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Official: Schools still need safety upgrades

ALPENA — It has been over a year since Ella White Elementary School went into a full lockdown because of a possible intruder on school grounds, but the fallout from that incident is still being felt today.

The school locked down on March 1, 2018 when a witness in the school reported a man allegedly beating on the back door of the school while holding a pistol. The Alpena Police Department conducted interviews afterward, but none of the interviewees saw a man or a weapon.

The News reported in June that police had few clues. At that time, police said the trail had gone cold and, since few tips were reported about the case, solving it would be difficult.

No one was harmed in the incident. It appears no arrests have been made.

Alpena Police Chief Joel Jett did not respond to messages seeking comment for this story.

IMPACT ON ALPENA SCHOOLS

Though the case remains unsolved, it had an impact on the schools.

In the past year, Alpena Public Schools has taken several steps to make sure students and staff are safe when in school buildings.

Superintendent John VanWagoner said parents have come up to him, telling him that they realize school violence and other dangers that happen around the world can also happen in northern Michigan.

“It’s forced us to really take a look at our facilities and what we can do with the very limited resources we have,” VanWagoner said.

VanWagoner said what happened at Ella White last year has influenced the district’s decision to ask voters on May 7 for permission to sell bonds. The roughly $63 million to be raised from that sale would cover school building renovations, with a focus on upgrades that would make schools as safe as the district possibly can, the superintendent said.

The district would levy an estimated 1.9 mills in new property taxes to repay those bonds over the next 25 years. That would cost the owner of a $100,000 house about $95 a year.

APS currently has two liaison officers, Officer Tim Marquardt at Alpena High School and Officer Christina Bednarski at Thunder Bay Junior High School, who VanWagoner said are great working with the district. If there is an issue at one of those two schools, there is someone right there, he said.

If the district had the resources, it would sign a contract to have a liaison officer at every school, VanWagoner said. Bond money can’t be used to pay salaries for the liaison officers.

“Right now, we’re really trying to focus on what are the things that we can do, not to make our schools a prison, but to make them as safe as we possibly can,” VanWagoner said.

After the incident last year, the Alpena Police Department increased its presence at all the schools and an officer was stationed at Ella White for several days.

LONG-TERM EFFECT

At the time, Ella White was the only school in the district with a buzzer system in place, requiring visitors to ring a bell to be let in.

After that incident, every elementary school, Thunder Bay Junior High School, and Alternative Choices for Educational Success Academy had buzzer systems installed. Alpena High isn’t equipped to have a buzzer system, VanWagoner said.

The Parent Advisory Councils for each school had to be asked by the district last year to pay for the buzzer systems, because the district didn’t have extra funds available.

The district created emergency plans and reviewed those with law enforcement and County Emergency Services Coordinator Burt Francisco after the incident.

But, VanWagoner said, he and the district want to do more with the schools and student safety. He said the district wants doors with electronic locks and alarms on them.

Something else VanWagoner wants is a system that can screen people with photo identification to see if they’re a registered sex offender or to see if there is a custody issue against somebody and they’re not supposed to be in the same building as a child.

“All those kinds of things are things that are in schools that are being built today or renovated today,” he said, “And, in Alpena, we don’t have the level of safety that as both the superintendent and as a parent in the district that I feel we need to have.”

Julie Goldberg can be reached at 989-358-5688 or jgoldberg@thealpenanews.com. Follow her on Twitter @jkgoldberg12.

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