High Security
Within the next month, a security card system will be coming to students at Hawken. It was decided recently by the Hawken administration that this system is necessary for the security of the students, faculty, and staff at Hawken. The system will involve students receiving cards that can scan at digital readers when they reach the entrances to the school building and certain places inside it. Parents are the ones who pushed for this initiative to come to the Gates Mills Campus. The wiring for the system has already been installed, with readers being installed currently. Mr. Tony Wanner, who worked on this specific project over the past summer, offered some specific details about the project and how the system will work. He mentioned, “The readers and card will offer variable levels of access to students”. This means that certain cards may allow students to access areas of the school building that other cards cannot reach. With this, they can limit certain people to certain areas. He also said, “The cards can also limit people to enter the building during certain hours of the day”. The system will keep track of who enters the building and when they do so. Additionally, faculty and staff will still be able to use keys to access the building even with the security readers in place at entrances. However, other security measures have already been installed at the Gates Mills campus recently, such as an added “security film” on much of the glass in the building. The main reason for this film, according to Mr. Wanner, is “To protect the glass and people inside it from the use of a firearm by an intruder”. If an intruder were to discharge their weapon into the glass, it would crack but would maintain enough resiliency that the intruder would not be able to break through. Twenty-two security cameras have also been added to the upper school campus in various locations outdoors and indoors. The Lyndhurst campus had already received these changes before the Gates Mills Campus. The lower school campus has the card-reader system installed currently. Seventy-six new cameras were placed in the Lyndhurst building. Mr. Wanner gave insight as to why Lyndhurst received these installments before the Gates Mills campus: “Lyndhurst was considered the priority for the installment of the security measures because of its younger students and the more urbanized surrounding setting”.
This system has been discussed since the spring of last year, according to Mr. Wanner. It was discussed in the administrative council, which is, as its name suggests, a board of all the school administrators. He said that a few “more meetings were necessary from the administrative council in order to finalize the design of the security system”. This attempt at a more thorough security is being considered a “pilot” run by many because of the uncertainty in how it will operate inside the community. The administrative council is aware that it will likely pose inconveniences and some difficulty for students and faculty; in the meantime, they are trying to address these concerns before the system is in place. Mr. Wanner mentioned that “many of the issues will not be discovered until the system is in place and students have given feedback”. The council will address future issues as they appear. A few students, who wish to be unnamed, were also asked on how they would feel with this new security system in place at Hawken. One said, “I think they would be effective, and they would definitely increase our feeling of safety in general when inside the school”. The same student also commented that “school shootings are very real, and they definitely could happen along with break-ins. I think security cards would definitely help with that issue”. However, another student mentioned that “they will be effective; however, they will also be inconvenient. But they will still serve their progress of deterring a break-in.” Although this system has reportedly been discussed since last spring, some believe that it is an attempt to increase security after the summer break-ins at Hawken and other private schools in the Cleveland area. This possibility has not been confirmed, but is a likely reason for the new security measures.