No Change in Open-Campus Policy for High School

School board members have decided not to change the district’s open-campus policy for high school students but voiced concerns about keeping out unwanted visitors.

Irvine Unified School District high school students are allowed off campus for lunch if their student identification cards indicate that they have permission from their parents.

During a review of the policy four years ago, the cost of fencing the district’s four high schools was estimated at $575,000.

To maintain a closed campus, district officials said this week, they would have to hire additional personnel to monitor students and expand cafeteria services, bringing the total cost to about $1 million.

School board member Margie Wakeham, who asked for a review of the policy along with Trustee Tom Burnham, said she was more concerned about the possibility of gang members coming into local high schools than keeping students on campus.

“I’m comfortable with the policy as it stands today,” Wakeham said. “But I think this is an issue that, at some point, we may be coming back to and making a different decision.”

Paul Mills, the district director of alternative education who also oversees campus safety, said high schools are closely monitored. “We do have strangers that we’d just as soon not have on our campuses come to the campuses specifically to cause problems,” Mills said.

But with additional campus security personnel and two police officers assigned to monitor local high schools, Mills said, most problems do not get out of hand. “Oftentimes, we hear about things before they actually start to transpire.”