March 12, 2010 at 8:09 am
    Aren’t we supposed to be broke because of Robin Hood? Looks like my Mad for Plaid pledge isn’t needed after all!

  13. D @ March 12, 2010 at 9:37 am
    Seriously, someone needs to stop this insanity. I get keeping unwanted elements OUT of school, but locking the students IN?

    This town seems to want to spend as much money as fast as they can (e.g. the parks). I’ll give them my address if they would like to just send me a check.

  14. G @ March 12, 2010 at 11:07 am
    Yes, I wish they would spend this money to hire more teachers so we could have smaller class sizes!

  15. GMOM @ March 12, 2010 at 4:26 pm
    So, what if he gunman gets into the school, then someone locks the doors. Horrible idea and waste of money.

  16. GMOM @ March 12, 2010 at 4:27 pm
    Where does one go to find this “Board of Trustees” isn’t there an election coming up? Who are these people???

  17. Dan Koller @ March 12, 2010 at 5:25 pm
    @GMOM: If you want to find the Board of Trustees, they’re right here: http://www.hpisd.org/Default.aspx?tabid=61

    Yes, there is an election coming up, but it won’t be very competitive. Monday was the deadline to file a candidacy. Incumbent Cynthia Beecherl is running unopposed, and each of the two open seats is being sought by only person. Those seats will go to Paul Rowsey and University Park City Councilwoman Kelly Walker.

  18. grump @ March 12, 2010 at 11:35 pm
    Has someone done a background check to make sure the ethics of this expenditure are above reproach? I realize we need lockdown due to the high crime areas in the Park Cities, but enough about Crocs. Fabulous!!!
    Seriously though?!? $770,000??? As Bradfield mom said: no espanol in de escuelas? Mios Dio!!! That would pay for at least 2-3 years of Hyer-mom lipo, Bradfield-mom facelifts, UP-mom English and driving lessons and Armstrong-mom ****tails. Don’t even get me started on the dads…

  19. grump @ March 12, 2010 at 11:39 pm
    Oh good gosh, you really can’t write the word for adult beverage because it has cee ooo cee kay for the 1st 4 letters? What are we afraid of? A cultural big white van?

  20. Think about it @ March 13, 2010 at 6:16 pm
    I know through years of very active involvement with HPISD that they watch every single penny (and I do mean penny) and they work very, very hard to be good stewards of our money. That being said, if these new doors save one kid’s life one day, I vote spend it. No one thought Columbine would happen. No one thought someone would go into an Amish school and open fire. I know HPISD has thoughtfully considered this expense and they are spending this money to protect my child. I am all for it. I think many parents think HPISD has been behind in security because of the reluctance in the past to spend large sums of money on it.

    Instead of complaining, if people spent time volunteering and helping our school district they would have a much better understanding of and appreciation for it and we would have an even better district. HPISD may not be perfect, but I don’t see people leaving to go to DISD!

  21. Dan Koller @ March 14, 2010 at 9:29 am
    @grump: I agree: It is silly that our blogging software automatically censors the work “****tail.” I tried to restore the word, but no immediate solution was evident.

  22. You're kidding, right? @ March 14, 2010 at 5:24 pm
    I’m confused. If shooters are locked in the building, isn’t this a bad thing?

    BradfieldMom, I am tired of the foreign language push. If you spend the money on more foreign language teachers, that is useless. Anyone who wants to do serious business in the world speaks English. We may live in Texas, but Mexican businessmen already speak English and speaking to the maid just isn’t that much of a high educational priority. If you’re concerned about a language surpassing English, we all should be learning Chinese.

  23. kmom @ March 15, 2010 at 9:33 am
    If the doors auto-lock, the shooter cannot go from room to room shooting victims – he’s locked out/ or into wherever it is he is at the time of the locking. This would have helped a lot at Columbine, as they meandered about the building shooting people from room to room to library, etc. Also would have helped at that college shooting where he rambled around shooting room to room – for an hour!

    @your’re kidding – how narrow & small minded of you. Every developed nation in the world teaches their children foreign language from an early age, but we think we’re so superior that English is the only language anyone should know? You agree with Governor Hairdo that we should secede, too dontcha? If you believe Chinese is the only useful language you are in luck, they teach Mandarin at the high school. Foreign language is a must if you want to get into a college these days. It is way easier to teach a young child a language than to wait until high school to start. Spanish was in all the elementary’s just a few years ago, my high school Junior had it all four years at Armstrong. Having the lil ones start the process of learning a second language in elementary is very valuable, we should work to get it back into those schools.

  24. You're kidding, right? @ March 15, 2010 at 3:58 pm
    kmom, take a valium. My kid took Spanish in elementary school, too. He learned his colors and his numbers, and that’s about it, so please don’t get on your soap box about how valuable it is. Yes, the universities require it. How many of us took it in college and have actually used it (the maid and yard guy don’t count)? So if we’re going to get all uppity about how every other country does it, how about we teach more science and math like they do instead? It seems to me everyone else is kicking our behinds in that. I am not small-minded nor do I think English is superior, and I don’t want to secede. I just think there are more useful subjects to spend our time and money on. Facts are facts, and English IS the universal language.

    If we are concerned about this being a international society, there are billions of Chinese, and they own most of our debt. So do I think that it would be more useful? Probably. I am pretty sure the world doesn’t conduct business in French and only a small part of the world population speaks it, but we are giving that one a good work out in schools. Sorry, if foreign languages were so invaluable, there would be plenty more opportunities to use them in careers that would provide substantial pay. Mostly, it’s used to order cerveza in Mexico.

Leave a Reply