District schools will be closed on Election Day

Superintendent says safety is concern following receipt of threatening letter.

By: Dick Brinster
   The East Windsor Regional schools will be closed on Election Day as a security precaution in the wake of a letter received last week threatening deadly violence similar to that which occurred at a Pennsylvania school last month.
   Five district schools serve as polling sites, where voting will take place from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday.
   Schools Superintendent Ron Bolandi, in a message to parents posted on the district’s Web site, said safety was a major concern because of the letter that read, "We are going to take a walk through one of your elementary schools. It’s going to be Amish School House Week."
   That was a reference to five children being slain last month by a gunman who then killed himself in a one-room school near Lancaster, Pa.
   The letter was sent to the township Municipal Court staff, the Windsor-Hights Herald and The Times of Trenton. Similar letters threatened others school districts in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
   Mr. Bolandi said all six schools in the district would reopen Wednesday. He said the district had no way of controlling the flow of people entering the schools on Tuesday.
   The Hightstown Borough Web site said security concerns necessitated a change in the voting location at the Walter C. Black School from the general lobby to the gymnasium lobby on the opposite side of the building. Hightstown High School also is used as a voting site by the borough. Polling places in East Windsor Township are located at the Ethel McKnight and Perry L. Drew elementary schools and at the Melvin H. Kreps Middle School.