By Ashley Werre
Staff Writer
The current security, or lack thereof, at Mira Costa following the November Yik Yak threats diminished due to an uncooperative faculty, which is in need of serious improvement, as the administration begins to change its focus from the importance of safety to the upcoming close of the school year.
In the fall of 2014, the school faced several threats on the social media app Yik Yak, causing the school to initiate a “lock-in.” Soon after, Costa principal Dr. Ben Dale issued a closing of the school for two days, when the students returned having to be searched as they entered the campus, in addition to other security procedures, all of which were largely ignored or loosely enforced and practiced by students, staff, and security guards, calling for the necesity of the consistent implementation and a widescale improvement of Costa’s security.
Dr. Dale and the administration decided to establish new security policies that claimed to provide orderly entries and exit, an increase in security and police presence, counseling for those who felt unsafe, a search of students’ belongings, and establish what movement would be allowed on campus during class time.
MBUSD strongly encouraged students to refrain from bringing backpacks to school in order to make the process more efficient; however, the inspection only lasted for a maximum of two days, leaving the rest of the school year to depend solely on locked gates and repositioned security guards to protect the entire student body. This inevitably became unsafe because the suspect had not yet been found and the school assumed the culprit was not a student, leaving the possibility of someone entering campus with malicious intentions.
According to Dale, two passes were made up for each teacher that had the teacher’s name and room number for students who needed to be out of class with approval. Even with the implementation of hallway passes, many teachers chose to ignore the attempt at a stricter safety measure, which was uncooperative of the teachers and made administration efforts seem unnecessary.
Few students took the changing of security policies seriously, while others continued to use the unimpeded freedom to their advantage in order to openly arrive and leave at their free will. According to sophomore Melia Chittenden, leaving campus during the day is not hard for students because most of the time they can walk out through the front parking lot or the side gate by Peck Avenue and only occasionally will someone question it. As a result, campus security should be intensified to prevent students from constantly leaving the school unnoticed in order to ensure the overall security of students.
One could argue that there are security guards positioned widely throughout the school and are constantly on duty, performing a variation of a precautionary action at any given moment. Although, they only seem to appear at main entrance points, or periodically roaming through the science and math building hallways. In numbers, these guards appear to be scarce, which is hazardous in the event that a true criminal comes onto campus.
In the event that a real onslaught occurs, security needs to increase for the benefit of the doubt. It should ultimately be continually enforced in a strict manner and not only when convenient, all in order to ensure the constant safety of students and staff on Costa.
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