School Security From a Students Perspective

Before I write anything else I just want to say I do feel safe in school. I am a senior at Ellington High School and I feel that, for the most part, the administration does a good job of keeping us safe. Doors are locked after 7:15, we've got a security guard who roams the school, and we regularly practice lockdown procedures. So as a student I feel like I am in capable hands.

However, I have one complaint. And that is that the administration keeps the student body in the dark about what is going on. For example, the last week before vacation, there were threats made to EHS. It started off as a rumor so most people did not take it seriously, but in the middle of the week there was a rise in the number of police officers who were stationed at the school, along with rumors that they were patrolling the ground, looking for something.

Suddenly those rumors were starting to seem more realistic. But the administration still did not say anything about what was going on. This left the students to get information from other students who had no idea what was actually happening. The students, and myself included, started feeling very insecure about our safety, when in reality we were all safe. Part of keeping us safe is making us feel safe, otherwise a student could do something dangerous or point fingers at an innocent person. The administration needs to mind that it is high school and rumors are taken for the truth more often than not. The students do not need to know every little detail, but what would it have hurt to let us know that there was a threat made but it is not considered to be credible and that the police are there as an extra precaution. This would have calmed the student body and made us feel more secure about our safety at school.

The administration did eventually tell us about the threat but not until after the investigation, and at that point, we knew most of what was going on anyways. But the information still should have been given by an adult at an earlier date rather than by a student with a wild imagination.