GULF SHORES, Ala. — With school security brought to the forefront by recent events, both cities on Pleasure Island are taking steps to try and improve safety at the schools here.

Orange Beach has instituted a new “panic button” system that is getting national attention and in Gulf Shores the council is exploring clearing a tree line that is close to the education complex.

In Gulf shores, the high school, middle school and elementary school are all located in a rectangle of land framed by East Second Street, East 20th Avenue, Dolphin Way and East 15th Avenue.

Public Works Director Mark Acreman has been working with Gulf Shores Police on ways the city can help make the area more secure.

“If you are familiar with the campuses there is a contiguous tree line that comes right up to the property line, in some instances as close as 50 feet from the buildings themselves,” Acreman said. “There’s about 2,500 linear feet and we’d like to clear back all the underbrush in the first 100 feet of that tree line.”

Mayor Robert Craft and the council told Acreman to check into the possibility of hiring a contractor for the work.

“We’re looking at a price range of anywhere from $6,000 to $10,000,” Acreman said. “It’s not been budgeted, but this is has been a direct result from some of the improvements the police department has been looking at there. I just wanted to see if we have any support to pursue it further and actually get some hard quotes and bring that back for your consideration.”

Acreman said Baldwin County Schools would likely have to approve the work as well since it is on school board property.

Over in Orange Beach, Mayor Tony Kennon said the city has received some attention for measures it implemented in the wake of Newtown, Conn., shootings.

“We were mentioned in USAToday for doing this for our school,” he said. “We also had a call from Sandy Hooks, the principal there, the site of that terrible tragedy who wanted to know what we were doing and they want to look at it for their school.”

In December, Orange Beach voted to spend $15,000 to help with security at the school. Also a police officer has been present during school since the Connecticut shootings.

On Feb. 19 Police Chief Billy Wilkins gave an update on upgrades at the Elementary School, mainly improvements to the camera system and service for the system.

“This is a proposed service agreement for the system that we’ve already installed,” Wilkins said. “It’s patterned after the service agreement that we have in place with the same company for the equipment at the jail. It covers everything, the replacement of all the equipment if it goes bad.”

The system that was in place suffered because of a lack of service, Wilkins said, and this agreement will keep the cameras in working order. It will cost the city $500 a month and comes with a four-year contract.

“It was what was lacking with the equipment that had been installed by the school board or PTA, whoever previously installed the cameras before,” he said. “They did not have a service agreement and that’s why it was in such bad shape.

“If we’re going to maintain what we pay for we need to have a service agreement. It has three-hour response time for emergency situations, six-hour response for non-emergencies including replacing all the equipment and making sure it works.”

The upgrade not has all the cameras in working order again and the service contract also covers keeping the panic button system in operating order. Wilkins said about $10,000 of the appropriated money has been spent and he has plans for the remaining money as well.

“We have finished upgrading the cameras back to the state that they were plus more capabilities and the panic buttons,” he said. “It was around $10,000 for what we’ve done. We have about $5,000 worth of upgrades that we still want to accomplish on the cameras and it looks like we might come in about $300 over the amount that you approved. We still have a little bit to be done with that $15,000.”

When that’s completed, phase one of the effort to make the school more secure will be done. Kennon says trial runs have already been successful.

“Phase one is the electronics, the buttons and the cameras,” he said. “We’ve had two trial runs and had a police officer on site in under two minutes along with the police officer that’s already on site.”

Soon attention will turn to making the building and grounds more secure.

“Phase two, the fortification phase, is where we’re going to look at fortifying all the entrances and windows in some sort of cost-effective fashion so that hopefully reduce the possibility that someone could blast their way in the front door,” Kennon said. “We’re going to start looking at the over the next few weeks and come up with a price.”