| New safety measures include security, fences (5/08) | | Print | |
| Written by Angela M. Chen | |
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The principal is limiting the campus’s access in order to enhance
student safety. New fences have been built around the lower parking lot
exit at Lake Merced Boulevard as well as the Meadowbrook Drive and
Eucalyptus Drive entrance.
Principal Andy Ishibashi will post security personnel at the gates to the newly built fences around the lower parking lot to monitor all campus traffic. According to Ishibashi, the gate will be staffed with the school’s current security during school hours. He also said that the lower parking lot gate may be locked after 9 a.m., but security guards will be present to open the gate if needed. Whether or not the gate will be locked is still a tentative decision in his developing security plan. “We’re still observing the gates to finalize a plan for next year,” he said. A few students feel that the new fences and locked gates make entering and exiting the campus very inconvenient. Senior Vivien Chau explained that before the Meadowbrook Drive and Eucalyptus Drive gate installment, she could walk directly from the T’s up to Lakeshore. “Now it takes a really long time to walk all the way around (the fence) to exit the school.” Chau feels the new fences do not add much protection to the lower parking lot. “The fence just prevents students from reaching their cars, and it doesn’t prevent outsiders from coming in to vandalize the cars,” Chau said. “People could just come in through those bushes on Lake Merced.” Ishibashi emphasized that the new fences and security guard postings are for the safety of students and staff. “I’m not moving Lowell towards a closed campus,” Ishibashi said. “The fences are not to keep the students in, but to keep the intruders out.” He said that in the future, signs will be posted by the faculty parking lot between the T’s and the basketball courts to inform visitors they must sign in at the front office. Ishibashi hopes to improve security presence next year. “Hopefully the school can purchase a golf cart to cruise in and out of the parking lot and along Eucalyptus Drive,” he said. He explained that having security patrol the school in golf carts would show outsiders that the school is alert and prepared against intruders. “I’m doing this to secure the perimeters of the school that have never been secured before,” Ishibashi said. |
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