GILROY
– Security improvements planned for the Gilroy High School
campus could play a major role in a lockdown similar to the one on
May 14.
GILROY – Security improvements planned for the Gilroy High School campus could play a major role in a lockdown similar to the one on May 14.
Gilroy Unified School District construction officials say the campus will have a state-of-the-art security system next fall that would speed communication between the office and classrooms and could feed live images to a remote computer.
An upgrade of the aging intercom system and installation of security cameras were planned as part of this summer’s major campus overhaul. The Gilroy High School public announcement system will be completely replaced.
“That system that we have up there is just old, and we want to give it more capabilities,” said Charlie Van Meter, GUSD’s director of facilities, planning and construction.
The current system works intermittently in some areas of the campus, an issue that became a more serious problem when a student’s death threat against a teacher sparked a three-hour lockdown. Some classes reportedly did not hear the lockdown announced. Although campus supervisors knocked on some of those doors, some students were nearly released for a break even as police officers patrolled campus with weapons drawn.
The phone-in system will actually make it possible for announcements to be made both inside and outside classrooms, or to a specific group of classrooms, he said.
“When they make an announcement, you can hear it throughout the whole school, or it will give the capability for the office to just talk to one classroom,” Van Meter said.
Digital security cameras also will be installed around campus, similar to those already in place at Ascencion Solorsano Middle School.
Images from the cameras will be captured via closed-circuit television.
“Those cameras can be monitored during the day, if they want,” Van Meter said. “It’ll also have the software capability, like Solorsano, so that we can access it from remote sites.”
Van Meter said it is possible for the district to allow Gilroy police to view the camera’s images from off-campus computers, as well.
GUSD eventually plans to install such systems on each school site as it phases out the Vandal Watch program that uses people to watch campuses overnight. The district is looking at installing the systems at Gilroy’s two other middle schools.
