Jenkintown School District Releases Details About the “Security Vestibule”

Jenkintown School District

Jenkintown School District Superintendent Dr. Jill Takacs released a notice regarding the security vestibule it approved in November and will build this year. The vestibule will cost over $800,000, and will push school drop-off further away from the building and restrict the circle in front of the Link to construction and service vehicles only.

The school district will complete its fiscal year over a half million dollars in deficit.

The district makes the claim that the vestibule is to provide for increased student safety, but in this article in the Washington Post by David Ropeik, the author of How Risky is it, Really? Why Our Fears Don’t Always Match the Facts, he cites statistics that call this expense into question:

The chance of a child being shot and killed in a public school is extraordinarily low. Not zero — no risk is. But it’s far lower than many people assume, especially in the glare of heart-wrenching news coverage after an event like Parkland. And it’s far lower than almost any other mortality risk a kid faces, including traveling to and from school, catching a potentially deadly disease while in school or suffering a life-threatening injury playing interscholastic sports

The amount of money the district will spend on this project might instead buy more than 1,000 laptops, 560,000 pencils, or 267,000 lunches. Or pay off this year’s projected deficit.