WINDHAM – Windham students returning to school this year will find added security measures put in place in the wake of the Newton, Conn., school shootings.

School officials are fortifying the entrances of Windham’s four school buildings this summer using federal and local taxpayer money.

Raymond schools already feature an intercom and video surveillance at both the Raymond Elementary School and Jordan-Small Elementary School, but until January of this year Windham schools had no measures to prevent intruders from entering the buildings.

That all changed after December’s Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut. When Windham students arrived after Christmas break, long-term substitutes were stationed at several entrances to the high school and middle school to process visitors. Secretaries at the other two schools, Manchester Elementary School and Windham Primary School, had to answer the door when visitors wanted access during the school day.

However, when students return from summer vacation in a few weeks, those door monitors will be gone, replaced with newly rebuilt entryways that incorporate intercoms and video surveillance similar to Raymond schools.

“It was just a different climate given the situation at Sandy Hook,” Superintendent Sandy Prince said of Windham’s efforts to improve security. “So we determined every school should have a person right there at the front doors to let people in. The doors were locked last year, but we didn’t have this new system in place, and that’s what we’ve been doing this summer.”

Saco-based PM Construction Co. is the general contractor overseeing the project, which is taking place simultaneously at the four Windham schools. Hopes are that the renovations will be complete before the start of school.

Another big change will be the introduction of a security system, installed by South Portland-based Norris Inc. The company is installing entrance door systems that allow people to be electronically buzzed in, as well as a card reader system that will allow high-school students and teachers at all schools entry to the building.

The ID card, which will feature a bar code, will allow entry for students during school hours at all times other than the 10-15 minutes at the opening or closing bell, when the doors will be open. The students will be expected to use their cards by sometime in October. There will be a replacement fee to encourage students to not lose their cards.

Each teacher will be given a new ID card, featuring a larger picture, that will allow access via wall-mounted card readers to various doors in the building. The ID cards will allow the school to do away with keys.

The district’s facilities director, Bill Hanson, is overseeing the reconstruction of the school vestibules this summer. Although the school system was already looking into beefing up security, he said, the Sandy Hook shootings last December was a catalyst for serious action.

“What we’re trying to do here is change the way we’re entering the schools,” he said. “Prior to this tragic event in December, we were really an open school. You could go anyplace you wanted, anytime you wanted to. We live in a great community, great people, so we’re really fortunate in that way, but after that we started rethinking the fact that having the [open schools] does pose some risks. So, the changes we’re doing here are focused on controlling access to the building when kids are present, which kind of makes sense.”

The high school is an especially busy place after school lets out. As a result, Hanson said, the closed-door policy will not be in effect later in the afternoon and evening, when adult education classes and sporting events take place at the school.

Hanson said the entrances to the high school and primary school are receiving the most substantial renovation to create a secure “vestibule,” as he described it, where visitors have to wait before being admitted entrance. Windham Middle School will feature an intercom/video system since the office is not located near the entrance.

In the vestibule, school secretaries will have direct contact – through a reinforced window with portals similar to a subway toll station – with people wishing to enter the building. In both cases, visitors will have to identify themselves and their purpose before getting through a second set of entry doors.

“People are going to come into the building still, but we’re going to control how they can enter the building so we know who’s in the building and what their purpose is. That’s what this is all about,” Hanson said.

In the case of fire, all doors will allow entrance to the outside, Hanson said.

School board member Toby Pennels was chairman a few years ago when the board first started talking about the need for more security. A veteran of the Iraq war who commanded more than a thousand soldiers, Pennels said school security is an important consideration and less of a hard sell to budget-conscious taxpayers and other board members after the Sandy Hook massacre.

“Connecticut has made it easier for us to budget for these sorts of things, unfortunately, because I’d rather not spend the money on it. But we’re in a different world,” Pennels said. “And I feel a long time ago we started down the road to get to where we’re at. The foundation for putting these things in were well into the works [before Sandy Hook] and in my opinion we have to do it. We don’t have a choice. We can’t be lax on security. I want to be able to look a parent in the eye and say we did everything we possibly could to provide a safe environment.”

Hanson said he has a similar mission in overseeing the projects. However, he said the new measures aren’t a guarantee nothing bad will happen, especially since the threat could come in a different form other than a school shooter.

“But it’s one of those things. The whole Sandy Hook thing scared me to death,” he said. “My job is to make safe facilities for 3,500 kids and parents. And I’m a parent myself. So, we’re hoping we’re making the right moves to make things more challenging, less inviting and more difficult for someone who wants to do ill.”

Regional School Unit 14 facilities director Bill Hanson stands at the first set of entry doors at Windham High School with a new AIphone intercom system that allows visitors to be buzzed in.New door frames sit on the floor inside the entrance to the Windham High School last week awaiting installation in the revamped front entrance.Standing where a secretary will be seated admitting visitors to the Windham Primary School is Bill Hanson, Regional School Unit 14 facilities director.