Is PVHS as safe as it seems to be?

Does PVHS have enough safety regulations in place? Pahrump Valley High School isn’t a place that necessarily gets talked about when it comes to safety. When it comes to how people feel about the school, the students don’t feel like they are in harm’s way. After polling a variety of students, 26% felt completely safe at the school, 40.6% of students felt relatively safe, 18.8% felt somewhat safe, and 14.6% felt slightly uncomfortable.

Following up on an interview with the assistant principal Jason Odegard, he stated: “ We are always reviewing and looking at things that can be improved whether that’s making sure more gates are locked or the doors are locked” He then says “We are constantly looking at things to improve but I don’t think we could do everything at once and I don’t know if there’s a way to always prevent anything.” After this, a student source stated “I feel somewhat safe in the school but I think that it’s easy to sneak something like a weapon into the school”, they then followed up on this by stating “I think that adding metal detectors to the school would make the school a lot safer”. Multiple staff members also agreed with adding metal detectors to the school as well as more police presence. 

Metal detectors are something that would be a great assist in keeping all students safe. One of the problems that were pointed out by a student was that during the Sadie Hawkins and Homecoming dances, they had metal detectors but they don’t have them for the school. This doesn’t make sense because during school more kids are attending than they did to the dance. The one downside is that going through the process of going through metal detectors takes a little time and with all the students it can affect the schedule. When asking Odegard what he thought about the metal detectors he said, “I think some people are in favor of this while others think that it’s over the top but I think the important thing is that all staff and all students are aware of their surroundings.” He went on to say “If anyone sees anything that they should let someone know and that we just have to be a community that cares for each other.”

On another note, one of the staff members stated “We need more hall monitors on campus to make sure the students are where they need to be.” They also said, “I believe having more monitors would reduce students getting into a physical altercation”. Nevadareportcard shows that during 2021-2022 there has been a number of 44 incidents including violence. Another staff member stated, “I think that making sure students spend very little time in the hallway during class would greatly help maintain safety.”

Another big topic that gets brought up is the drills we have in place in case of an emergency. 63.5% of the students that took the poll feel like the drills are not enough as well as 73.3% percent of the staff that took the poll also feel the same way. “I believe that the school should formulate a better plan for lockdowns” stated a staff member who also prefers to stay anonymous. They go on to say “If we were to have a school shooting, nothing is blocking the area in which students hide behind the wall in classes. I believe we need to reinforce the walls the students hide behind with some form of bulletproof metal”. The school walls are mainly made up of drywall which is a material that can be easily penetrated if a bullet were to hit it. Another big thing is that students just stand in the corner when they go into lockdown and with the drywall, it’s not a very smart move. This is a big problem because If a student or former student with this information decides to cause harm to other students then there would be no way of avoiding them. After all, they would know how the drills work. Adding to this the staff member stated “Also I believe we should have a better system for covering windows which is more reliable than velcro on the back of a laminated piece of paper. My suggestion would be to look into mounting a permanent window cover that can open and close quickly in case of emergencies”. There isn’t much that a piece of paper could stop if someone decides to shoot through the window. If it’s just paper it would only take away visibility until the glass breaks and then the paper rips off with it leaving an open window.  Putting something such as a window cover made up of wood or metal could increase the student’s and teachers’ safety. 

One thing that a staff member pointed out was that students should not wear headphones because it takes away from being aware of what’s around them. The source said, “If a student is walking home when they get dropped off a bus stop with headphones in, then anyone could just kidnap them”. This is something the school needs to take into consideration with or without the headphones because once the bus drops off the students and it leaves then there is nothing stopping someone from taking them.

In the end, we should prioritize the safety of the students and staff members. Even if the school system isn’t perfect, the school should address students about these problems so we could work together to avoid anything from happening. It’s something that requires everyone to put effort into making sure the whole community is safe. The school indeed needs to ensure safety but they can’t do it without the student’s compliance. So if you see something, say something, you can report school and safety concerns at the hotline at 833-216-7333.