Middle School tightens security

I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.

Oct. 12, 1999

By Devlyn Brooks

Bemidji Middle School will tighten security measures beginning Wednesday, Principal James Wheeler has announced, requiring all staff and visitors to wear an identification tag when in the school.

The program, spearheaded by a committee that included Wheeler and middle school liaison officer Jon Hunt, was created to help school staff understand who is in the building and at what times.

"We're approaching this from a safety standpoint," Wheeler said during an interview Monday. "We want to know whose in our building."

And that can be difficult as the school employs 130 people, and there are more than 150 volunteer Bemidji State University students who come and go throughout the day.

The highlights of the new identification program include:

• All visitors and staff will be required to wear an identification tag while in the middle school.

• Signs will be posted at the main school entrance -- the only entrance accessible to the public -- instructing all visitors to report to the school office.

• Once at the office, visitors will have to list the time they entered the building and where they are going. They will then receive a visitor's identification tag. When they leave, the visitor will be required to sign out and return the badge.

• All school staff are instructed to stop anyone not wearing an identification tag and direct them to the office. They then should call the office and inform the office people of the unidentified person.

• Bemidji Middle School students will not be wearing identification tags as part of the program yet. Although they may in the future.

"It's basically accountability," officer Hunt said. "Knowledge is power, and if you know whose in your building, you have more power to keep this place safe."

"By the virtual fact that you have an I.D. on, you know you belong," Wheeler said, "and if a person doesn't have an I.D., you know they don't belong."

Both Hunt and Wheeler said no specific incident caused the school to implement the identification program; it is merely the result of the committee's work to try to make the school safer.

In addition to knowing who is entering the middle school, Hunt said the other benefit is that if an incident is reported a couple days after it happens, the school has a log of possible suspects because it will show if any visitors were in the area of the reported incident.

Hunt said if a staff member encounters someone not wearing an identification tag and the person does not report to the office, he and the building's administration will be contacted. They will then track down the person.

Bemidji Middle School staff will attend an in-service concerning the new security measures today, Wheeler said, and they will be fully enforced beginning Wednesday.