A parent intending to highlight his concerns about school security found himself at the center of an incident at Croswell-Lexington Community Schools yesterday morning.
Croswell resident Mike Harder was dropping off his children at school around 7:40 a.m. when he spied a back door, usually used for student entry, unattended and wide open for up to six minutes. Having raised his concerns to the superintendent and school district about school security several times before, Harder approached the school to inquire about the open door, phone recording his interaction with several staff members once he was confronted.
While Harder’s video shows him striding into the school and standing inside for a few minutes until he confronted a staff member, Superintendent Colette Moody claimed in a letter home on November 29 that the parent had been intercepted by staff and asked to leave within a minute of entry.
Moody said the incident occurred “during the [morning] drop-off period, a rear door designated for student entry remained unattended for approximately two and a half minutes,” with a parent of a current student entering through that door while it was unattended. Harder asserts that the door was opened and unattended for at least five minutes Wednesday morning.
“While the district discourages the use of entrances other than the main entrance during school hours, we acknowledge the situation that occurred is unacceptable,” Moody wrote to parents.
This review comes a little over a week after a threat was investigated at the district’s middle school, with a student saying on Tuesday, November 21, that they planned to cause harm the following week with a gun. While the school deemed the threat uncredible, with no weapons found in the student’s locker or on their person at the time, it is unclear if extra security steps were taken or discussed for this week’s classes out of an abundance of caution.
Croswell-Lexington Community Schools currently contracts with Premier Security Solutions, with their contract approved in January 2022, while the district was still overseen by former superintendent Daniel Gilbertson.
Read the letters here:
