USD 258 adds security cameras

HUMBOLDT — USD 258 is spending $33,000 to make its schools more secure.
High School Principal John Johnson told board members Monday night more surveillance cameras were being added on the middle and high schools campus, including the vocational-technical building.
They will give real-time images inside the schools and their grounds if an incident were to occur, he said. Law enforcement officers will have off-site access to the images.
All schools are locked while in session and admittance is possible only by a secretary or administrator electronically opening doors. Cameras with vocal capabilities are at each door.
Johnson added that with the system online, doors could be controlled from any office, of by iPhones, iPads or Androids, even off the premises.
Additional cameras “will cover blind spots and places we did not have cameras before,” he said.
With the latest security update, the district will have spent about $100,000, with $35,000 coming from grants, said Superintendent of Schools K.B. Criss.
Kay Bolt, elementary and middle schools principal, said the new digital approach to instruction was going well, with “only a few bugs to work out.” Johnson agreed.
Johnson also reported he was working with Humboldt Police Chief Brian Dillow to have periodic checks of parking lots with drug-sniffing dogs. The procedure will be done “once a month, maybe once every six weeks,” he said.
Criss said Monarch Cement and B&W Trailer Hitches employees pitched in to help with work on the new sports complex at the east edge of Humboldt, and that their assistance would make it possible for the first varsity football game to be played there Sept. 20 against Neodesha.
“We will have it substantially complete by the first game,” he said.
Visitor side bleachers are due to arrive soon, Criss added.

OTHERWISE, board members:
— Approved a trip for Kim Isbell, journalism instructor, and Anna Setter, editor of the school newspaper, Cub Tracks, to a conference in Boston.
— Renewed the district capital outlay fund for another five years for up to 8 mills in any year. The capital outlay budget in this year’s contains a levy of 2.5 mills. Patrons have discretion to petition for a referendum on the levy’s renewal.