Updated Safety Standard 

The Auburn School District’s highest priority is student and staff safety.  We strive to be inclusive and welcoming. Over the years, we have developed safety standards with the goal of striking a balance between school safety and schools being welcoming. One of the standards is all exterior doors except the school front door are locked during school hours and the main office is the only entry point during the school day.

Our safety standards continue to evolve and beginning May 1 the updated school safety standards include controlled access to school buildings during the school day. We will be locking the school front doors during the school day and unlocking them at the end of the school day. We are making this change after evaluating best practices, hearing from the community at the School Safety Summit, hearing from students and staff and researching other school district practices.

Our schools are safe. Keeping the doors locked during the school day provides an additional layer of safety.

Access to our schools during the school day will be controlled by office staff and will vary slightly based on school office layout and staffing.

• Visitors to schools with entry vestibules will enter the vestibule and school staff will manage entry with an intercom and remote unlock system.
• Visitors to schools without entry vestibules will ring a doorbell connected to a video monitor. School staff will open the front doors for visitors.

We will continue to have visitor name tag requirements and all exterior doors will continue to be locked.

You are welcome in your child’s school. We will post signs in multiple languages at each school about how to contact the office staff so you can access the building.

This will be a change and it may take some time to adjust to the new safety standard. We will continue to evaluate our safety efforts and look forward to continuing to work with the community on our shared goal of having safe and welcoming schools.