Safety a ‘district priority’ in Lawrence schools

The district has increased safety precautions at all its schools in recent years.

By: Lea Kahn
   Last month, in Bailey, Colo., a man walked into a high school and took six girls hostage. As a police SWAT team entered the classroom, the gunman fatally shot one of his hostages and then killed himself.
   On the heels of that incident, another man walked into a one-room schoolhouse in the Amish community of Nickel Mines, Pa., on Oct. 2, took 10 girls hostage and opened fire on them, killing five. He, too, turned the gun on himself.
   While it may not be possible to prevent such incidents, Lawrence Township school district officials have been striving to make its seven schools as safe as possible to insure similar incidents never happen here.
   Renovations started after the district’s voter approved $37.2 million bond referendum in December 2002. Many of the new security measures grew out of fear of post-Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, said Lana Mueller, operations manager in the school superintendent’s office. For example, bollards — large red pillars blocking roadways — have been placed close to the school buildings in an effort to keep cars away from certain areas.
   Locks were changed on the main doors to the school buildings, and locks were installed on every classroom door, Ms. Mueller said. Every classroom now has a telephone, replacing the previously used intercom system.
   The entrances to the Lawrenceville and Ben Franklin elementary schools have been reconfigured so the main office staff can see who is at the door, Ms. Mueller said. The two schools underwent extensive remodeling and renovations in connection with the bond referendum.
   "It has been steady," Ms. Mueller said of the new security measures. "We have been building on this for a long time. Safety has been a district priority."
   School Business Administrator Thomas Eldridge said cameras have been installed outside the entrances to the schools, which allow the office secretaries to view visitors. To get inside, visitors must buzz the main office at each school and wait for a secretary to let them in. Visitors must sign in at the main office before a visitor’s pass is issued to them.
   Staff members wear identification cards with their photographs that also allow them to get inside the building. The identification cards are programmed to work with the new locks on the main doors, Mr. Eldridge said.
   Each school has been issued two-way radios so staff can communicate throughout the district, he said. Cell phones also have been issued to each school for more secure transmissions than that offered by the two-way radios, he added.
   During the summer, school district officials met regularly to craft an emergency preparedness plan, with each school conducting evacuation and lock-down drills, Mr. Eldridge said.
   An evacuation might be the result of a bomb threat, such as the one that occurred at Lawrence High School in March, he said. Students in that incident were evacuated to the New Jersey Army National Guard Armory on Eggerts Crossing Road.
   Students could be shifted to facilities at Rider University, The Lawrenceville School or The College of New Jersey in nearby Ewing Township, Mr. Eldridge said. The district has worked out an arrangement with its busing contractors to provide buses quickly for transportation purposes, he added.
   Ms. Mueller noted if an incident were to occur, parents could be alerted through a posting on the district’s Web site, www.ltps.org, where parents and other concerned individuals can sign up for "Quicknews," which provides up-to-the-minute notifications.
   School district officials have met with Chief of Police Daniel Posluzsny and Emergency Management Coordinator Dale Robbins, Mr. Eldridge said.
   Mr. Eldridge added that police officers have been assigned since the late 1990s as school resource officers to the Lawrence Intermediate School, Lawrence Middle School and Lawrence High School and provide an added measure of security. A police presence — officers in uniform — is always helpful, he said.
   The school district also employs eight security guards — two at the middle school and six at the high school — in addition to the SROs, Mr. Eldridge said. Several of the security guards are retired police officers.
   "I think the most important thing we can do is to be alert to anything out of the ordinary and use our security people as effectively as possible," Mr. Eldridge said. "At every intersection at the high school, there is someone who can see up and down the corridors. Those people are not shy about a confrontation with people who don’t belong in our schools."