EVANSTON — School safety and security again dominated much of the conversation at the Tuesday, June 12 school board meeting for Uinta County School District No. 1. Trustee Kerby Barker was not present for the meeting. 

Superintendent Ryan Thomas provided an update on the planned infrastructure changes to provide for controlled access to school buildings throughout the day.

“I wish I had better news,” Thomas said.

He said phase one of the proposed changes, which is to include structural and design changes for Evanston High School, Davis Middle School and Uinta Meadows Elementary, had gone out for bid nationally in the spring and the district did not receive any bids from contractors interested in doing the work. 

Thomas said the district put the bid out again and encouraged local contractors to participate. One of the difficulties facing by local contractors is bonding requirements for projects; Thomas said in an effort to get around this difficulty, they allowed for contractors to bid on doing just one school instead of all three, but the district still did not receive any bids. 

Thomas said the Utah contractor that completed phase two of the Evanston Middle School project has expressed an interest in doing the work but said he had been unable to get a bid in on time. Thomas said the district has extended the deadline until July 9, hoping to generate some more interest in the projects. He said the district is open to having the work completed at any time, and “even if the work would be done in March, April or May, they can still make a bid.” 

Thomas said the funding for the projects is “parked” and will remain available for whenever the work is able to be completed. 

In spite of the difficulties in finding a contractor to do the structural work, Thomas said the district is moving forward with other security changes. One such change that won’t be taking place for the 2018-19 school year but is likely coming very soon is a closed campus at EHS. Thomas said the original impetus for opening the campus for lunch to juniors and seniors was a large student population that made serving lunch to everyone impossible. That is no longer the case, he said.

“In terms of security, closed campus will be an improvement,” he said. 

A big security change that will be in place for the coming school year is the addition of SafeDefend technology to every building in the district. Thomas said this technology would improve building safety in two ways. First, more than 100 activation modules will be installed into district buildings, including in classrooms, hallways and offices. These modules will be activated by simple finger swipes of district staff members and will immediately alert law enforcement and district administration in the case of an emergency. All staff will be able to be programmed into the system to allow them to activate the system. 

Activation of the modules will not only alert law enforcement and district administration, but will trigger audible and visual alarms, including strobe lights and sirens, that will be cues to put a building on immediate lockdown status. The strobes and sirens could also potentially “spook” any intruder that’s in the building, said Thomas.

Additionally, every district classroom will be equipped with SafeDefend safety boxes that are also activated with a finger swipe. The boxes will contain flashlights, whistles, mace or pepper spray, batons to break windows, handcuffs, trauma kits and emergency tourniquets. 

“We’ve had a lot of discussions about student safety, and what it comes down to is time,” Thomas said. “This will allow for a time barrier to give teachers time to lock doors and protect kids.”

Instead of minutes potentially being spent by someone notifying law enforcement of an emergency, the modules can make that notification in seconds, and will not only send an alert of an incident in a building but will enable responders to pinpoint the exact module that was activated and determine where in a building an incident might be taking place. According to a SafeDefend video, the system allows for a three- to five-minute reduction in response times. 

Thomas said he had requested bids on three different possibilities from SafeDefend: one that would include safety boxes for all classrooms, one for half of the classrooms and one for a third. Due to cost considerations, he said he recommended pursuing the second option and purchasing the boxes for half.

The school board, however, decided on the first option of having the boxes installed in every classroom. Trustee Josh Welling looked at the costs for each option, which ranged from approximately $380,000 for all classrooms to $306,000 for a third of classrooms, and said he thought for the difference in price it made more sense to spend the extra money and purchase more boxes.

Thomas said SafeDefend had offered a $25,000 discount if the district was willing to become a demonstration site for the program. The district planned to use $200,00 out of major maintenance money that can be used for school safety and planned to use another $100,000 out of reserves, he said. 

Trustee Kim Bateman said she agreed it would be prudent to purchase enough boxes for all classrooms.

“Go big or go home,” she said. “It’s our kids’ safety and our staff’s safety. I think for the safety of our people, we find the money.”

Trustee Jenny Welling said the safety boxes could also be used to hold firearms for staff approved to carry them following the adoption of policy CKA, which would help maintain confidentiality because every classroom would already have a box. 

Trustee Jami Brackin moved to accept option one and purchase the safety kits for every classroom, saying, “We find the money.”

The SafeDefend purchase also includes installation and training on programming, as well as first aid training and “high-intensity active shooter” training. The training will be scheduled to take place prior to the beginning of the school year. 

In other items related to school safety, trustees approved a bid for psychological evaluations for staff members applying to carry firearms through policy CKA at the cost of $400 per evaluation. The evaluations will be the same as those given to law enforcement officers and Thomas said the cost is less than he had anticipated. 

Trustees also moved to respond to the petition presented at the May meeting by community members concerned about policy CKA. District responses to the many questions presented in that petition are available through Board Docs on the district website or by request to anyone at the district office. Trustees also voted to deny the petition request to reconsider policy CKA prior to implementation. 

In an item not related to school safety, the board voted to approve the purchase of the 6-12 StudySync English language arts curriculum. Davis Middle School teacher Brad Francis said staff were already working together to prepare for the coming school year and everyone was very excited about the new materials and having everyone working together and more closely aligned than ever across schools. 

Francis emphasized the curriculum provides a sort of “living textbook” as the student consumable materials will be new every year and allow for things like students writing in margins. He also said there were many different materials available to push advanced students. Assistant superintendent Doug Rigby said, “I’ve been here 20 years and I’ve never heard the kind of conversations that we’re having now.”

The next regularly scheduled board meeting is the annual budget session at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, July 18, at the central office.