The Jeff Davis Parish school district is taking steps to beef up safety and security for school entrances and campuses across the district.

The School Board on Thursday approved a $2 million bid from K & J Development of Sulphur to begin phase on the Ward II project, which includes security upgrades and improvements at Jennings High and Jennings Elementary schools.

School district officials are also working on ways to ramp up efforts to add additional layers to enhance safety of students and staff on all campuses.

“Safety has always been a priority for me since the first day I took this job with the amount of training and professional development that we do,” Superintendent John Hall said, noting his background in emergency response. “We are now actually putting money out there to do these things and it’s a great feeling to know that over a period of time we are going to address all of these schools to make them safer.”

The security upgrades for the two Jennings schools will be paid by remaining funds from the bond sale for construction of the new Jennings Elementary School and a surplus in Ward II contingency funds.

The School Board is also requesting grant money from the state to help address safety issues at all the other schools, Hall said.

The district applied for a $500,000 Stronger Connections grant through the Louisiana Department of Education. The money would be used to add fencing and security vestibules to act as a buffer zone between students and visitors at the remaining campuses. The School Board is also looking at plans to add metal detectors and bullet-resistant film over the windows at all schools.

“When you talk about how to improve safety, safety has to be in every conversation about any improvements you make, that’s how you address safety,” Hall said. “ It starts off with what we can do to make it better…If you do that every time you have a maintenance issue or an upgrade then you will get it. It may take some time, but you will get it.”

Plans for the Ward II project calls for adding safety measures at Jennings High School to include completely securing the school’s exterior with perimeter fencing and gates. Door alert monitors will also be installed on exterior doors to alert the main office when a door is left open.

“We will also be adding a secure vestibule at Jennings High School, so once you enter in you are now in an area you can’t go into the school,” Hall said.

Together, the fencing and vestibule will create a single-point of entry.

Also included in the project are plans to add restrooms near the softball fields and tennis courts at Jennings High School and adding more parking to the front and rear of the new Jennings Elementary School.