Gainesville School makes safety upgrades thanks to $100k grant
Times photos/Jessi Dreckman Gainesville Elementary Principal Ben Hopper is pictured here with students, from left, Bentley Rodrigue, Valerie Moseley and Kobi Adams, in front of the elementary school’s front entrance. The doors have been outfitted with a new school safety window film that prevents those outside the school from seeing inside the building. The film appears transparent when a person is inside the building looks out. The same security film-covered door in the photo above is pictured from the inside below, showing that it is nearly invisible when standing inside looking out.
The elementary school has also built a secure entrance on the interior of the building, which requires those entering the building to first walk into a secure vestibule where they can speak with a front office attendant before being buzzed through to the school. School officials say this replaces a system where the front doors were locked, and a secretary buzzed people in when they approached the building.
While the main school entrances both the Gainesville High School/Junior High and Gainesville Elementary buildings are outfitted in a safety film that features a bright Bulldog design, the classroom windows are outfitted in a more subdued reflective film. The film still prevents those outside the building from seeing inside the windows and doors, effectively preventing someone who would want to do harm to students or staff from seeing where they are inside the building.
This year the Gainesville School District has installed a few new physical security measures to help make the school a safer place for students and staff, Superintendent Justin Gilmore said. The upgrades have been funded by a $100,000 grant from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s school safety program, issued earlier this year.
A major portion of the grant funding was used to apply a safety window film to both the high school/junior high school building and elementary school. When applied, the window film blocks those who are outside the school from seeing in; however, those inside the building have complete visibility to see outside.
The film has been applied to all the main entrance doors and the windows on both HS/JH and elementary schools in areas that would give those outside a view of hallways, classrooms or anywhere students and staff would gather.
In addition to the window and door treatments, all of the classroom doors in the junior high and high school buildings have been replaced with all-steel doors, providing more security than the 1950-era doors that were previously installed which each had glass side windows.
The elementary school’s main entrance has also been made more secure with the addition of an interior vestibule that prevents those entering the front door from having full access to the school without checking in with school employees first. After a person has a conversation with a school employee in the office, the staff member can choose to buzz open the locked door to allow the patron inside.
Funding was not needed to upgrade the entrance at the high school because the building already had a secure entryway thanks to the 8,000-square foot addition that was completed last year, funded in part by a FEMA grant.
Gainesville Elementary School Principal Ben Hopper, who is new to the district for the 2023-24 school year, said that he’s been impressed with Gainesville’s dedication to making the buildings more secure.
“One thing I really like about our school district is that safety is really important to us. Whenever I did my walk through after I was hired [Superintendent] Mr. Gilmore said, ‘We want to make sure our students are safe.’ So having these upgrades are going to help a lot. We’re keeping everyone contained until we know that they can be in our building,” he said.
The school was notified in May that it had been chosen as one of the first round recipients of the grant program. Bakersfield School was also awarded $100,000 in the first round of the grant.
In the second round of the grant, issued in September, two other Ozark County schools received awards: Dora and Lutie each received a $50,000 grant to implement its own safety features.
Governor Parson approved an additional $50 million to expand the school safety reimbursement grant program in the fiscal year 2024 budget. The grant program aims to support school safety improvements including physical security upgrades and associated technology (including door locks, monitoring systems and other upgrades), bleeding control kits, epinephrine auto-injectors and automatic external defibrillators.
The first round of grants were awarded to 169 school districts and charter schools, and 566 districts were awarded funds in the second round.
“Improving the safety and security of our schools is an issue we can all support, and these grants help ensure our schools remain safe environments for Missouri children to learn,” Governor Parson said when announcing the awards. “While threats of violence are something we never want to see in our classrooms, we must be prepared and have proper resources and response plans in place.”
Other government officials agreed.
“Funding to support safety helps ensure schools remain among the safest places for our students,” former Missouri Commissioner of Education Margie Vandeven said before her resignation from the position in October. “These grant funds to support the physical safety of schools are an important part of ensuring our students have a safe environment for learning and growing.”