Pretty much wherever you are, in and around Grand Junction High School, you’re being watched.
GJHS now has 100 more cameras at the newly opened $144.5 million building than the last, with 144 in total. Within these 144, there are six cameras on the top of the building and the light poles that detect suspicious or dangerous activity and report it directly to the Grand Junction Police Department.
All of these cameras are there to instill students’ safety and are used to prevent dangerous or unwanted behaviors.
“I think because we have such a new school that a lot of people want to come here but overall the risk for threats or anything will decrease,” said GJHS senior Anara Munkhtogoo.
“Our liaisons will look at the cameras for kids’ safety. When kids make bad choices just to try to find what happened. We don’t want vaping in our bathrooms, so that’s something we’ll be watching a lot of. Anything else, our SROs that are here, our security, our assistant principals all of them watch it,” said Sorensen.
Cameras are not in classrooms, locker rooms, and bathrooms.
“There are eyes everywhere, which is lovely…We only get on there if there’s an issue, we don’t spy,” said School District 51 Safety and Security Officer Penny Harris.
The goal of the school’s safety is to play a part in daily experience at the school and hopefully make students feel safe while they learn.
GJHS has emphasized having only one entrance for students to use throughout the day, which prevents students from entering haphazardly through other entrances. A single-point entry prioritizes students’ safety by more closely monitoring who enters the building.
“It’s just to keep our students safe. I mean, with a new building and in today’s society, we want to make sure we have a safe school. Safety is our number one priority for our students, so they feel like they’re safe while learning,” said GJHS Assistant Principal Josh Warinner.
The previous school had multiple buildings all with their own entrances. There was often concern from teachers and staff that when asked, wandering students would say that they were going to a class in one of the outside buildings but would instead leave campus or continue wandering.
“Our past campus we had seven different buildings with dozens of doors. Currently, we have one main entrance to our school, which makes the school a lot more safe,” said GJHS Principal Jory Sorensen. “Before we didn’t know if you were going to art or Taco Bell.”
GJHS’ liaisons and School Resource Officers are active contributors to the school’s safety. This year, we have returning liaison Larry LeFebre, as well as new liaison Jennifer Rodriguez. They patrol hallways during the day and use carts at lunch, before school, and after school. LeFebre and Rodriguez enforce rules and keep students where they need to be.
Our SROs are Tyson Olsen and Brenton Allen and are employed by the GJ Police Department. Whereas Harris is a School Security Officer employed by D51.
Another big change is the mandatory use of IDs. Every student and staff member is required to have their ID on them at all times during school hours to monitor who is in our school and identify possible suspicious activity by non-students.
The freshman’s IDs are vertical while all sophomore and upperclassmen IDs are horizontal. This is because freshmen are no longer allowed off campus for lunch and the vertical IDs help staff easily identify them.
“When we got the IDs, that was definitely a big push, and I think compared to the last school we’re overall more strict on the rules,” said Munkhtogoo.
The school admin and leadership believe that these additions to GJHS security have contributed to an overall goal of a consistent school culture and community.
“We have a lot more consistent culture, that’s the big thing I feel like it brings…It’s a paradigm shift,” said Sorensen.
