Say hello to more security changes.

Starting this school year, all students and staff are required to wear IDs, but according to Levaughn Smart, coordinator of safety and security, the policy is nothing new.

“If you look in the board policy, the ID piece has been in there for years, so it’s just going back to what’s already on paper,” Smart, who was hired by KSD last school year, said. “It’s just like employees who are required to wear name tags, so it’s not something abnormal, and it’s not something that’s designed to bother anyone.”

In addition to implementing a mandatory ID policy, personnel have installed card lock mechanisms on doors most commonly used by students and staff, with the plan to eventually install them on all doors. The system is designed to prevent visitors from gaining entrance to one of the buildings without checking into the main office.

“[The card reading system] is an access control method,” Smart said. “It forces everyone outside of students and staff to go use the main office, and a lot of it is just so that we don’t have people walk in the building and then cause alarm and panic.”

The new card reading system at KHS is the beginning of a plan to build a more integrated security protocol. For Smart, the goal is to develop a system the entire district can use.

“Right now the KHS security system looks different than the security at the elementary schools, so what we’re trying to do is have a system that everybody understands,” Smart said. “Before, it was a little bit of this and a little bit of that, and the right hand didn’t really know what the left hand was doing, but now we’re trying to build a unified platform.”

With a new card reading system and mandatory ID policy, administrators hope to prevent security breaches such as January’s KSDK incident. Despite the new safety measures, Dr. Mike Havener, principal, said it is important for KHS to remain a place where students can come to learn.

“We need to make sure we don’t lose the feel of Kirkwood High School being a high school and allowing our students and staff and our community to take part in our high school,” Havener said. “We need to make sure students feel comfortable moving freely from class to class and event to event.”

Last school year, KHS locked doors as part of a new safety protocol before pressure from students prompted the administration to lift the policy. Jack Jaeger, senior, said he believes not all students will approve of the new security procedures.

“I understand the premise of [the mandatory ID policy],” Jaeger said. “I do understand how it will help security, but I also realize no one one wants to wear them 100 percent of the time.”

Smart, however, said the mandatory ID policy is about improving safety for students.

“Your parents sent you here with 10 fingers, 10 toes, upright and breathing,” Smart said. “It’s our job to make sure students get home just like that.”