COEUR d'ALENE - Buildings, buses and school yards will be significantly more secure in the Coeur d'Alene School District this year.

When children and teachers return to the classrooms on Sept. 3, several components of an ongoing multi-million dollar safety overhaul will be in place. Other measures will be added over the next few months.

Some of the changes will make it a little more difficult to get inside the schools from the outside, and then into the classrooms themselves.

"It's a sad thing that that's the way schools have to think now, but they do," said Wendell Wardell, the district's chief operating officer.

School safety and security was the central focus of a $32.7 million construction bond approved by voters a year ago. In addition to financing remodelling projects at five schools, the bond includes funds for modernization and safety upgrades at all district schools.

Voters approved an additional $1.4 million for security last March. The extra money was tacked onto a maintenance and operations levy following the mass school shooting last December in Newtown, Conn. where 20 students died.

One of the changes that will limit school access in Coeur d'Alene is new fencing around the district's 17 schools.

"We've adjusted our perimeter fencing so that we direct how foot traffic approaches the schools," Wardell said. "Our goal is that foot traffic comes into our schools where we want them to come in, not where they may have been used to coming in."

There are 500 new cameras being installed in schools throughout the district; some cameras will be placed outside the schools as well.

Additional safety measures will be protecting students being transported to and from school. School buses will have new, more reliable digital radios, where they used to have analog.

"The analog leaves some gaps, dead spaces because of terrain. It also has a GPS feature," Wardell said, so district administrators will know where every bus is, all the time.

The buses will now have their numbers painted on top, 3-feet high and wide, so they can be easily identified from above.

All buses will also be outfitted with multiple surveillance cameras. Law enforcement agencies will be able to tap in to the bus surveillance systems, if the district allows them to.

"They can look from the computer in their squad car," Wardell said.

Inside the schools, classroom door locks are being upgraded to allow teachers to secure their rooms from inside the room. Most classroom doors now have key locks facing out into the hallway, so a teacher must go out into the hall, where a dangerous intruder may be, to secure the classroom. If a teacher is unable to safely lock the classroom door, it increases the chance that an intruder may go into the room.

A programmable key card entry system is being installed as well, making it possible for administrators to monitor access into schools from outer doors.

"Controlling access gives us more time to react to a dangerous or bad situation," said Officer Tom Sparks, a school resource officer at Woodland Middle School.

The district now has six full-time SROs stationed at its high schools and middle schools. Levy dollars were used to purchase additional equipment for the district's SROs, armed Coeur d'Alene Police Department officers assigned to the schools. The district has had SROs in the schools for many years, and is now adding more.

An enhanced phone system with video cameras and screens will be in place for teachers and staff when they return to classrooms next month. Callers will be able to see each other while they converse.

Laura Rumpler, the district's communications director, said the phone cameras will help increase security by improving visual recognition among district employees.

"We are going to work even harder to have people get to know all the kids," Rumpler said.

Students and teachers have been becoming more familiar with each other since last year when the district began encouraging teachers to leave their classrooms and go out into the hallways and interact with students during class changes.

The familiarity between students, teachers and staff will make it easier for someone to be able to identify intruders or other potentially dangerous situations.

"Even though we have officers in schools and security is being improved, it really comes down to someone who sees something suspicious taking some action," said Officer Sparks.

Sparks said people shouldn't worry about creating a false alarm or be afraid to challenge someone in a friendly way.

"If you see something, say something," Sparks said.