Update: South Orange Village President Sheena Collum reports that the South Orange PD did not receive the COPS grant that it applied for to cover the cost of a school resource officer for South Orange Middle School. Maplewood has not yet received response regarding its COPS grant application.
South Orange and Maplewood middle schools will each be receiving one security guard in the immediate future, according to Superintendent of Schools Dr. John Ramos.
“In our continuing efforts to provide real time security, we are adding a security guard to each middle school. This is being done immediately,” Ramos stated in his monthly report to the South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education on Monday night.
Ramos said that the guards would not be armed and were necessary at this time “because I noticed a particular security vulnerability at the middle schools that required immediate attention. I really don’t want to say more than that publicly.”
District spokeswoman Suzanne Turner explained later in an email that the security guards are different than the school resource officers previously discussed by the Board of Education and town leaders in South Orange and Maplewood, which have both applied for COPS grants to pay for the officers. The towns applied for the grants after an incident at Maplewood Middle School in June when a student brought a loaded handgun to school.
“The towns have not yet gotten confirmation about the COPS grants, and these are unarmed private security guards (similar to those at CHS), not SROs (armed police officers),” wrote Turner. “We are still consulting with the towns about the SROs and are open to this possibility in the future. Dr. Ramos felt that there was an immediate need to have security guards in the middle schools that could not wait until the question of SROs is resolved.”
(On Tuesday, Oct. 20, South Orange Village President Sheena Collum confirmed that the South Orange Police Department did not receive the COPS grant that it applied for to cover the cost of a school resource officer for South Orange Middle School. “We did not get the grant and I’ll be reporting more at the next Board of Trustees meeting,” wrote Collum in an email. Maplewood Public Safety Committee liaison and Committeeman Marlon K. Brownlee wrote in an email on Tuesday, “My understanding is that as of this writing, Maplewood has not heard a decision yet re: whether we have received the grant. for an update on the Maplewood COPS grant application.”)
At the Board of Education meeting, Ramos noted that district administrative staff will be meeting with the middle school principals on Friday, October 23 “to map out exactly what, how, and where the security guards will perform.” Said Ramos, “The schools will have to take responsibility to communicate to their particular communities about the new presence of the security guards and the reason for it.”
In addition, Ramos reported that he and district staff are “very methodically looking at each school.” He noted that the district had just completed wiring on the second set of doors at Marshall School. “Either tomorrow or in the immediate future” visitors will be buzzed through two doors at Marshall, said Ramos. “Every school is being looked at very closely. In the case of the middle schools, it was not a matter of the equipment.”
Board member Stephanie Lawson-Muhammad asked if similar door structures would be built in the middle schools.
Ramos replied, “Not yet,” explaining that architects had not yet been able to suggest a sufficient structure.
Lawson-Muhammad was concerned “that the security guards have a temperament with the students that is respectful.”
“Absolutely,” replied Ramos. “The principals and I will be doing it personally to make sure.”
Board First Vice President Madhu Pai asked if the Board would be presented with a comprehensive report on the security audit and updates, noting that there was “an incident” at Marshall School in spring 2014 when the Board thought the first set of doors would be operational and they were not. “It’s important for us to know also when this has been done,” said Pai.
Board member Elizabeth Baker asked if Ramos was reviewing and monitoring state standards and best practices and said she was also “very concerned about training, not just the minimum, but training as to how to interact in an educational environment.”
Ramos assured Board members that he would deliver a report, and “with that report will come some of the accolades from around the state for the work we are doing.”
However, Ramos noted that security would be an ongoing effort: “Unfortunately in the environment we are in, it’s never enough.”
