All Gilroy Unified School District public schools will soon be enclosed with fences as part of an effort to bolster campus security in an age of heightened safety precautions – and Morgan Hill schools could be following suit in the future.
In the wake of the Sandy Hook tragedy, two GUSD schools with fences will get upgrades and the remaining school without a fence will get one – projects that could cost between $600,000 and $800,000. The tradeoff, however, is that students who are not athletes or under the direct supervision of a GUSD staff member would no longer be free to go on campus after school and use outdoor basketball courts or playgrounds.
The Morgan Hill Unified School District, alternately, is more concerned about closing off access points to its campuses while school is in session, rather than installing perimeter fences – at least for now. Currently, eight of its schools are completely enclosed by fences and five are not. More fences may be on the way as funds from Measure G – the $198 million capital improvements bond voters approved in 2012 – roll out in the district.
“I think it’s a great idea. I have a first-grader at Luigi. That campus when he was a kindergartner, it just really scared me,” said Gilroy mother Mimi Riffle. “Especially in kindergarten, they don’t know their boundaries. They see that green grass and they don’t understand that all the at green grass is not part of the playground,” she said, referencing the fact that there’s a city park next to the Luigi Aprea School playground.
By fall 2014, MHUSD will have four open campuses and GUSD will have two: Ascencion Solorsano Middle School and the Gilroy Early College Academy, or GECA, which will remain unfenced since it is on the Gavilan College campus. Solorsano will remain open because all funds from Measure P – the $150 million general obligation facilities bond voters passed in 2008 – have been allocated. The next round of Measure P funding won’t come for another year and a half. GUSD Superintendent Debbie Flores hopes to secure a grant, so that the school can be fenced in sooner.
The accelerated fence building measures at GUSD are spurred by the Connecticut school shooting last December at Sandy Hook Elementary School, where a lone gunman walked onto campus and shot 20 children and six staff members.
“It’s a decision we made actually a long time ago but with the school shooting in December in Connecticut we decided to move this up a bit,” Flores explained.
In recent years, the fencing effort has been funded by about $750,000 Measure P dollars, said Flores.
MHUSD Interim Superintendent Steve Betando agrees security is important, but he’s not sure fences are the right answer.
“If you do a permanent fence around the whole school – during school that’s great, but then what do you do after school for the arts and sports? It’s not as easy as just fencing in the whole school.”
Following the Sandy Hook shooting, school leaders from Gilroy and Morgan Hill met with local law enforcement to discuss how they could improve school safety. A law enforcement walk-through at each of GUSD’s 15 sites yielded two suggestions: enclose the campuses and keep only one entrance to the school. So, that’s exactly what the district is doing.
“I love the idea of a fence. We’ve needed it since the school was built,” said Melissa Vernon, who is the mother of first- and third-grade students at Luigi Aprea. “That campus is really open. It is easy for a kid to leave unattended and it is easy for a person to take a child undetected unnoticed.”
Vernon, though, fears that the way Luigi’s fence is being built defeats the purpose of the school security measure. The new fence splits the playground in half and does not encompass the outdoor basketball courts, which are under yard duty supervision during recess, but otherwise have no security.
In Morgan Hill, Betando has determined that law enforcement’s suggestion to maintain limited access points to the campus during the school day is most important.
“We’ve met with law enforcement about our procedures and it’s a continuous discussion about how to improve safety and how to train staff,” explained Betando. “Fences are always brought up, but more than fences we are looking at access points to the site and times that you close access points to the campus.”
For Flores, the decision to keep school playgrounds locked up after hours is a school-by-school decision.
“Some of the sites are closed on the weekend,” said Flores, who recalls how over the years Glen View Elementary was hit with so much graffiti – along with “needles, beer cans and a lot worse stuff” each week – that the community asked the district to close the campus on weekends.
At Luigi, construction to make existing fencing at the school run the perimeter of the campus will likely start this spring. The plan will leave the school’s 12 basketball courts open to the public, even when the campus is closed, explained Flores. Completely enclosing Mt. Madonna High School will be next and will likely occur this summer, Flores said.
