WEST POINT, Miss. (WTVA) - It will be a busy holiday season for the West Point School District.
Several of the schools will be undergoing renovations and modifications.
The main entrance at Church Hill Elementary is getting a make-over.
It's one of several projects that the schools are going to undertake over the holidays and it's all designed to enhance safety.
"Once our children come here they are our children and we take personal satisfaction from being able to say they are safe," said Cindy Donaho, principal at Church Hill Elementary. "Just us having that feeling of safety the percautions we're putting in place will do that for us."
Other security measures that will be installed are alarms and an intercom system controlled by the front office; but it's the main entrances that have been evaluated and will soon be modified.
"We want to make the entrance to the schools warm and pleasent for visitors that come in," said Rob Smith, assistant superintendent and director of operations. "But also safe and secure for our students."
Another security mechanism is the Intelligent Key Card.
Faculty and staff will swipe a key card in order to gain entrance into a school.
"The teachers will have magnetic cards and they'll be able to swipe those cards to be able to get back into the building," adds Smith. "Even at the high school where there's class changes those entrances can be timed with a bell so that students can come in and out seeminglessly. But, when the time is up the doors will lock down automatically."
Other security upgardes include additional cameras and a recording system so that people can monitor who is coming into a school.
"We've had mini-cameras in place but we're even ramping that up even more. Especially at our main entrances and adding DVR systems that can record and even building rooms where security guards can monitor these cameras during the whole school day," Smith stated.
Plans call to have most of the security upgrades in place by January 7th when students return after the holiday break.
The drop-off and pick-up routine will not change, according to administrators.
The school district is covering all costs for the upgrades.
