(Dyersburg, TN) A Tennessee school district is taking drastic measures to keep students safe after one of the most horrific school tragedies in history.
Dyersburg City Schools is revamping and updating its security after the tragedy at Sandy Hook last year.
“Sandy Hook just brought to light the potential with security at any of the schools,” said School Director Neel Durbin.
The district is shelling out $130,000 to modernize security features at each school.
That includes automatic locking doors that must be electrically opened and a new electronic check in an out system.
“We’ll have government issued ids that we can scan into our system to cross reference to see if they are on the pickup list,” said Durbin.
Right now that’s done manually, but this reduces human error.
Dyersburg City Schools is also changing out doors to make them safer.
When Dyersburg High School was built in the ’60s it was built with 56 outside doors.
They’ve switched those doors out to have no handles, so people who shouldn’t get in, can’t get in.
The district is also putting up more cameras.
Durbin Says the district is just further modernizing security upgrades that were made in 1999 when the Columbine tragedy happened, and grandmother Ruthie Williams is glad to see it.
“With the way the world is today you never know what’s going to happen. You think you’re safe but you’re really not,” said Williams.
When school starts July 31st, all parent must show a government issued ID when coming into the school.