CCISD Improving Security

In the interest of student safety, the Copper Country Intermediate School District is taking measures to upgrade school security and add some interactive communications devices to its classrooms.

The District will be installing the new equipment throughout the school year using funds from a Michigan State Police School Safety Grant.

“We will be getting $204,000 for three specific projects. The first project is we’re adding a PA system into our Career Tech Center. One of the neat parts of that is we’re putting giant strobe lights in all of the lab parts. Where the welders are and where the construction and auto parts are, these lights will flash like crazy so they’ll know to turn off their machines so they can hear the announcements,” said CCISD Superintendent George Stockero.

Along with an alert system to get students’ attention when it’s time for announcements, each class room will have the ability to make a broadcast with the use of a smart phone.  “Every teacher, every person in the Career Tech Center, has the ability to make an announcement from their phone,” Stockero said.

The money will also be used to control building and individual classroom access.  Stockero said, “The second part of our security grant is to put security badges on our doors. Every single outside door in our Learning Center and our Career Tech Center will have the security badge system.”

Currently there are a few doors that require badge access, as the ISD has been implementing the new doors for the past few years.  “That’s what we’ve been trying to do is add security to our buildings for the last three or four years. We’ve added two or three doors every year and I think that’s what helped us get this grant,” Stockero said.

Stockero says that many of the internal doors will also be upgraded restricting access to certain rooms. However, law enforcement agencies will be given a master key allowing an officer to enter any room in the facility in an emergency situation.  “So at anytime they have the ability to rush in and use the badges to get into our buildings at anytime of day,” he said.

The third part of the grant will pay for the computer system that will serve as the brain of the operation.  “One door on average is $5,000. So you can see how the money can be spent very quickly,” said Stockero.

Installation of the new equipment will be performed by local contractors, putting some of that money back into the local economy and protecting students at the same time.

“Unfortunately, with things that you see on the news everyday, security does matter. I wish we didn’t have to do it, but we know we do. If you look at our CTE building, we have students coming from ten different schools, so there is a lot of in and out and we need to make sure that we keep all of our students safe,” Stockero said.