Along with construction of the front parking lot, the front entrance of the school has been a work in progress in an attempt to make the school more secure.

The entrance will be in the same spot it already is, but another set of doors will be put in. Those second set of doors will be locked, and visitors will be required to buzz into the main office in order to access the school.

Assistant principal Mike Norris has overseen the construction to the building.

“The only difference is that when you come straight in, there will be another set of doors put in right there, and in those you can only leave through them,” he said. “Except at the beginning of the school day, when they’ll be open wide for students to come in.”

Although the front entrance will be secure, 18 other entrances remain throughout the day.

“It doesn’t change the fact we have other doors to the building,” Norris said. “Kids are still going to be going back and forth from the annex, and back and forth to the west gym. All those entrances they always use are still going to be exactly where they are. If we made all those kids go through that main entrance and get buzzed in to get to the annex, that would take 15 minutes. It’s just not doable.”

Student Resource Officer Bill Bradford said security measures need to allow students and staff to navigate the building during the day.

“It’s a school, not a prison,” he said. “You can lock the whole building down and say no one can go out for lunch. There’s all kinds of things you can do, but the students are young adults and this is a school. They’re supposed to be able to make good decisions and have free movement between two buildings. It’s not like the students need to live under the thumb.”

Although the new entrance will not secure the building, Bradford said it will still increase school safety.

“Any time you have a defined entrance, more often than not, people are going to use that,” he said. “If you have more control and an idea of where people enter and exit the building, they could always have the potential to improve safety. Any time you have an open campus, though, and open lunch, you’re always going to have the risk for issues of safety and security versus freedom of movement.”

In sophomore Chisato Kimura’s Spanish 2 class last year, a stranger walked into the annex classroom during the middle of class.

“From what I remember, it was actually kind of scary because you hear about bad things happening at schools,” she said. “And then to have a random person walk in there, who just seemed a little out of it, we were kind of scared. We were just like ‘What’s going on? I hope we don’t get shot.’”

Although the stranger was harmless, Kimura continues to worry about school security. She said the safe front entrance will not make much of a difference.

“Not a lot of people use the front entrance anyways when they’re going from place to place,” she said. “[They use doors] from E2 or the annex. People can still walk in there.”

After the event last spring, Kimura believes that safety is a big issue.

“But I think Lawrence High needs to find better ways to deal with it because what they’re doing right now isn’t effective.”