The Newtown, Conn., school shootings are having a ripple effect right here in Mercer County.
Trenton Police officer Bethesda Stokes, right, was back at her job as resource officer at Trenton Central High School in April. Her position is being funded through a Safe Schools grant. Michael Mancuso/The Times To purchase this and other photos, visit http://TimesofTrenton.zenfolio.com
Robbinsville school officials plan to meet with local police to discuss the merits of adding armed guards to their buildings; and Ewing public schools have already increased perimeter supervision and door checks in all of their buildings. Tomorrow, school officials from throughout the state will meet in Ewing at The College of New Jersey to discuss school security.
“You can’t be secure through guns and guards. What creates security is caring — caring and attentiveness,” said Trenton school board President Toby Sanders.
Though Robbinsville Superintendent Steven Mayer stressed that no decision has been made about adding armed guards to its schools, he said the school board will not rule out the possibility. However, any changes would not go into effect until the next school year, he said.
“We’re being as responsible as we possibly can and we’re being methodical,” Robbinsville school board President Mike Reca said. “We will get the community’s input as to what they feel, what their approach is, and where their heads are at in terms of what they want to do for their kids.”
The problem with trying to make changes to security during the school year is that there isn’t much surplus in the budget to use for things like hiring guards or installing security cameras, said Frank Belluscio, communications director of the New Jersey School Boards Association. There is a 2 percent cap on tax levy increases that districts must abide by each year, and they are not allowed to retain large amounts of surplus money, he noted.
POLICE EXPERTISE
Meetings with the local police departments are the easiest and cheapest way for school administrators to asses a building’s security, said Raymond Hayducka, president of the New Jersey State Association of Chiefs of Police and the South Brunswick Township police chief. He said school districts and local police are required by law to meet several times a year to discuss security.
Police and school officials can walk through buildings together to asses the safety issues, Hayducka said. He also said the most basic security measure a school can take is to lock the doors.
Sanders said that some buildings in the Trenton schools have faulty doors and those are being repaired.
But some districts, such as Robbinsville, have taken locking doors to the next level. Mayer said the local high school now has an “air-locked lobby” that requires visitors to be buzzed through two sets of doors. This same door locking system will be added to the middle and elementary schools next fall, Mayer said.
Federal funding used to be available for school districts to add armed guards to school buildings, but that funding was cut several years ago. In Trenton, those expenses are not optional, Sanders said.
“The thing to remember is that because we are Trenton, an urban district, we spend twice the amount of money on security that average school districts spend,” he said.
Sanders said that the elementary schools in Trenton already have three security guards, the middle schools have hand-held wand metal detectors, and the high school has a walk-through metal detector.
