Upgrades in school security planned

As published in the Record Journal Saturday January 19, 2013

By Eric Vo
Record-Journal staff
(203) 317-2235
evo@record-journal.com 
Twitter: @ericvoRJ

WALLINGFORD — School Superintendent Salvatore Menzo informed parents earlier this week of the district’s plan to upgrade security. In a letter sent home to parents, Menzo said the plan was developed using input from a group of parents with backgrounds in security and law enforcement, as well as research by officials on ways to improve what the district already had in place.

Several changes were mentioned, including a recommendation to parents that they call the school before visiting for any reason so that front office staff are expecting them. Menzo said he understands that parents at first may forget to make the call. Though that won’t prevent them from entering the building, he does want them to at least try to give some notice in advance.

“It’s more of a courtesy call,” he said. “The more that they can be conscious of that recommendation, the better.”

Other revisions are ongoing, the letter said, and will be reviewed by the police and fire departments before being put in place, and then staff and students will be trained. Identification badges will be given to all staff, key pads installed in each building security system to provide a second layer of access control, shades installed on all classroom windows and cellular telephone repeaters added to increase communications access.

On Monday, the Board of Education approved the use of $201,000 from unencumbered funds for security matters. That money will be used to update building intercom systems in schools that currently do not allow teachers access to a telephone line, Menzo said. Once the upgrade is finished, each school will be operating on the same level in terms of security, Board of Education Chairwoman Roxane McKay said. Giving teachers access to the phone line will make “teachers feel like they have a better level of security and better control of their classroom,” McKay said.

“One of the things that we are constantly trying to do is making sure all our schools are operating on the same level,” McKay said. “The board felt pretty comfortable in making that decision, and now it’ll be a consistent system offered in all our schools.”

In Menzo’s proposed budget for the 2013-14 school year, $635,685 would go toward security upgrades, access control — or keeping the perimeter safe — and communication upgrades. Menzo said the board has already committed to a number of security enhancements, but wouldn’t specifically say what was being done outside of the things outlined in the letter to parents.