A new cafeteria wasn’t the only thing students came back to when they returned for the upcoming school year. Students came back to find a new fence and a plethora of new safety features that have been added to the school.  These new changes come after the school board voted 4-1 to accelerate the work on making schools safer after multiple school shootings took place across the nation. In order to keep up with the changing times, the school board has decided to make a new district-wide universal discipline policy for students and a new badging system for employees and visitors to keep up with the increased security measures. Students and visitors are also now required to “buzz” in through the front office if they are to enter during school hours. This applies to all visitors whether they be parents, volunteers, or even dual-enrolled students entering after 8:30 a.m. To add on, all entry points in the school have been sealed by a gate. This means instead of walking through the front of the school to get to the media center, students are now required to walk to the back of the media center with the front of the school locked off to students. This is one of the many new safety changes the school has implemented in order to keep the students safe.

Officer Butler, the school resource officer, feels as though these changes are welcome and necessary in order to keep students safe.

“I feel like it makes my job easier because one of my main objectives is to keep you guys safe,” Butler said ” This being an open campus, I really feel like this cuts down the amounts of threats from the outside that I would have to worry about coming in so that’s a big plus in my opinion.”

Dual enrolled student Catalina Lopez feels the gate is an inconvenience to dual enrolled students.

“When I come in, it’s a lot harder to park and I was late multiple times because of that [the gate],” Lopez said “Because it’s locked we have to go to the office and ask them to open it but I don’t park at the anymore.”