BURLINGTON, Vt. -
Burlington is moving forward to make its schools safer.
That might include new locks on doors and steps to make sure visitors can't get too far without being checked.
The district says some simple changes have already been done or will be done soon. Others will require work and potentially a lot of money.
On Tuesday, the district unveiled improvements to some schools to fix problems found in a security audit.
"We've looked at short-term what can we do right now and long-term options," says Jeanne Collins, Burlington superintendent.
Collins says some easy changes have already been done.
At Burlington High School, the district says one change is to make sure all outside doors are locked during the day. At Champlain Elementary, there's a new plan to make sure visitors have to go to the office.
Visitors have always been a major part of the audit.
"Neither school was designed to keep people out," says Collins.
That's why the district is looking at moving some administrative offices closer to the front door so visitors have to check in before having access to the school. They are also considering changes to classroom locks to ones that teachers can lock from the inside.
Altogether those changes could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
"At the moment we can't count on any other funding sources. Some grants may become available after the Connecticut shooting," says Collins.
Without new money, the district says these security improvements might have to bump down other planned construction projects.
They hope to begin work on some of the bigger ones this summer.
