By Erin Delmore
Correspondent
“In many cases, there’s no one person that’s designated to be in charge of security in schools in New Jersey,” said Jefferson Township Police Chief Kevin Craig.
Craig and Lt. Patrick Kissane were appointed by Gov. Chris Christie to a task force on school security after the 2012 Newtown massacre. One of their recommendations: having a specially-trained police officer in every school.
“We don’t want to see police officers going into school handcuffing kids. We want to see police officers going into schools and being a resource between the police department and the school in other child advocate agencies and programs,” said New Jersey Association of School Resource Officers Executive Director Kissane, who is also a lieutenant with the Fort Lee Police Department.
When you hear “school security,” you probably think of kids bringing guns to school. But the officers say that’s rare, and that police in schools can contribute in other ways.
“Officers can be involved in crisis planning, they can be involved in training, defensive driving, sexting, cyber safety, you name it,” Craig said.
“We have suicides, we have bullying, we have violence, we have gangs, we have drugs, we have cuttings, all of these issues that children do in a building. Well, why don’t we want to put a police officer?” Kissane asked.
The task force recommends putting a sworn law enforcement officer in every school, but stops short of mandating it, largely because it’s pretty expensive. Some schools already have dedicated police called school resource officers. They go through 40 hours of training on things like assessing threatening behavior, conducting searches, mentoring and writing lesson plans.
Bryan Murphy is headed to Brick Township High school and Brick Township Memorial.
“What’s going on with the prescription medication and heroin, it’d be great to not only get the ability to show the kids and the public that we’re people too, but to show them this is what we’re seeing, even in this suburban area,” Murphy said.
While people are largely in favor, there are strong feelings on both sides.
“The kids would be a lot safer, you now, with everything that’s been going on,” said Elizabeth resident Zuri McCall.
“I think it’s a bit much,” said Guy Garofano of Lincoln Park.
“I think it’s good for safety of the kids,” said Irvington resident Sherwin Wilson.
“I think any type of monitoring is bad,” said Farhan Ansari of Iselin.
The task force also recommends students and teachers wear ID cards at all times, check visitors’ names against the sex offender database, and consider installing panic alarms. It also gives guidelines for school design and layout.
The officers we spoke with say there’s no “one-size-fits-all” approach to school safety, and that it should be a collaboration between law enforcement and educators, district by district.