At the Saugus Union School District Board meeting on Aug. 16, 2022, district leadership presented the results from a recent poll related to school safety.

In July 2022, the district presented a thorough overview of its safety systems and programs for both “hard” safety tools; i.e., locking systems, gates, etc. and “soft” safety tools; i.e., mental health supports, threat assessments, etc.

During that presentation it was discussed that the district leadership had received conflicting requests from parents, less than 1%. regarding both the desire to lock the office doors and secure access to the campus each morning or the desire to leave the office doors unlocked and implement an open campus morning arrival procedure.

Because there are approximately 13,000 parents in the SUSD community the Board and superintendent determined that gathering more information from a greater number of parents would be important.

Of the 13,000 parents in the SUSD community, approximately 30% responded to the poll. Of that percentage, the majority of responses received supported locking office doors and securing school campus perimeters during arrival and dismissal; i.e. Total = 30% response; 28.41% lock doors/secure campus; 1.31% unlock doors/open campus.

While the poll was not a vote, the data allowed the district leadership and the Governing Board to engage the parent community, hear their concerns, and to connect with individual parents. Dr. Hawkins, Superintendent, commented that she spoke with many families who emailed her about the poll and safety message.

She shared that she heard support for the safety procedures the district is implementing, and for the emphasis the district places on safety/security of its students and staff. SUSD’s Maintenance and Operations staff are currently working on installing “airphone” camera systems and buzzer systems to allow school office staff to be alerted when parents and others desire entry into the school building.

The district is also working with architects to examine its current office entry arrangements at each school site to ensure each site’s single point of entry has additional barriers to create delays for an intruder, that will provide more security at each site.