Education Facility Security Vital, But At What Cost?
October 1, 2015
If the school district in your area spent $400,000 per facility to ensure safer settings for its teachers and students, would taxpayers be willing to pick up the tab?
With school shootings becoming all-too-common in America — the website Everytown.org says nine such events have occurred in America in 2015 where one or more persons have died — school districts already saddled with budget challenges must consider the cost of increased security at the schools?
A story on
The Daily Signal website profiled Southwestern High School in Shelbyville, Ind., that was touted by the Today Show as “Safest School in America” after installing a security system that was reported to cost $400,000.
The system includes bulletproof doors, hallway cameras that feed to the local sheriff’s office, and smoke canisters that, once detonated, can visually impair attackers or shooters.
The school is being used as a test site for the system and the school pays nothing for it.
But with public funding always a hot-button topic for education, the question of where would the money come from for such a system will always be an issue.
This article offers good thoughts on both sides of the issue of how school districts and local officials should proceed.
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