Family concerned with lack of security measures at local high school following threat

HOLLADAY, Utah — J.C. and Megan McKissen’s daughter returned to school on Wednesday after being the victim of a serious threat late last week.

“The threat was he was going to shoot her in the face,” said Megan McKissen. “The day before we had gone to her orthodontic appointment to get fitted for braces and those were teeth that we might not have had if the police department hadn’t done their job and they were amazing.”

The person who made the threat was not a student at Olympus High School. According to the Granite School District, they are in a secure facility and there is no threat to anyone else at the school. The student who was threatened now has a staff member accompanying them from class to class.

However, when the McKissen’s dropped off their daughter on Wednesday morning, they didn’t feel like any security changes had taken place since their own incident and discussions with the Granite School District. J.C. decided to walk into the school and film his experience.

“I walked through the front door, I walked past the main offices, into the cafeteria, into the gym, down the hallway, out one door, through another door, went upstairs, walked to the doorway of a classroom at one point and I was never stopped, I was never questioned, I was never asked what I was doing there,” said J.C. McKissen. “We can get into classrooms, all the way to students, into the cafeteria without anyone stopping you they have a policy of that but it’s not enforced.”

In doing so, McKissen walked past ‘Safety Policy Signage’ and opened the front door of the school, before making his rounds and walking home.

“Just lock the schools,” said McKissen. “I grew up in Utah, I understand there’s a lot of really good kids here, it’s a safe place, it’s hard to imagine something bad happening but it can happen."

"It only takes one,” he said.

“My high school had locked doors in 1995,” echoes Megan McKissen. “It is 2022, that is insane, like it is beyond insane.”

Ben Horsley with the Granite School District spoke to the McKissen’s about the incident and their safety concerns.

“As a father of five children, I can fully empathize with this fathers concerns,” said Horsley. “I feel confident sending my own children to this school location we’re doing everything in our power to secure this campus and all of our campuses throughout Granite district, that being said, is there more that can be done, absolutely.”

Horsley says that the Granite School District superintendent sent out a district-wide video to staff members about security protocols on Tuesday. While feeling like no staff members said anything to McKissen as he walked around the school because he was well known to people at the school. However, he acknowledged the staff members should have escorted him back to the front office for a visitor badge, because he didn’t have one; but no one did.

“We can’t have our schools act like prisons, kids don’t want to come to a prison to be educated but we do need to take reasonable and meaningful approaches to security,” said Horsley, who recommends students use the SAFE-UT App to report suspicious or potentially alarming activity.

The McKissen’s are asking for more security members to be put in place, such as more locked doors and video doorbell systems.

“We do have limitations in terms of funding,” said Horsley, who says the district has finite resources and is doing all they can with the money that they have to spent. “We are a taxpayer funded entity we have to ask our taxpayers to fund those types of increases if the commitment from our community is we can get these projects done faster.”

On behalf of the Granite School District, Ben Horsley also shared a statement about the situation:

With respect to the security of the Olympus High facility. Exterior doors are secured after every class change and after lunch. Two sets of doors are open throughout the day and adult supervision of those entry points has been provided in the past and will be reassessed. During transitions, we have several hundred students who come from off campus learning sites including the LDS Seminary program across the street.  

As a school and district, we continually assess and evaluate how to ensure the security of all facilities including the use of secure vestibules. At the current time, Granite has funded and built secure entries at 57 of our elementary schools with the average cost of over a million dollars for each project. We have the 7 remaining campuses under construction at the current time. Additionally, we are working to install doorbell systems at our junior high locations so those doors can remain locked at all times. We share his concerns with respect to getting these projects completed as soon as possible and have worked diligently within the funding constraints we have to do so.   

Just yesterday, our superintendent reminded our staff districtwide in his snapshot videos about our security protocols in this video:

The issue of open high school campuses is a statewide issue and concern and is not unique to Granite District or Olympus High. We have a district level committee that meets several times monthly in an ongoing effort to evaluate security and opportunities to enhance our facilities. Specifically, we regularly address and work to identify funding mechanisms to secure our campuses. This committee is currently in the process of evaluating weapons detection systems. From the patron's video, it’s obvious that students can go out multiple doors and could theoretically let someone in which is what occurred in the video. Having multiple doors for exiting is required to vacate/exit a campus in any emergency. 

We share this patron’s concerns and our ongoing efforts demonstrate a commitment to safety for all of our students and staff and we will continue to work towards that end. It was conveyed to him that the district will do everything in its power to ensure his child’s safety and the safety of all students and staff.