Codey mandates schools adopt security measures

Security audits,

terrorism training on agenda for educators

BY LAYLI WHYTE

Staff Writer

Local schools will have new security procedures in place by the start of the next school year, as a result of an initiative from acting Gov. Richard Codey’s office.

Codey launched a statewide school security pilot program on Feb. 1 that is currently being developed in three north Jersey schools.

According to a spokeswoman for the governor’s office, the program will be set to run in all New Jersey schools by the beginning of the 2005-06 school year.

The program will include a comprehensive school security checklist which will provide specific guidelines for school safety, security audits of each school, security courses for school personnel, and inspection of school construction and maintenance activities.

The checklist is currently being developed in a collaboration between the New Jersey Domestic Security Preparation Task Force, the Department of Education and the Attorney General’s Office, according to Roger Shatzkin, spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office.

Security audits will be conducted by a combination of law enforcement departments, including the state police and local police.

“The audits will be conducted by law enforcement officers with a background or training in vulnerability assessment,” said Shatzkin.

Terrorism training courses required for all school personnel will consist of basic awareness, such as looking for signs that the school is being “cased” and keeping track of students, he said.

“We’re not going to reinvent the wheel,” he said. “Teachers routinely look out for this kind of stuff anyway.”

As far as the construction site inspections go, Shatzkin said that bomb-sniffing dogs may be employed in some cases, but that even the plans for some school construction projects may change, because they would leave the building vulnerable.

Rutgers University in New Brunswick will also host a school security summit in the spring to bring ideas from across the state and the country together to keep schools more secure.

Although these regulations would apply to both private and public schools, Shatzkin said schools at the college and university levels are working on parallel security issues.

West Paterson will be used as a “model school,” according to the press release, and will benefit from $100,000 in federal homeland security funding provided to New Jersey.

Shatzkin said that Codey is hoping to receive federal funding for every school, but that is yet to be determined.

“It’s premature to talk about funding,” he said. “Some of these technologies are economically cost effective.”

Monmouth County Superintendent of Schools Eugenia E. Lawson said the program is in the preliminary stages, but she is concerned about where the funding would come from.

Lawson met with officials from the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office and the New Jersey State Police Department on Monday to discuss how to make the schools more secure.

“There’s all these mandates and no money,” she said. “It’s fine to have a checklist, but if at the end of the day, you find out you’re not compliant, how will you pay?”

Lawson said the county has already boosted school security following the revelation last fall that a CD found on a dead Iraqi civilian in Baghdad contained information about Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School along with several other schools throughout the country.

“We’ve already taken measures after the situation in Rumson,” she said.

Rumson- Fair Haven superintendent Dr. Robert Smith said that Lawson told him about the new security proposal at a meeting of superintendents from around the county last week.

“We don’t really know anything yet,” he said. “In general, I welcome the advice of experts.”

Smith said that he shares Lawson’s concerns about schools receiving another unfunded mandate from the state.

“Modifying the budget so we can fund any adjustments necessary becomes a concern,” he said. “Chances are we’ll have to do it and take the funding out of our taxpayers’ money.”

Red Bank Regional High School Superintendent Dr. Edward Westervelt said that he agrees that funding of the program is a priority in how he thinks about it.

“The state on the one hand is saying, ‘You’re spending too much,’ but on the other hand saying that school security is a priority,” said Westervelt in an interview on Tuesday.

Westervelt said that RBR has taken steps over the past three years to boost security, but will still require funding to upgrade its “antiquated” video surveillance system to something more technologically advanced.

Shatzkin said that some schools may save money if they have to pay for fewer security guards while adding more security technologies, such as smart security cameras.

The cameras are linked to computers that can be programmed to distinguish between normal and abnormal school activity.

“For instance,” said Shatzkin, “if these cameras were to be used in a mall and the computer recognizes a package sitting in one spot for a predetermined amount of time, it would alert security personnel to check out the package.”

He said this technology can also be used to count how many people go in and out of a building. If a teacher brings 25 students out to recess, and returns with only 24, the computer will alert the staff.

If the same teacher comes back into the school with one extra student, then an alert will also be sent out.

Smith said that he doesn’t believe that, had the measures been in place when the CD was found in Iraq, the concerns of students’ parents would have been less.

He said that as the world changes, as different events unfold, schools will have to keep up.

Although he said the school has had to limit its former “open door” policy to the community, Smith believes parents feel their children are safer.

“Schools will be more secure,” he said. “Less accessible, but more secure.”