Coach finds key, saving LUSD $15K to $20K

Oct. 31, 2011

Oct. 29--STOCKTON -- A missing master key to Bear Creek High School has been found, school officials said, saving the district a $15,000 to $20,000 cost to re-key the north Stockton campus.

The district has been stunned the past two weeks by the reported loss of two expensive keys -- one at Bear Creek and another at Delta Sierra Middle School.

On Thursday, the Bear Creek key was turned in by varsity football coach Reggie Camp, who had found them on Oct. 7, the day before the school went on a two-week fall break, in a golf cart that is used by campus security and coaches on campus.

"I found them and locked them in my file cabinet. I didn't know whose they were," Camp said. "Then, I simply forgot about them."

Camp said his wife was reading a news report about the lost key, and that shook his memory.

"I thought, 'Oh no, those might be the keys,' " he said.

The master key was on a ring with two other keys, one that opens one room, and one that opens a gate, Assistant Superintendent of Facilities and Maintenance Art Hand said.

Hand said the keys were originally lost by a campus supervisor.

District officials expressed relief the key was found. Hand said he had just started the bidding process to hire a locksmith to rekey Bear Creek, an estimated cost of $15,000 to $20,000.

Hand said the district, which has 3,500 employees in Lodi and north Stockton, loses three or four keys a year on average.

When Bear Creek's master key was reported missing last week, however, it was the second time in 12 months at that school, and has prompted district officials to revise the district's key policy and review who has master keys and why. Less than a week after this reported key loss, a Delta Sierra Middle School teacher reported a key was stolen along with a bag of other school supplies from her car. Losing that key will cost $3,000 to $5,000 to replace, Hand said.

Trustee President George Neely said the return of Bear Creek's key does not fix the problem.

"We still need a new policy on how to care for those keys," he said.

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

Copyright 2011 - The Record, Stockton, Calif.