Students seem unsettled after the announcement that the campus will soon be further secured by the addition of new fencing and gates. The idea of walking carelessly on and off campus during lunch and before or after school appears to be shattered.
Many students fail to recognize the true purpose of the gates, portraying them as walls to keep students trapped inside.
There was speculation about the new gates being put up over break; however, “the unofficial start date of installing new fences is around January or February. There will need to be jack hammering and sinking into concrete involved,” Assistant Principal Aaron Little said.
“The gates have only just been approved, and now the district must approve a certain company to put the fences up,” Assistant Principal Brianne Froumis said.
Although there are going to be new fences put up, there are already fences covering most of the perimeter of school campus. In fact, there is not one entrance on campus that cannot be locked up.
Gates will be put in spots where an intruder with harmful intentions could potentially sneak themselves onto campus.
I do not think that the new gates are going to make much of a difference in everyday life for students.
The main reason for the gates is not to keep students in, “In fact keeping students inside the gates is the least of administration’s worries,” Assistant Principal Gannon Burks said.
“The purpose of the gates is to allow us to have our children safe during education hours,” Burks said, “but more to it keeping out anyone who isn’t supposed to be there and help alleviate the ability for somebody to just mosey on in.”
School administrators care for the safety of Poway High students in light of the many recent incidents nationwide at schools and places of worship involving gunmen entering campus.
“The main purpose of the gates is to protect the majority. Administrators believe that fences act as a deterrent and will prevent random vehicles from entering without proper identification,” Burks said.
“Change is different. It’s hard to change our routines… At the end of the day it isn’t about control of students; it’s about keeping everyone safe. We do this in other ways like Titans United week and emergency drills.
Embrace the change and help us form a community,” Froumis said.
The gates have good intention behind them and will be effective at deterring random predators from coming onto school ground.
“Putting new fences up in certain locations is a long and drawn out process, taking almost a year and a half in planning,” Froumis said.