District moves forward with facility upgrades
As we begin the descent into the final months of school, clocks move forward, spring break is in sight and graduation will soon be upon us.
In addition to these exciting year-end milestones, the Springfield City School District (SCSD) was fortunate to receive the latest round of Ohio’s K-12 School Safety Grants, as well as the Ohio Attorney General’s School Safety Grant. After reviewing stakeholder input, our team moves into the implementation phase of safety upgrades to our facilities.
In a larger school district serving approximately 7,200 students, every project, innovative idea, community partnership, and designation of grant funding is met with extensive processes, research and checks and balances. This allows the SCSD to determine the best use of funds across 16 school buildings, multiple athletic facilities and our transportation depot.
Typically, it takes months of preparation to identify projects attached to grant funding, and in this case, our focus was the prioritization of safety and facility upgrades. This included hours of meetings, recalculating funding based on quotes and bids, adding new vendors, ensuring that the funds meet grant standards and guidelines, as well as leading a team of professionals, district-wide, to determine the best use of such funds. The safety of our One Wildcat Family is always our top priority with a continuous focus on the latest safety strategies, trends, equipment and policies.
This year, the Springfield City School District received $50,000 per school in grades K-12, and additional funds from the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER III) will be utilized for our pre-k building. While determining the use of safety grant funds, the district begins by meeting with our own safety and security leaders, facility management leaders, building principals, as well as internal district leadership.
In addition, out-of-district experts, first responders, including SWAT team members, went on detailed walkthroughs of several buildings and made suggestions to our safety team about possible improvements. Each meeting serves as an example of our strong community partnerships with city, county, and state leaders that provide services, funding and immediate assistance for our students.
The SCSD is always grateful for receiving grant funding. The safety grant dollars allow the district to re-appropriate funds previously intended for safety upgrades to other identified projects that directly support student needs, while enabling safety projects to be fully funded. With funding sources now available from the K-12 Safety Grant, and with the warmer months upon us, the SCSD began replacing exterior lighting and upgrading cameras and door entrance readers. In addition, installation began on safety ballistic film, covering door windows in every district classroom, which greatly restricts someone from attempting to break out a window through force.
Internal upgrades include, but are not limited to, additional two-way radios in every school building, allowing for better communication with the district safety team, the numeric labeling of all classrooms and offices to make room numbers identifiable from side hallways and in the dark, and upgrades to our district key system.
Finally, much-needed traffic signage, removable barriers, reunification supplies and educational communications and resources will be purchased for training in our See Something, Say Something campaign.
The list of items mentioned is just a sample of the many upgrades through the support from Ohio’s K-12 Safety Grants. The SCSD continues to apply for grants and recognizes our fiduciary responsibility to be resourceful and innovative while providing the very best for the students in our schools. Our commitment to safety and security will never waver.