Natomas enacts closed campus policy. What it means for parents and school safety
Parents of Natomas Unified School District elementary students learned a couple weeks before returning to school of a policy change: guardians could no longer accompany their child on campus during drop-off and pick-up and would instead have to wait outside the school gate.
In previous years, parents were used to walking their young children to their classrooms in the morning. For parent Aaron Heredia, being on campus allowed he and his wife to have short, informal check-ins with their teacher, observe his child with other students and connect with other school families.
“We got to know our son’s teacher last year, seeing her every day at drop-off and pick up (…). It was invaluable,” Heredia said. Now, most of these interactions have to happen via an app.
On July 30, Natomas Unified administrators sent a message to parents notifying them of the policy change. In the short message, the district cited concerns about safety and a need to know who was on campus at all times.
Natomas Unified Assistant Superintendent Brandon Blom, who oversees the district’s elementary schools, said that the decision was made after considering feedback from the district’s labor partners, school site staff and local law enforcement. What it comes down to, Blom says, is having a safe and secure campus.
“It’s really just going back to the best practice of knowing who’s on campus at all times,” he said.
However, parents felt the decision, which Natomas Unified administrators are dubbing a practice change rather than a policy change, was made suddenly and without consideration of parents. More than 300 parents, many of which are parents at Heron School, have signed a petition asking the district to reconsider the new closed campus policy. They are also asking for more transparency on how district staff came to the decision.
Blom said that despite the petition, the transition has gone relatively smoothly and that kids are “adjusting amazingly.” He expects the new policy to reduce traffic over time, with parents spending less time out of their cars and getting lines of cars moving quicker. He also said that he has received positive parent feedback about the adjusted process.
So far this doesn’t align with what Heredia has observed, describing a confusing situation at Heredia-Arriaga School’s morning drop-off in which kids are unsure where to enter the campus and there are too few staff members assisting the process.
In addition to frustration with how leaving their kids at the gate could impact the logistics of an already difficult process, parents are most concerned with how the policy change affects school connectedness and community.
School safety expert and co-founder of Educator’s School Safety Network Amy Klinger advocates for striking a balance between effective safety practices and maintaining a welcoming environment for families.
Allowing parent access only through signing in at the office is fairly standard and aligns with recommended safety practices, Klinger says, but one reason it may be more controversial at a school district like Natomas is that California schools are largely open air, with students moving outside from building to building, unlike colder states where classrooms are accessed via school hallways.
Klinger said that it is reasonable for the school to want to limit parents’ access to other kids for safety and efficiency reasons, but that it is also reasonable for parents to want to feel welcome at their children’s school.
While a policy that allows the school to know exactly who is on campus is pretty standard, it is something that is likely to affect school culture. That’s why, she says, transparency on the school’s part is key.
“In our trainings we say that if people — kids, teachers, parents or anyone — are not behaving the way you want them to, maybe they don’t understand the rationale of what you’re trying to accomplish,” she said. “To say ‘you can’t come through here’ without an explanation of why and what problems you’re trying to avoid, that can be a problem.”
Parent Joanna Davis, mother of two children at Heron School and organizer of the petition, said that she has sought transparency surrounding the policy from both school site and district administrators, finding that there was no written policy that anyone could share surrounding the new rules.
When asked if he felt the school district had effectively communicated the reasoning behind the change, Heredia said “hell no.”
“That’s why I wasted my time to sit there for an hour and a half to speak on it,” Heredia said of his decision to attend a school board meeting earlier this week.
