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Last year NS received funding from a security grant to upgrade and install new security technology within the school. One of these pieces of technology is a key card system that will allow NS staff members to “buzz” themselves into locked doors with a key card. The installation of the key card system and other technologies is currently facing some delays.
“When you do any construction project you almost have to anticipate that it is going to be behind schedule,” assistant principal Ryan Syme said.
While this is partially an issue with the technology itself, the bigger issue is actually that it can be quite difficult to upgrade technology in the school building while school is actually in session.
“You won’t see key cards this year,” Syme said.
Syme is currently pushing for the key card system to be installed over the summer of 2025.
NS has received this funding and is installing this security technology amidst a time of record numbers of school shooting incidents. According to the K-12 School Shooting Database, school shootings killed or wounded 249 people in 2023.
“[Administrators] think about [the possibility of school shootings] all the time. We worry about it every day,” Syme said.
Syme doubts the safety of NS against a possible school shooter.
“Somebody could sneak in the front door… somebody could slink around a corner and we would not know about it until we heard the gunshots,” Syme said.
Some of the new technology being installed will help to prevent such a scenario from happening.
“Next year there will be a system where you cannot just walk in through [the front door],” said Jeff McQuivey, NS school resource officer. “You’re gonna have to have a key card or you’re gonna have to be buzzed in by one of the secretaries.”
Beyond sneaking through the front entrance of NS, there are many external side doors on the building that someone might be able to get through.
“One of the things our school resource officer does is constantly check [that external] doors [are locked], and my guess is everyday he sees a door that is propped open that shouldn’t [be],” Syme said.
McQuivey surveys the side entrances of the school to ensure that they stay locked to prevent someone from gaining entry to the school for malicious reasons.
“There are so many doors here and [the doors] are spread out so far,” McQuivey said.
The amount of doors and vast space between them makes it hard for just one person to make sure that they are staying locked and keeping the school safe. By the time McQuivey makes a whole lap of the school to check the doors, a door may have been opened again.
“I do feel like our school is pretty safe though,” McQuivey said. “I think we have a lot of good policies in place and a lot of good employees that work here that are safety conscious.”
While NS staff is feeling better about the school’s security as more and more of the new technology is to be installed, recent NS Times survey results show that students don’t seem to be highly concerned about school shootings. When asked to rate how concerned they were about school shootings on a scale from one to ten, almost 70 percent of students rated their concern for school shootings at a five or lower, with only four percent of students rating their concern at a ten.
“There’s not anyone here that I think wants to [cause any harm],” sophomore Emma Westlund said, “I don’t think there is anything to worry about here.”
Other students shared similar opinions but had some concern for internal threats of school shootings.
“In certain classrooms you feel safer, but then there’s like some suspicious kids where you’re like, ‘Oh, they could definitely be going through some stuff and it could lead them down a darker path,’ junior Brooke Christesen said.
NS is continually trying to adapt to become a safer space for teachers, students and administrators alike and as time progresses, so will the technology.
