A look at school safety in East Lansing

• Following violent incidents in and around our neighborhoods, including a shooting at Michigan State University in 2022, safety was a major part of East Lansing’s $23.5 million bond.
• Now, the district says it is committed to keeping its students safe while fostering a healthy learning environment.
• The video shows school safety perspectives from the district and parents.

(The full transcript of the broadcast is included below)

Soon, students in our neighborhoods will be heading back to school. But when you send your child to school, you want to make sure they’re safe. And districts in our neighborhoods have recently made school safety a priority.

“You know in the 2022-2023 school year we had a number of safety issues both locally and on-site,” said East Lansing Public Schools Superintendent Dori Leyko.

From the swatting incident at Okemos High School to a deadly shooting just off Abbot Road at Michigan State, East Lansing Superintendent Dori Leyko says those moments sparked urgency in the district to improve safety.

“That really put a spotlight on everything we were doing as far as school safety,” Leyko said. “We immediately added more monitoring in the hallways during the day, and it helped us make sure that kids were where they were supposed to be, bathrooms were clear. All of our entrances — we have a lot of doors at the high school, I think over 85 — and while most of them are secure, we do sometimes deal with students letting others in.”

And in the spring, the district approved a $23.5 million bond proposal to address some long-term projects that Leyko said were necessary for safety.

“The high school doesn’t have a secure lobby,” Leyko said. “And the administration is not inside the high school, so if there’s an emergency or a crisis or a lockdown here, we’re not locked in the building and we can communicate with our first responders and stakeholders.”

While East Lansing is doing everything it can to keep the physical building safe, parents are also concerned about the emotional safety of their children.

“Honestly, it’s not very good,” McKenzie Robins said of her feelings about school safety.

Robins says that feeling comes from not being able to control external factors.

“With all the bullying that happens in schools,” she said, “it’s very difficult for administrators and teachers to control. We’re considering homeschooling, just for safety reasons, really.”

But Leyko says she’s heard similar concerns from parents, so the district has implemented a school safety team to monitor the hallways and is trying to foster an environment where students know it’s OK to speak up when there’s a problem.

“It’s about creating a safe climate and culture, with some of these infrastructures that create a really safe environment,” Leyko said. “Because if children and adults walk around here without feeling safe, it’s going to be very difficult for them to learn.”

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