To control the issue of tardiness and improve school security, the administration has a lock system put in place throughout the school day. All doors, except the front office, will remain locked during class and open for passing period and lunch.

“Students have been excessively tardy and we are trying to knock [the] tardies down,” assistant principal Shawnda LaRocque said. “So if we lock down the building, you have to walk all the way around [to] the front office. Lesson learned: don’t be tardy. [Another is] the security protocol has heightened, because of the shootings we’ve had in schools. So it also locks out people that should not be in our school.”

LaRocque said assistant principals spent a lot of time enforcing tardies and IDs last year, so they hope to improve on that this year in order to spend more time in the classroom.

“We spent the majority of our time last year on discipline that we were unable to get into the classrooms to support our teachers and be instructional leaders for our campus,” LaRocque said. “We are trying to reduce the discipline so we can do our part on campus. Our No. 1 job is to lead our campus and to be with our teachers, be with our classrooms and help them become the best teachers they can be.”

As a safety precaution for all schools, the IDs have become a district mandated policy this school year. There has also been an increase in security cameras to monitor the hallways.

“I would rather be the school district on the news that said we’ve done this in place and we are well prepared and well spoken about what we choose to do, than to be the one [that says], ‘we just thought it would never happen at Hebron,’” LaRocque said. “It could happen anywhere and I just think it’s really important to understand that [and] to have some sort of healthy fear.”