Summer Project at JMUES Completes Years-Long Series of Safety Upgrades

It's been more than a decade in the making, but all of Merrimack's schools now feature secure, locked main entrances that require a member of the school staff to buzz visitors in.

Over the summer, James Mastricola Upper Elementary School became the last of the district's facilities to have a reconfigured entrance added at the main doors to the building.

And inside, the front offices were upgraded as well.

SAU 26 Business Administrator Matt Shevenell told the school board in a presentation Tuesday evening, that locked school entrances were a topic of discussion back in 2000 when he started work in the district. The first school to actually see one, though, was the high school when the addition was put on.

Mastricola Elementary School came next, with a secure entrance and a reconfiguration of the front offices. When Merrimack Middle School was built, a secure entrance was included and last year, Reeds Ferry and Thorntons Ferry each got theirs, Shevenell said.

“I think this board is quite excited to have finished securing all of the entrances to the buildings completing work of the boards before us,” School Board Chairman Chris Ortega said.

This summer, crews got to work tearing apart the front entrance and gutting about 900 square feet of space to the right of the front doors inside JMUES.

Using that space, Shevenell told the board they upgraded the front offices creating space for Principal Marsha McGill and Vice Prinicipal Bill Morris' offices, a front reception area, a conference space and a small work room that houses a copying machine, refrigerator, microwave, shelves, and cabinets. They also put in bathrooms and ripped up space in the nurses office for a small lavatory there, Shevenell said.

The reception office was constructed with a window that sits in between the first set of doors into the school, which has an unlocked door, and the second bank of doors that are all locked. A person who wants to enter the school must now be buzzed in by someone in the reception office.

There is also a large monitor over the front desk which is used to monitor the 10 or 12 security cameras set around the property.

Shevenell said the project is mostly finished. The office space is all complete and functional, but there is still a small amount of aesthetic work to complete out front, including adding blue lettering that says entrance on the new entrance over hang, and adding a bronzed sheet metal wrap at the top, like the other elementary schools. The school name will also be added in white to the building so it can be seen from the road.

The one topic that came up during the meeting is how to handle elections at the school with the new entrance configuration.

Shevenell suggested that would be a conversation to have with Moderator Lynn Christensen, but that a solution will be made, be it keeping the doors unlocked that one day, or as School Board member Shannon Barnes suggested, possibly moving the entrance and exit to the two exterior doors on either end of the all-purpose room.

Barnes said by doing that, the building would remain secure for the students, as voters are not vetted throughout the day before entering a school full of kids.

All in all, Barnes said she thought the project accomplished a lot of goals including the reconfiguration of offices and first and foremost improving the safety and security of the students in the building.

“I'm hoping that parents understand we kept our word in that and it was money very well spent,” Barnes said.

The project, which was approved at town meeting, cost a total of about $328,000 to complete, Shevenell said.

“It took a long time, but I knew the community was going to support this,” Shevenell said. “I told Marsha (McGill), hang in there, I know there is a lot of community support for this.”