School District Loses Second Master Key In A Week

Oct. 27, 2011
Cost of re-keying the campus estimated at $15,000 to $20,000

Oct. 27--LODI,CA -- Less than a week after a master key was reported missing at Bear Creek High School -- costing Lodi Unified School District between $15,000 and $20,000 to re-key the campus -- district officials said they were stunned this week to learn that an expensive key also has been lost at Delta Sierra Middle School.

The second lost key in a week, combined with a master key lost in 2010 at Bear Creek, prompted school officials to meet Wednesday to review which employees have master keys, and to create a uniform district policy and procedure for how to take better care of them.

"I have given direction to have a report by Friday, and for it to be presented to the board (of trustees) at our meeting next week," board President George Neely said. "Why do so many people have master keys? This is getting out of hand."

Art Hand, assistant superintendent of Facilities and Planning, said the lost Delta Sierra key is not a grand master key, but can open multiple doors at the middle school. It won't be as expensive to re-key Delta Sierra as Bear Creek where a grand master key was lost. It will still cost several thousand dollars.

"I'd say conservatively it will be less than $5,000 at Delta Sierra," Hand said.

Hand said keys will get lost in a large organization such as Lodi Unified that has 3,500 employees working at 50 school sites.

"Typically we will lose an average of three or four a year. Out of 3,000-plus employees. that's really not bad," he said. "We budget for that and spend anywhere between $10,000 and $20,000 a year max to fix it."

With the public exposure brought by three lost keys at the two north Stockton schools that will cost close to $35,000 during a budget crunch, school officials are cracking down.

Superintendent Cathy Nichols-Washer said in a staff email Monday that a teacher at Delta Sierra left her key, which can open several doors at the middle school, in a bag of school supplies in her car. The bag was missing on Monday.

In October 2010, former Bear Creek Principal Daryl Camp lost his master key during a trip out of town for education meetings. This month, the district said a campus supervisor reported a grand master key missing.

Neely said one idea would be to get lock boxes with a combination code at each school site, with a sign-in sheet for employees who need access to a master.

"Now, that's just an idea. We might have a different plan," he said. "We're going to look at who has keys and if they need them. If they need a master key, I don't see why they need to take them home."

Hand said the district does not have an on-call locksmith. With each case, the district goes through an informal bidding process. "Lowest price gets the job," he said.

The money for re-keying comes out of the district's routine maintenance fund.

Contact reporter Keith Reid at (209) 546-8257 or [email protected]. Visit his blog at recordnet.com/lodiblog.

Copyright 2011 - The Record, Stockton, Calif.