MAHOMET, Ill. (WCIA) — Middletown Prairie Elementary School is the “home away from home” for the youngest school-age kids in Mahomet-Seymour, and it’s equipped with one of the most distinct safety strategies in central Illinois.
Plans for the school were in the works in the wake of the 2012 shooting death of 28 people at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut.
History repeated itself in May when a gunman opened fire at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, killing 19 students and two teachers, and reinvigorating the school safety conversation.
“We’re all continuing to learn and to navigate some really tragic situations that cause us to take pause and reflect,” Mahomet-Seymour superintendent Lindsey Hall said after giving reporters a tour of the school and a safety strategy the principal called “unique.”
The halls were empty for the summer, but during the school year, administrators are tasked with planning for the safety of nearly 800 pre-kindergarteners thru second graders.
“You’re the parent,” principal Ryan Martin said. “You’re taking care of those kids as the parent would want them taken care of.”
Martin taught elementary-age kids across the state for 13 years before settling in at the helm of Middletown Prairie Elementary.
He said the playground “is probably the biggest difference of any of the other buildings I’ve worked at.”
Most of the playgrounds he remembered were fenced, but you can see — and often access — them from the street.
“As a teacher, we had to be extra cautious of supervising kids,” Martin added.
In contrast, the Mahomet elementary amenities are enclosed entirely by the brick school building.
“To access the playground you have to go through our security system and check in through the office, so you’ll be flagged if that’s not something you should be doing,” he said.
Martin said the shooting at Sandy Hook was “eye-opening” and changed his perspective on school safety.
“Every time that it happens, there are more things that we learn and we respond to,” Hall added.
She walked reporters through the particularly wide hallways that you can see all the way down. Hall said that reduces blind spots created by narrower hallways with several corners.
The double-door entrance is complete with “a check-in system, an entrance where someone who comes in cannot get into the rest of the school without being cleared.”
In 2018, the school district completed Phase II of the school’s construction, and with it, cubby rooms that double as shelters. There is one between every two first- and second-grade classrooms. About 99% of the time, kids just use the cubbies inside, but in the event of an intruder or even severe weather, students and teachers can quickly gather and lock down behind bulletproof doors with an accessible phone.
Hall said they train staff for a number of circumstances because “it’s impossible to predict what would happen,” something she’s learned through watching what are hypothetical tragedies for Mahomet unfold in reality across the country.
“If you’re in a very large building and you have the opportunity to leave, then barricading in that instance or locking down might not be the best option, so it’s really hard to give a prescriptive answer like, ‘Exactly here’s what would happen if an intruder came in the building,'” she explained.
“If it were one thing and there were an easy answer, then we’d all be doing it.”
Mahomet voters will decide Tuesday whether to spend additional tax dollars to build a new junior high and make additions to the rest of the public schools. Hall said new safety features would be at the forefront of the design process.