Mayer hopes board will select consultant March 26
By James McEvoy, Managing Editor
ROBBINSVILLE — School officials are continuing their pursuit of a comprehensive school security audit to address safety throughout the Robbinsville School District.
Bids for security audits were accepted through March 15, according to the school district website.
The move comes months after school officials first discussed the audit in the immediate aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting Dec. 14 that claimed the lives of 20 children and six adults in Newtown, Connecticut.
At a board meeting held just four days after the horrific event, officials explored the possibility of also tightening identification policies and incorporating vestibules into planned renovations at Sharon Elementary and Pond Road Middle schools.
In a phone interview, Superintendent Steve Mayer said he hopes the board will be able to award a contract for the comprehensive security audit at the March 26 board meeting.
”Once we have that work completed we’ll start to allocate resources to follow up on recommendations,” Dr. Mayer said, noting funding has been set aside in the 2013-14 budget, which is also scheduled for formal adoption at the March 26. “No decision has been made at this point to add personnel to our buildings.”
Dr. Mayer said apart from personnel, the audit would address how the district handles visitor access to school buildings — including comparing keyed-entry and swipe-entry systems, how to drill for emergency situations and how property is secured and communications made in the event of an emergency.
”We follow the best practices laid out by the State of New Jersey,” Dr. Mayer said. “But one of the reasons we wanted to have a look from an outside agency is just to sort of see if there’s anything that we’re not seeing that we can do to strengthen security.
”Obviously this I something we take very seriously,” he added. “We’re working hard to make sure our policies and practices and procedures are consistent with the best information that’s available in the field.”
He also lamented that the reality of today’s world necessitates a different perspective.
”A lot of it for us will be shifting our whole culture in the community to not hold the door open for each other,” he said. “Unfortunately, that’s just something that we’re going to have to do, having a tighter system for gaining access to our buildings.”
Dr. Mayer also acknowledged the fiscal implications of addressing district security, but noted capital reserve dollars have already been set aside to address entry systems, one of the more costly security items.
”Obviously personnel is a question, if we need to add personnel that will be something that will be difficult, but obviously we’re going to do our best to try to follow the recommendations,” he added. “We do have some dollars included in the budget for security purposes.”

