School safety investigation: Moberly, Eldon and New Bloomfield districts

MOBERLY. Mo. (KMIZ)

ABC 17 News asked for 41 Mid-Missouri school districts' security plans, maintenance records and expenses ahead of the 2022-2023 school year.

Among them is the Moberly School District which had 2,215 students enrolled last school year.

Maintenance records from last school year showed the following:

• 11 outside doors not closing/locking properly
• Seven classroom door locks broken
• Three reports of front door locking system not working properly

All three requests for the front door system were fixed on the same day and the other door and lock requests were fixed between one and four days, but most of them were fixed in one day. 

Security upgrade expense records from 2017 to 2022 showed the following:

• 2017-2022 total purchases: $435,398.38
• Secure entry doors and hardware: $41,300
• Aluminum doors and glass replacement: $41,705

Moberly's school district also installed around 40 door handles inside classrooms this summer and teachers requested that these door handles be able to shut quickly in an emergency.

The district did not provide its lockdown policy, citing exemptions to open records laws. Other emergency policies showed the following:

• One intruder drill every semester
• Intruder drills are led by police
• The district will monitor a list of people with school access
• The district will identify shelter in-place for up to 72 hours

Eldon School District

The Eldon School District had 1,872 students enrolled last school year. The district did not provide its lockdown policy or locked classroom door policy, citing open records law exemptions.

The district did provide a record of security expenses from 2017 to 2023:

• 2017-2021: $336,221.62 spent on a lighting project, fire alarm, communications radios and a new intercom
• 2021-22: $48,110.64 spent on cameras and a phone/bell commander
• 2022-23 budgeted: $136,807 for lighting and cameras

The district also provided certain details about its safety plan:

• Number of lockdowns 2021-22: 0
• No locked door inspections recorded
• No system for keeping maintenance records
• Intruder drills led by police

New Bloomfield R-III

New Bloomfield had 704 students enrolled last school year and did not provide ABC 17 News with maintenance records or its lockdown policy, citing open records law exemptions.

The district did provide details of its past security expenses, including those related to having police in schools:

• 2018-19: SRO program: $31,636.14
• 2018-19 other security expenses: $1,223.66
• 2019-20 SRO program: $28,498.08
• 2019-20 other security expenses: $20,842.65

ABC 17 received security documents and responses from more than 15 school districts and will release the details on more districts' safety plans every day this week.