GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – The start of a new calendar year will also bring some new security practices for students at Green Bay Southwest High School.
School leaders sent this letter to parents on Friday:
Dear Southwest School CommunityAt Southwest High School, student safety comes first. We are constantly evaluating our safety and security practices, updating building security materials such as cameras and radios, as well as evaluating areas of growth. To that end, there will be some adjustments made to where, the time (in certain locations), and what is needed for students to enter the building starting January 2nd, after our Holiday break.For students who arrive as early as 6:30 a.m., they may enter through door 1 by our north parking lot. Door 4, the Packerland entrance, which used to be open and unsupervised, will now be locked until 7:00 a.m. at which point it will be supervised by staff. This will not affect school busing, as buses arrive after 7:00 a.m. Students that ride the city bus and get dropped off on West Point will be able to enter the south-most entrance, door 14, as that will be supervised by staff as well starting at 7:00 a.m.The biggest change we are making is requiring all students to show their ID’s to be able to enter the building. Students must show their ID’s at all three entrance points to gain access to school. If they don’t have their ID that day, they must go to door 1, the north-most door to get checked in.From December 11th, through January 8th, all students who do not have an ID can report to the main office on their lunch and obtain one for free during this time frame. Lastly, students can take a picture of their ID’s and keep it on their phones as well.If you have any questions or concerns or need any clarification, please feel free to contact the administration at Southwest at 920.492.2650.Sincerely, Travis Lipish, Associate PrincipalSouthwest High School
“They haven’t been changes that are in areas where we have had gaps, necessarily, in security, it’s just with what has happened in Oshkosh and Waukesha we have taken a look at our school security, especially in the morning,” associate principal Travis Lipsh said.
Anytime an incident happens at another school, Southwest administrators tell FOX 11 they use it as a learning opportunity at their school.
“First thing we do is we do what’s called a “when-then” scenario, We reach out to our teachers and say, talk to the kids, bring the incident up, what do you think about it? How do you handle this?” Lipsh said. “Believe it or not, we get really great feedback from the students.”
That feedback led administrators to crack down on certain security measures.
Lipish says starting January 2nd, all doors will be monitored or locked throughout the school day. Students must also show their ID card when entering the building.
“So one of the things that we’ve done is for the next two to three weeks, we are offering free student IDs for students, so if they lost their ID, they can come and get a free ID. They can take a picture of the ID on their phone, and everybody when they come in just needs to hold the ID up to the person that’s monitoring one of three entrances, just so that we know that that’s a Southwest student.”
Southwest administrators say they’re also encouraging staff to build better relationships with students. Principal Rod Bohm believes it’s their first line of defense for school threats.
“We have had students that have shared with us that students have had, whether it would be a knife or what they thought was a gun. We really rely on that. That is the best intelligence that we can get and we have been able to respond to those in a very swift, proactive manner.”
Students or parents with concerns about Southwest High’s security changes are encouraged to contact school leaders at any time.
