Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

The Albert Lea school district unveiled additional safety procedures and protocols coming to district buildings for visitors during Tuesday night’s board meeting.

Paul Durbahn, assistant director of finance and operations, as well as Sheryl Jones, the district’s safety and special projects coordinator, gave the presentation.

Each school will incorporate a double buzz system, with the first buzz coming from the outside.

“A greeter will greet them and ask what they’re there for and then allow them into that vestibule area,” Durbahn said. “Once a visitor enters the vestibule, they will be cleared at a window operated by a staff member. Visitors will be required to present ID, which will also be checked against the National Sex Offenders list.”

According to Jones, the current entry doors at Lakeview and Hawthorne will be changed out to all-glass doors.

“That way it’s more welcoming, better lit up,” she said.

Durbahn said the area where the health clerk used to work will be converted to a space for a secretary or clerk, who in turn will be responsible for greeting guests.

At Sibley, doors were added to the main entrance, and visitors will not be able to turn right upon entering, something visitors were able to do prior to the construction.

Visitors will walk to the main office, and once they’re cleared from there they’ll be buzzed into the school after acquiring their visitor badge.

“In a scenario like this office, and I believe Halverson, the greeter would be able to buzz them directly into the office or into the school hallways as well in this scenario,” Durbahn said. “A lot of times they may call a staff member down to escort the visitor to the classroom or the cafeteria, wherever they’re visiting to.

“So it provides that natural greeting place for them to stop in.”

At Hawthorne, the steel front doors are being changed out.

Once inside the front doors will be the vestibule, and after they’re cleared from that visitors will come to the office or to wherever they’re needed to be.

“Here there was many changes cause it used to be the principal’s office, that is now the welcome area,” Jones said.

Durbahn said it provided new walls, opened space and rearranged lighting and switches.

Both Lakeview and Hawthorne have drop ceilings that needed to be rebuilt, meaning there was more construction work.

At Halverson, the first buzzer will be an outside door before reaching the vestibule.

Once inside the office, visitors will be buzzed into the school.

At Southwest Middle School, the main entry for visitors was moved to the right of the main entryway.

“We’ve taken out some of that event entrance and added a whole brand-new office in that area, so then they’re buzzing in … from the outside and into that little vestibule area … and then from there they’ll be buzzed through [a door],” Jones said.

Guests and visitors will be asked to check back out.

“At Southwest Middle School it probably presented more challenges than other sites on the construction side of making the space work for the double-buzz system that we wanted to have,” Durbahn said. “Had to be a little creative in the process, but I think it’s going to work out well.”

Durbahn noted the move to glass doors was trying to remain consistent throughout the district, with each providing the same style of entry.

Durbahn thanked Jones as well as the district’s maintenance team, who he said did “a lot of work on these projects in a very compressed timeline.”

At the high school, visitors will first press an intercom before entering the first vestibule. Upon entering, they’ll be greeted by staff, who will then run their ID through the sex offender database.

Staff then have the option of buzzing them into the building.

All guests will be asked to wear a printed-out visitor ID.

When asked, Durbahn admitted that for things like sporting events, visitors wouldn’t be scanned through the Raptor ID system.

“For the purpose of our school day, I think we can plan in parts of our building leadership those events,” he said. “For now as we have individual visitors coming through, this meets that purpose and as far as we’ve seen so far it’s working well.”

He also believed that if a large number of guests were to arrive at the same time, there would be potential challenges.

“We have to use common sense, so we’re not going to line them up and start scanning IDs, right,” he said. “Look at each situation differently.”

Jones presented a Standard Response Protocol, specifically the “I Love U Guys” Foundation, which was started following a school shooting.

“They started this program to make things more common,” she said, noting the district did some of the “I Love U Guys” training, and that law enforcement and firefighters were on the same page as the district and also attended.

The first step for the district will be HOLD!, formerly known as lockdowns, meaning if there were a person in a school hallway, students should be pulled into a classroom.

Following that will be SECURE!, meaning getting everybody inside and securing doors.

LOCKDOWN! will occur if there were to be a major event, including a shooting.

In EVACUATE!, everyone will be asked to leave everything except for a cell phone behind, and SHELTER! Is the new response for major weather events such as tornadoes.

Jones, who Executive Director of Finance and Operations Jennifer Walsh described as a go-getter, was originally interviewed last December.

According to Walsh, Jones has a military background and has worked in airlines.

“She has done a tremendous amount in moving our school district when it comes to welcoming and safe schools,” Walsh said.

All buses now have stop-arm cameras, and there are new drop-off and pick-up procedures at Lakeview, Hawthorne and Halverson.

“The goal is to separate bus and car traffic,” Durbahn said.

According to Jones, there used to be a lot of interaction with parents where buses were. There will now be car lines for parents to come in one area.

Cameras were also updated in buildings around the distinct and identifying areas where there wasn’t coverage or had coverage issues.

“We noticed that a lot of them were all gray and had reached their life expectancy, which caused them to be really grainy, some of them are discolored or when you’re trying to identify anybody you can’t pick out what their face is,” Jones said.

According to Jones, the project of installing new cameras is almost complete at the high school.

The district worked to fix their public announcement system, something Jones said was a work in progress.

Jones is also working on event security as well as emergency action plans.

In total, as of Aug. 21 the district had spent $407,000 on safety projects.