MULVANE, Kan. (AP) - Some parents in south-central Kansas are worried that allowing senior citizens to use a new walking track while classes are in session opens a safety loophole they say should be unacceptable after school massacres at Columbine and Sandy Hook.
The new walking track and fitness studios at Mulvane Grade School were completed last month as part of a $13.4 million bond issue voters approved in 2012 to construct a new gym, classroom areas and other facilities in a building connected by a corridor to the school.
The walking track and fitness studios are leased by the Mulvane Recreation Commission. Their entrances are separate from the school and staffed by recreation commission employees. Members do not have access to the gym or other parts of the school during the school day.
Only residents 55 or older are allowed to use the walking track - which overlooks the gymnasium - during school hours. Recreation director Tricia Human said 41 seniors have used the facility through Tuesday, with about 17 walkers using it each day. Their average age is 77.
Several also attend fitness classes during school hours. Their average ages were generally in the 60s, Human said.
A few hundred people showed up Thursday at a special school board meeting in the gym to discuss concerns about the walkers.
“This is 2014. This is post-Columbine. This is post Sandy Hook,” said Jeff Parker, whose daughter is a student at the school. “These are our children. Their safety is No. 1. When my wife drops her (our daughter) off in the morning, we are putting trust in you guys that she will be safe when she’s here.”
Other parents said they weren’t told during the campaign to pass the bond issue that the public would be allowed to use the track during school hours.
But school district spokesman Tom Keil said it was made clear during nearly a year of discussions and meetings leading up to the vote that the grade school gym, track and fitness studios would be a “shared facility.”
Some of the senior citizens who use the track told the school board there is no problem and the building should remain open to them.
“I don’t feel like my granddaughter is in danger because I don’t feel like it’s our senior citizens who are up there watching our kids,” Shirley Knuth said.
Monica Cross, who has three elementary-age children in Mulvane, urged board members to reconsider their lease agreement with the recreation commission and stop allowing access to the new facilities during school hours.
“There could be pedophiles, sexual predators, shooters - I mean, look at Sandy Hook,” she said, referring to a mass shooting at a school in Newtown, Conn., in December 2012.
School Board president Steve Fry said the board plans to discuss concerns during an executive session Monday, and he expects a decision within a few weeks about whether to continue allowing seniors to use the track during school hours.
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Information from: The Wichita (Kan.) Eagle, https://www.kansas.com
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