CALABASAS : Schools to Improve Campus Security

The Las Virgenes school board has decided to spend $14,500 to improve security at campuses throughout the district, and will allocate at least $50,000 more for safety measures after each school develops its own proposals for additional measures.

In a unanimous vote Tuesday night, the board voted to spend $12,000 to buy 20 walkie-talkies and upgrade its radio system, and $2,500 to provide conflict-resolution training to its lunchtime monitors.

Trustees also decided to have the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department conduct assemblies to teach students how to avoid potentially harmful situations and relationships.

Greater--though as yet undetermined--expenditures will be in store for the district when school principals return proposals for beefed-up security at individual schools. Assistant Supt. Donald Zimring estimated that at least $50,000 will be spent on security measures in the 1994-95 school year, adding that final approval rests with the board.

The administrator sought to allay concerns some district parents have had on campus security in the wake of two incidents in Ventura County. In one, a student was stabbed to death at Valley View Junior High School in Simi Valley. In the other, three students were wounded by gunfire at the scene of a fight in a parking lot near Westlake High School.

“The level of hysteria has risen beyond what was intended and what is necessary,” said Zimring, who is in charge of business affairs for the district. “We need to ask, ‘What is a reasonable response?’ ”

The administrator and board members stressed that discussions on security in the district predated the recent campus violence by 17 months.

The board put off hiring campus security guards and installing fences around schools until principals decide which safety measures would be most suitable to their campuses. “I wholly support you looking to the schools, because it is so individual,” board member Harry Knaster said to Zimring.