New School Year Means New Entrances for Several Buildings
A new entry has been incorporated into the century-old front of Greenwood Elementary School.
For 115 years, Greenwood Elementary School has stood on 37th Street, and over those many years renovations and additions to the school led to a dozen different doors in and out of the building. For visitors, the “front door” wasn’t all that obvious, much less having the school’s office staff know who was coming and going.
On the south side, Brody Middle School is a little bit newer. In fact, Brody is preparing to celebrate its 50th anniversary. There the main entrance to the school was obvious, but visitors could walk right in with no one to greet and assist them, and be left to their own devices to find the office or wherever they were going.
There’s nothing like making a good entrance, right? And towards that goal Des Moines Public Schools has been making a lot of them to start the 2016-17 school year.
Brody Middle School’s new entrance leads straight into a new school office area.
At Greenwood, a new entrance has been added that blends in with the historic front of the building. Once inside visitors are directed straight to the school office. At Brody, which the work is just about completed, a more modern addition has been added which also directs visitors straight into the school’s new office; the school’s previous office location is now a new library for students.
Greenwood and Brody are two of fifteen DMPS schools that have rolled out a new welcome mat this year. The other schools include:
- Cattell Elementary School
- Cowles Montessori School
- Harding Middle School
- Howe Elementary School
- Hillis Elementary School
- Madison Elementary School
- Morris Elementary School
- Moulton Elementary School
- Oak Park Elementary School
- Roosevelt High School
- Ruby Van Meter School
- Walker Street Annex (at East)
- Willard Elementary School
- Windsor Elementary School
These new front doors are serving multiple purposes. They are designed to be conspicuous and welcoming, but to also enhance security.
As the district’s Chief of Operations Bill Good points out, the average age of DMPS schools is about 65 years. Many have had to be expanded and reconfigured over the years to meet the shifting needs of the communities they serve. In some cases that has resulted in confusion on the part of visitors as to preferred public entrances. So enhanced street appeal is one objective.
And while schools have traditionally been, and still are, neighborhood gathering spots, there is also an increased emphasis on better controlling access by visitors from a security and safety standpoint. The idea is not to discourage people from coming into the schools, but simply to be aware of who’s there and control traffic flow. This effort goes hand-in-hand with the launch earlier this year of a new Electronic Visitor Check-In system for guests and volunteers at schools. DMPS incorporates several other security measures for the safety of students, staff and visitors, from classroom intruder locks to the elimination of mobile classrooms to nearly 1,000 security cameras throughout the district.
In many ways the new entrances amount to doorbells for you to ring upon arrival in order that you may be officially welcomed.
Work on the new welcome mats is ongoing throughout the district. If it hasn’t already it will be coming soon to a schoolhouse near you.
