WHITEHALL — Whitehall District Schools has received a $500,000 award to improve its security systems from a Department of Justice grant, interim superintendent CJ Van Wieren announced Monday during the school board's monthly meeting.
The grant is being administered under the Department of Justice's Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) office through the School Violence Prevention Program, and the district will use the grant money to upgrade its camera systems and secured access to the school's doors. Van Wieren noted that the grant was "a highly competitive one" and required recipients to match 25 percent of the grant money to receive it. The process to make the upgrades could begin, Van Wieren said, as soon as December. According to the Department of Justice, the award is good for three years.
During board discussion of the grant, treasurer Jimmy TenBrink suggested the board could take a look at installing panic buttons in classrooms. The buttons trigger alerts to law enforcement but are silent to all those in the building. He noted that a state-level law, called "Alyssa's Law" after a victim of the 2018 mass shooting at a Parkland, Florida school, has been passed by six states mandating the installation of such buttons in school classrooms.
Van Wieren also mentioned that count day exceeded the district's expectations. Internal projections had the district having about 30 fewer students than were enrolled last year, but the count actually showed an increase of about 20. The good news came as a result of not having as many students transfer to a different school as was expected, some students transferring in, and an influx of students moving to the district, including what Van Wieren said was an unusually large increase at the fourth-grade level.
Also during the meeting, Jenni Wheeler of Brickley DeLong presented the results of its annual audit of the district's finances. She reported that there were no findings that needed to be addressed and called it "quite commendable" given how much money the district deals with on an annual basis, complimenting business manager Tayler Zweigle on a "home run" job in her first year handling the financial reports herself.
The board also unanimously - apart from president Rachel Fekken, who was absent from the meeting - approved the reappointment of Annlyn McKenzie as the district's representative on the White Lake Community Library board. McKenzie's term was scheduled to be up this year and she expressed interest in continuing in her role.
