Indiana District Develops School Safety Initiative Plan

The school safety initiative plan includes a two-story secured front entrance, a new bus driveway, a new door system allowing a school to be secured through an app and equipment in classrooms that teachers can use to barricade their classroom doors.

• By Jessica Davis
• March 06, 2019

Bremen Public Schools plans to add new security measures to its campuses as part of a school safety initiative plan to protect students in case of an active shooter situation.

The school safety initiative plan includes a two-story secured front entrance, a new bus driveway, a new door system allowing a school to be secured through an app and equipment in classrooms that teachers can use to barricade their classroom doors.

According to Reggie Flesvig, Bremen Middle School’s Assistant Principal and Security Director, being unprepared is no longer an option.

“When this building was designed a long time ago, active shooters weren’t a thing,” Flesvig said. “And now they are. It’s a sad reality that we live in but we have to be prepared for it.”

Part of the initiative focuses on securing entryways and classrooms at the elementary, middle and high schools.

“We’re going to upgrade our swipe card system so that we can, from a cell phone, do a lockdown,” Flesvig said. “We are also going to improve our bus drop-off and pick-up location.”

Changes to the bus drive will help keep students safe regardless of whether they walk or bike to school, take the bus home or are picked up by parents. Instead of having cars and buses load in the same area, those pick-up spaces will soon be separated.

The safety plan also includes the addition of a classroom door barricade device. The devices are magnetic and slide onto the back piece of the door to barricade the door and keep intruders from entering a classroom if they break the lock. The devices are already being distributed to classrooms.

The district plans to secure the front entrance of the elementary and middle school with a two-story building project. The front office of the elementary school will be downstairs, and the middle school office will be upstairs.

Currently, visitors are not led directly to the office to sign in after being buzzed into the campus buildings. As a result, visitors can easily access other parts of the building.

“There are people who won’t stop in the office and just come into a classroom but moving the offices to this area and making it two floors, we will then have a secure system,” Flesvig said.

All of the safety upgrades are happening as soon as possible. Construction on the front office and bus system upgrades should begin in the fall.

“You can’t say that would never happen here in Bremen, because that’s what they said in Newtown, Connecticut, that’s what they said in Parkland and it can happen anywhere,” Flesvig said. “So we have to be prepared.”