Northwest is the first school in the Wichita school district to receive a “secure entrance” on the Tyler street doors.

After a year of construction, the Tyler side secure entrance is finally complete. It requires visitors to come through the office and sign in with an I.D badge or sticker.

“All the doors are closed around the building except for that one entrance when school starts,” principal Gil Alvarez said. “Every guest, visitor, student, staff member that doesn’t have a key has to go through what we call the secure entrance. They come in and they’re forced to go and sign in at the main office.”

When the bond issue took place in 2008, the decision was made to install a secure entrance. Alvarez is happy that safety has become a priority.

“If there’s a way we can make our school more secure here and more safe we should do it,” Alvarez said.

Northwest  now has the layout for a secure entrance unlike other schools, such as East or North, whose schools have separate buildings making it harder to have a safer entrance.

“It was just important for safety,” Alvarez said. “I mean you see all the bad things that could happen in school. It’s just all about student safety.”

Sophomore Mikala Carter is equally satisfied with the completion of construction.

“I think the new entry is better because now you can see who is going in and out,” Carter said.

Teachers like Julia Powell feel safer and better about going to work.

“I think it’s a good idea in this day in age we need to have more security then we have in the past,” Powell said. “I think it is a great safety measure to insure the safety of all of our students and staff.”