WOODLAND, Maine — The school board met on Sept. 15, 2014 at the Woodland Consolidated School for their regular meeting.
One of the most important decisions made at the meeting dealt with the school’s safety. The idea of increasing the school’s security system was brought up during a meeting earlier this year, but on Monday, Woodland Principal Susie Schloeman expressed her desire for the board to make a decision on the matter that night. She explained that it is very easy for strangers or undesirables to wander into the building, as the front door of the school is currently left unlocked.
The school board has plans to install a camera at the front entrance, along with an intercom that will allow visitors to communicate with the front office, in order to explain their reason for entering the locked school. Schloeman and her fellow employees currently have very few options if a situation were to arise, aside from calling the police.
“We had an incident last week, in which someone wandered in from outside wanting to use the telephone. It just so happened that after she called someone to come pick her up and she left, there was a state trooper outside the building, so I went out and asked him to check her out,” said Schloeman. “Then, last Friday she was sitting out at the end of our driveway again. We called the State Police, but by then she had wandered off again. The incident just didn’t settle well with me.”
After Schloeman conveyed her concerns to the board they agreed that some type of action needed to be taken until the board can install the new security measures. The board has already received quotes for different security installments, which they will be examining at the next regular meeting. However, members of the board agreed that they should act on the situation right away, and they did decide that the front entrance of the school should be locked until a protection system can be put in place.
It was suggested that a sign be placed on the locked front entrance to explain that it is locked and that any visitors can either wait to be let in, or if no one is around to do so, the phone number to the school will be posted on the outside of the door for visitors to call.
The next decision was whether or not to have both an intercom and a surveillance camera as part of the school’s potential system. All the members of the board agreed that it would be most efficient to have both the camera, in order for staff to be able to see who is outside, and an intercom, which will enable the visitor to explain their reason for needing to enter the building.
The next Woodland school board meeting will be held on Oct. 13, 2014 at 6:30 p.m. at the Woodland Consolidated School.
