Community members weigh in on school safety at Newport-Mesa campus forums
Newport Harbor High School was quiet Tuesday evening. Its wide campus was devoid of its typical student population, its halls empty and gates closed as the second month of summer vacation marched on.
But inside the campus library, school officials and parents carried on a robust discussion of the upcoming school year and what could be done to keep their children safe — not just at Newport Harbor but at all of Newport-Mesa Unified School District’s 20-plus campuses.
Tuesday’s meeting was the first in a series of public workshops organized by the district to discuss what attendees felt were top priorities in order to ensure campus safety. At the top of many parents’ minds was the most recent school shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children and two adults were killed in May.
As part of an exercise, poster boards listed campus security measures the district undertakes — prevention, facilities, response and policy. The participants were asked to post colored sticky notes on the boards to indicate which areas they believe need improvement and which are satisfactory. Notes on coral paper expressed concerns and suggestions, while those posted on green paper denoted satisfaction with the status quo. The poster board with the most coral notes by the end of the exercise was in the area of school facilities.
Parents also had the opportunity to ask questions or suggest other possibilities that didn’t neatly fit into any of the four categories. A school safety task force is expected to be formed that will consider ideas presented during the forums.
“We prioritize safety and are proactive in our approach to assess preparedness, improve practices and evolve with the changing times,” said district spokeswoman Annette Franco. “This includes our policies, facilities and technology.
“School safety is not something we can do alone. We value the partnership and support that we have with our local law enforcement, fire agencies and the school community, whose voice in the process is critical to our success.”
Some of the suggestions offered up by parents included requiring annual training on CPR, first aid and lockdown procedures; teaching students what to do if an intruder shows up on campus during lunch or break periods; and increasing the security presence on campuses.
Decreasing the number of campus access points and requiring guests to be buzzed in through the front office at all NMUSD schools were other measures suggested by forum participants.
Woodland Elementary School parent Francoise Gardner said her daughter’s classroom is near the front of the Costa Mesa campus. Gardner said she and other moms believe the gates around the campus aren’t high enough. Gardner said it seems possible someone could easily scale the fence to enter the school grounds and break into a classroom.
Gardner said she and other parents believe Woodland’s fencing is inconsistent with what’s been installed at other schools in the district. Six NMUSD campuses haven’t yet been fenced off. Corona del Mar Middle and High School and Ensign Intermediate are the two most recent schools — 2019 — to have installed fencing.
“So, we thought, ‘You know what?’ What better place to do this than to come to this type of forum and voice our opinion and hopefully get something started?” said Gardner, who added she also wants to see additional security and increased vetting of visitors.
Gardner said she generally feels the district is doing a good job protecting her child but that there is room for improvement.
Costa Mesa High School teacher Arleen Salazar said she started teaching at the campus in February. She attended the forum as an active participant, joining parents in making suggestions.
“This is now my fourth district as an educator. I’m going to go into my ninth year and every district is different as far as safety. With everything that’s going on, it’s super important that I know what’s ... on the [parents’] mind and I also … made it a point about how the teacher training really needs to be a point of focus,” said Salazar.
Salazar said she primarily teaches middle and high schoolers and said the day after the Uvalde mass killings “there was a very palpable presence of what was going on in the news. Oftentimes as teachers, we want to address it, but we don’t want it to overtake.
“[The students] sense it. I feel that it’s sometimes hard for them to verbalize what they’re feeling. They almost don’t know how to express it. They know that they’re feeling things, but they don’t know how to express it in a way where they’re not going to be judged by the adults.”
The mission at the Speech and Language Development Center is to nurture growth for students like Joshua Manso, who now attends Cerritos College.
Incoming Newport Harbor freshman Vinicius Shaw said he attended the forum because he wanted to hear the opinions of other community members and find out if his own ideas mirrored theirs.
Vinicius, 14, said his greatest fear is of a school shooter showing up on campus, a concern he’s had throughout his school years.
“It can happen anywhere at all schools and even in your home,” said Vinicius. He said he hopes the district can increase security, but he also wants existing active shooter drills to change. He noted that the shooter in Uvalde was 18 — young enough, he argues, to have gone through those same drills himself.
Two other campus-safety forums will be held at Costa Mesa High School on July 26 and at Corona del Mar High School on July 27. Both forums are scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. and end at 7 p.m.
The second forum was held at Estancia High School on Wednesday.
The district is also holding a virtual forum on July 28 that will begin at 9 a.m. It requires preregistration. Interested readers can visit nmusd.us/safety for more information.
All the latest on Orange County from Orange County.
Get our free TimesOC newsletter.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Daily Pilot.
