Transcript: West Windsor-Plainsboro Board of Education Class 3 Police Presentation, May 8, 2018

Speaking:

WW-P School District: David Aderhold, Ed.D., Superintendent; Board Members Rachel Juliana, Louisa Ho, Carol Herts, Yu "Taylor" Zhong, Anthony Fleres

Plainsboro PD: Guy Armour, Chief; Fred Tavener, Lieutenant

West Windsor PD: Mark Lee, Lieutenant; David Jelinsky, Detective

Transcript of Presentation [Slides]

It's my pleasure this evening to be joined by representatives of both Plainsboro and West Windsor Police Departments. To my right, Lieutenant Fred Tavener, the future Chief of Plainsboro Police Department. To my direct right Chief Guy Armour, Plainsboro Police Department, and to my left Lieutenant Mark Lee, from the West Windsor Police Department. Also joining us is Detective Dave Jelinski, right in the front here, from the West Windsor Police Department. So they'll be joining me through [the] presentation, expanding upon some of the slides, providing some additional context. For the members of the public, we've had some previous conversations as a Board around school security. We've also had some conversation and materials went home to families about some of the security practices. This evening we're gonna specifically talk around the concept of Class Three Police Officers. So just to make sure everyone is on the same page of what that definition is, I'll just start with the framing that Class Three Police Officers were written into code under Governor Christie's administration. It was in 2016. This came post Sandy Hook, when there was conversations around, "How do we help schools become safer?" and "what are on a continuum of practices that can be utilized?" One of the challenges was always cost, with respect to SROs or School Resource Officers. So I'm going to use that initial of SRO several times this evening, and the gentlemen up here with me might as well.

So under the provision of the Class Three, otherwise known as SLEO-III, classification on the police side, S-L-E-O three, they must be retired New Jersey law enforcement officers, right. They must have been full-time officers and had a separation of three years, and physically capable performing position and be less than 65 years old. Under this provision, there is a requirement for officers to have 12 months of, within the first 12 months of appointment to be an SRO, or School Resource Officer, trained, and that's a couple day training protocol

It must possess New Jersey police training certification, and so be credentialed. Must have training including HIB incidents, Harassment, Intimidation and Bullying. And the big thing from a cost perspective and one of the things that the code did was, retired officers would be employed essentially at an hourly rate without pension or without health care benefits. Because under the retirement they would have that already provided through the State. So it changed the conversation around from a cost perspective of employment of retired officers in our schools. Additionally, it required you know, because you're now bringing in police officers instead of private security, they then have full police powers. So they have a whole different level of investigation, of responsibilities, of credentials, with respect to how they can address matters on school grounds.

Critical to all this is they serve under the direction of the Chief of Police. Because if there is ever, if you're gonna have someone directing officers and coordination of care on school grounds, you want them to be directly affiliated with the Police Department and not with an independent agency. And they're authorized to carry a firearm. Again, under the permitting authority of the Chief of Police for each municipality. And again I mentioned the last bullet. So we're gonna go through a series of slides. But I'm gonna ask my colleagues up here to jump in and to give some context of some of the work that they've done over time. They've served in different capacities, and Chief Garofalo had a conflict and couldn't be here tonight, but all the upper command structure of our Police Departments, have worked in our schools with our students, in partnership with the School District for years. So I'm gonna ask Chief Armour to talk a little bit about the next slide.

ARMOUR:

Just to give you a little bit of my background and where I come from, in regards to this and this particular topic. I was a former D.A.R.E. officer for ten years. I was actually ran and coordinated the D.A.R.E. program, and I started a lot of the many community policing programs and things that we have in Plainsboro Township now. West Windsor and our department formally had a lot of programs that were together, involve community policing-wide, and then the Townships inevitably got too big and too large for us to do programs together. So now our programs are separate, but we have programs that are very similar in nature. The role of the Class Three officers, I can tell you, it's very similar to some of the things that we do now. They would continue to educate students. Each one of the officers would be certified to teach as a School Resource Officer in the school, teaching. For example we teach the D.A.R.E. program currently in the Millstone River School.

Rather than having to use a uniformed officer currently from our department, we could take that SRO, make them a D.A.R.E. officer, and have the Class 3 officer educate the students in the D.A.R.E. program. We also started a Not Just Once program dealing with opioid abuses in High School North. We could also use the Class Three officers to do those programs as well. So as far as teaching and educating the students and staff, my staff currently participates in numerous school drills. We participate in fire drills. We participate in bomb drills. And we participate in active shooter drills and lockdown drills with all the school administrative staff and Dr. Aderhold.

A lot of this it can be prevent-- used to promote crime prevention, and talk to the kids about crime prevention in schools. And also teaching parents and the community about the kind of community policing things that we do, and how we coordinate our efforts together. Inevitably, being in the school, the officers can have a focus of being informal counselors to the students. One of the things that I found that when I was in the schools, I would frequently have students that would come to me and talk to me about all different sorts of topics, because I was viewed as "Officer Friendly" in the schools.

So inevitably, that relationship building that goes on between the officer that's in the school and the community policing that goes on, is a coordinated effort amongst the staff and, inevitably, the Class Three officer that would be in a school. And the other big thing I think too, on this particular side, is to talk about the Emergency Preparedness and Crisis Intervention that we do on incident management. Having a Class Three officer on the premises also brings an officer that is capable of performing basic first aid, CPR, the use of a defibrillator, and Crisis Management. They would also be a critical part of the school's Crisis Management team as well.

Some of the other core benefits are the increased accessibility between the students, the police, and the schools. Rather than having to call the police, or call us or the individual departments to the schools, you would have a School Resource Officer that is there on the premises during the course of the school day. And in case of High School North, there was talk of having two separate shifts for High School North. The officers can then address problems immediately, rather than potentially having to wait for an officer to actually show up at the school. That officer that would be working in the schools, that Class Three Officer, would be committed to yours-- whatever specific school they are assigned to. They can't be taken from the school by the Police Department to go other-- handle other calls for service. They are only for the school. So it's critical that the officers build relationships with the students, and resources with the teachers and administrators, and we help solve problems together.

The one big thing I wanted to, I want to really get the point across is: our officers spend time in the schools. We do Park, Walk & Talks. We do area checks on a frequent basis. One of the things that I wanted to really get across about the community policing is: our officers, are we would not just be armed guards in the schools. We would be part of the school community, interacting with the students, seeing the students on a daily basis, befriending the students, inevitably becoming a coordinated effort amongst the school community as well. That would inevitably be the goal.

And finally, on this slide of building strategic and multi-agency preventative, working, sharing intelligence and working with other agencies, and having a police presence and profile. By the officer being in that school, each and every day, that there is an immediate deterrent to having a uniform in the school, for a potential, any type of inalienable threat that may enter the school. The officer is there as a resource for the students, for the staff, and anyone else who would seek their advice or their help.

ADERHOLD:

I think it's important to build on what Chief just said. One of the things that is sometimes a concern when talking about inserting police into the schools is: "Do they address disciplinary situations that may occur with a student?" And the answer that is: that's what the administration's role and responsibility is. It doesn't change, and in fact it'd be stressed in our training to both our administrators as well as to Class Three Officers, that the way in which disciplinary matters are addressed with students is through the administration, not through the Police Department. If a concern was to arise, possession of drug paraphernalia, a terroristic threat of some nature, we would follow the exact procedures that we would do now with respect to reporting. The difference is you'd have an officer there on grounds to be able to respond, to address something immediately. It doesn't take out the need, Detective Jelinsky's role and the Juvenile Detectives. They're still ultimately going to be brought into the situation, and be handed over, the fact, sort of the case or the fact pattern to address. So it's an early, it's an intervention form, but the officer themselves is not going to be the be-all decision maker of police involvement. They'll be a conduit in the relationship with the Police Department. So, we, Chief Armour mentioned some of these slides. But I just want to stress-- and I see Lieutenant Lee's going to stress one of them, so I'll pass the mic.

LEE:

When we first started discussing this with Chief Armour, it, actually we were talking about earlier, back in the day when I had dark hair [laughter], and we were actually instructing the students, educating, back, probably 15, at least 15 years ago, and doing many of the community policing things that, as they had a unit, we had a unit, that don't exist anymore. We just-- as the towns grew, and got busier. We had to cut back on some of the things that are very important, and some of the things were school-related. Detective Jelinski is only one person, but it seems like there's ten of him. He is called day and night for all different types of situations. Some of the things that would be able to be handled by one of these School Resource Officers. They're-- the long-term approach with this that Dr. Aderhold is taking on here is so forward-thinking that we absolutely support it. And that combination between two Police Departments and the School District is just, it's lightyears ahead of its time as far as this area goes. So we absolutely support it.

The community policing function always exists. It's not a program. It is something that is a philosophy. And it's carried over from our Chief, Chief Garofalo. I've been doing it for years. Chief here [points to Armour] has been doing it since I can ever remember. I think we started around the same time. And we will continue to do that, many different facets. But the school and our children, really that's the most important thing that we're looking at right now, is developing those relationships, and having that kind of bond with our students. And it can start at a very young age, and then it graduates all the way up through high school. So we see this as a great opportunity for both departments in the school district. Thank you.

ADERHOLD:

So we have just a couple points regarding each of sort of the key roles, and both gentlemen have stressed it. But the idea of police officer as educator, working both with our students or staff, advising on emergency preparedness ... One of the things that some other districts have debated is this concept of private security. And sometimes it's looked at as a cost deterrent, because maybe it doesn't bring with it some of the same benefit requirements, and that changed really under the Class Three. What districts are starting to debate now between is, if you have security, and you're paying benefits, and you're paying can you offer police at a very similar cost point. But they serve some different roles. Within that, emergency communication is a component of it. Private security does not coordinate tactical response, or a coordinated response in the terms of crisis, or coordination of an incident management at the scene. So if we had -- and we have Eyes On The Door, and they serve in a very different role. Think of mall greeters: you know they're there to welcome, they're not, and they may be somewhat of a deterrent, but in the big picture, they don't necessarily turn away a theft from potentially happening in a store. And the same thing as-- things can still happen in schools, no matter what program we put in place here.

But ultimately, the advising and emergency preparedness and crisis management and the coordination is critical. Things are so time-sensitive now when it comes to crisis and security response. And what we know, unfortunately, is that incidents used to be-- Columbine was a forty-minute incident. Virginia Tech was a thirty minute or so incident. Parkland was three minutes, right? This situation that happened in Maryland was thirty seconds, two months, a month and a half ago, right? So the reality is response time on-site is critical.

And now, and if we heard in themes of both presenters, their forces have become -- I'll just say it -- stretched as the community's grown, and the territory's grown, and the amount of shopping and responsibilities has grown. The reality is that there are times when West Windsor's officers -- and you have to look at per shift for how many patrol vehicles are available -- but there's times when Robbinsville's Police Department is closer to a response than a West Windsor officer that might be dealing with a petty theft issue out at Route One, at Target or one of those stores out there.

So having the ability to have personnel on site to assist the school in safety of the staff and the students is to us a critical importance in this modern day and age, where, unfortunately, crime and tragedy that can happen in any community.

Police Officers as Informal Counselors. I've had, served the pleasure of being in two communities where we had SROs or Juvenile Detective stations in the schools, and the amount of relationship building is critical in order to ensure safety. And the amount of information that ultimately gets shared and passed from students to officers that have relationships cannot be undersold. The amount of parties, the amount of potential drug sale or drug arrests, the amount of just tips on new products that kids are talking about, how things are being used, manipulated, sold. Who to be watching, who to be dealing. All that kind of stuff, it happens in every community. So if parents are sitting in the audience or watching on the TV, and shocked that I might be saying some of those things, for us to be here and not acknowledge that West Windsor-Plainsboro is no different than any community with respect that, every community has the potential of drugs, alcohol, drug sale, distribution, weapons, things that stupid-- students do in the community, things that happen on weekends, things that happen in the course of a school day. And for us to say and acknow-- to say that doesn't happen would be lying to this community. And every school community in this nation and the state is susceptible to a potential threat. I've served many different types of communities as an educational leader, and I've seen concerns in all of them, whether inner-city, city or suburban. And again, I just think that we have to be really careful when we look at Parkland, Sandy Hook, Columbine. Those are districts that looked somewhat like a West Windsor-Plainsboro from a socio-economic perspective. So for us to say, or to think, potentially, "Not us, not here, not now," that doesn't necessarily mean that having officers prevents everything from happening, but it's it's one aspect in mitigating risk and providing a safe and secure location for our kids and our staff.

[Advance to slide: Community Policing]

I can't underscore community policing enough. The idea that we build relationships with students, with community, with staff. Now these gentlemen have both shared that there's a good deal of things that happen. And that's true. I've seen Lieutenant and Chief at science fairs on weekends, and come out at evening presentations. But we do not have a physical present during the school day, in the sense that it's a permanent physical presence. We do have Park, Walk, & Talks, right? So the officers stop if they're on patrol. They might walk into the building, say hello. It's something we've encouraged. It's something that, nine years ago when I first arrived, was not encouraged. We've worked very hard to build relationships over the last nine years with the Police Department, so the officers knew that they were welcomed. We've run drills together. We've run drills when we were in Spring Break. We've run, bring the dogs in from the county every summer to go through some of our buildings. We bring tactical squad teams through to look at our facilities. We do tactical drills. I've had the pleasure, or displeasure, to be with a TAC team, with a breach of a classroom, for a patrol officers on the spring break once, where they were shooting off rounds inside the school from a training perspective, no students present. And it's terrifying to think about what that could be like in that scenario. We do that coordinated effort. But on a daily basis officers do the best they can to come by when they can, and when it's available. But, as the officers have shared, that does not mean that there is a consistent presence on our, at our facilities. So some of this would be fulfilling traditional law enforcement roles, with the on-campus calls and emergencies, and addressing trespasser scenarios. We just had a situation in the last week where someone at a park was wearing a ski mask, and it was not on school grounds, but was across the street from school grounds, and it was, you know, we were a step away from lockdown. And it was a community member with a ski mask because they were afraid of a sunburn playing Pokemon Go. You can't make it up, 50-something years old. Across from one of our high schools, with a full-fledged ski mask, camouflage, not seeing the problem with that. But you know that is of concern from a school district perspective. So the idea of just having that threat deterrent on site.

New Jersey SAFE Task Force was back in 2013. And they talked about this idea that SROs perform many functions, and much more than armed security guards. Experience shows that SROs can earn trust among student population, so that students would otherwise be reluctant to call. They would feel comfortable sharing information of suspicious activity before it escalates to violence. To that extent, schools and districts can hire SROs and the State should encourage them to do so. That was right out of the task force report. Now remember, the SRO model was partially funded back, by the Cops In School grant. And the idea of School Resource Officers. So this is different than the traditional SRO in that its Class Three, it's retired, so changes, again, changes that price point, to bring trained veteran officers on grounds. This is not about building your ticket base to prove your worth, to try-- this is about coordination of care and relationships on grounds, for both students, staff, and parents. And so there's plenty of studies out there that point to research to say that SROs or Class Three Officers would deter aggressive behavior. And that includes fights, threats and bullying. And we're very fortunate in our community that the reality of fighting -- and even of threats -- is relatively low in the threshold. But then the question always has to be, you know, "How many is too many? And what's an acceptable number of flights?" And the answer to that: no acceptable number of flights on the school grounds.

So I think it's also important to just show a quote. This is from the president of NASRO, National Association of School Resource Officers. "... school resource officers are properly trained ... police officers from the local jurisdiction that are assigned to the school on a full-time basis ... they're more than ... "let's just put in officer with the gun standing at the door." So this is different than the Eyes On The Door. This is about relationship building throughout the day, throughout the school, in different ways. It can look like everything from an officer reading "Criss-Cross Applesauce" in a kindergarten classroom, to high-fiving the kids getting off the bus, to being out by the playground. The idea is that the officers would have the ability to patrol the grounds, and build relationships, go into classrooms, and be present on school grounds, to respond -- yes to respond -- if something bad was to happen. But it also, to prevent things from being happened. And the preventive aspect can't be underscored, or has to be highlighted here. And I've said, I've served as a school administrator of many districts, and you stay in touch with individuals after you leave, and one of the one such district that I was in had a tragedy prevented, because the student made a report to an SRO, and an arsenal of weapons was found, with the student with a hit list. And it's one of those things that we don't read about later on. But it was the relationship of an SRO on school grounds, in a high school, that built a relationship, that a tip came in, that prevented a tragedy. And it's a district like us.

So you want to integrate the officers into the day. You want to integrate the officers into the safety team. You want to integrate the officer as a member of your faculty, and bring them into the administrative team meetings, and what-not.

The School Security Task Force was part of School Boards Association, also post Sandy Hook. See, a lot of things were done post Sandy Hook. A lot of conversations happened, and things sat there. I'm convinced the student walkout movements that have occurred, and the movement that we've seen this last year is because those kids have noticed that nothing happened either in the last five years in this topic. You know it's, you think about the students that, at the high school age, they were middle school when that tragedy occurred, and they've seen five years of adults not doing things to protect them. You know, they've asked a lot of "why?" and they haven't seen a lot of action. So this Security Task Force, I mean you look at the kind of things they're saying, you know, they're suggesting that we, employment of law enforcement to work with schools, and to help with all these other things, and we've talked about them, right? To train students in conflict resolution, restorative justice. You know, there is some concerns that sometimes raise like, what would happen with students with disability, for instance. That was raised to me by a parent. Would the officers know what to do if a student with autism was having a difficult concern, was in an escalated state. And I think it's important, just may be one of the officers -- because I know we've talked about this.

ARMOUR:

I'd like to address that, because my wife is actually a special education teacher, and one of the things that I really liked that law enforcement has done, over the course of the last two or three years, is: there has been mandated training by all officers in New Jersey, that we have to do training involving the autistic population, the special needs population, and just last year, in 2017, we actually completed, every officer in the state of New Jersey, by the New Jersey attorney general guidelines, mandated that every officer go through the full training program, to understand how to work with the autistic population, and special needs population, and population dealing with mental health issues. So we do have training -- maybe not to the extent of a mental health counselor -- but we do have training on de-escalation techniques, to help assist with situations in ... I know we've had numerous individuals autistic individuals in Plainsboro that we've had to deal with, and our officers do their training, experience, and education, and the things that they've done, they've had very positive outcomes with the autistic population. So I think that that's something that we can work towards, and continue to enhance our skills. In regards to conflict resolution -- and I think that's something that New Jersey has taken a forefront in the role in regards to training and education for police officers, and identifying things that we need to do to work with all populations.

ADERHOLD:

And just to frame another point that's been raised is ... well, we have a diverse community. Could we potentially see a disproportionate number of arrests within populations, within our demographics? And there's been a lot of work police departments have also done on implicit bias, culturally responsiveness, and training within respect to that. So I'm asking Lieutenant Lee to talk about some of things West Windsor's done.

LEE:

Even before there were any mandates for West Windsor, we were already out there, doing cultural diversity, doing autism awareness, doing mental health awareness. Not just for the officers themselves, but also for the individuals we may deal with. Stress affects a lot of people in a lot of ways, especially the children. We have -- especially under Chief Garofalo and prior to him, Chief Pica -- we have advanced with our cultural diversity. I think we have reached out -- as a matter of fact, this coming up weekend, the community Day for West Windsor is being held by two religious leaders of West Windsor -- I've been a member of that group, as well as Chief Garofalo. We have just about every denomination imaginable in the group, and the beauty of that, for us, is, just for the Chaplaincy program, we don't have just one chaplain anymore. We actually have a database of different denominations. If we have an incident that occurs, we can reach out to anyone, and we will come up with someone that may be of a different faith that we can help with. I think that is important, and not to be understated, that we are have taken kind of a lead on this, of recognizing what our population is, and being able to help our population out. And that includes with the school district, and we would do the same with the Class Threes. The one situation with this, and I think Dr. Aderhold is touching on, which i think is very important, is that they're veterans, that these are retired officers. They have seen a lot of things in their careers that ... this is not a new officer fresh out of the police academy. This is a seasoned veteran, and I know Lieutenant Pavener is going to talk about the hiring process. We're looking at certain aspects of personality that would be the right fit for the School District. And that's all for now.

ADERHOLD:

I mentioned this, some of this slide already. This was the state Chiefs' Police Association, Chief Hayducka, he's also Chief in South Brunswick. So he's a local chief. So he's the Chiefs' chief. And his quote is, "As a police chief I want authority and control over any person in the school who is armed. Police officers are required to have extensive background and training, and schools can get them by having an SRO program or hiring them an off-duty officer. The point, again, and I raise it, is the Board agrees or disagrees with this particular program. No recommendation will be coming from the administration to have private security carry weapons, and there will never be a recommendation of teachers carry anything other than their lesson plans. So, when it comes to this, we can't stress the importance of the training that goes, involved with someone having the authority and the responsibility and the duty to carry a weapon. And so, yeah, I'm very cautious and cognizant about the concern when folks suggest that there shouldn't be weapons in schools, and I would say that I would agree with that. But I'm not talking about a weapon in a school, I'm talking about a police officer in the school. And that's to me very, very different, when we're talking about the safety of our children and our staff.

So with that, I'm going to talk, have actually Lieutenant Tavener talk to you about the hiring process and how critical that responsibility and that relationship is.

TAVENER:

Thank you. We're very fortunate to have two very professional police departments that have very strict hiring standards, and those standards would also apply to these Class Three Officers. We definitely are going to hire -- if these Class three officers come to fruition -- obviously experienced officers, that have had a lot of experience, most of them twenty-five years or more. They will be ... they have experience that they worked with kids throughout their career. They have a deep commitment to helping people building positive relationships with students, staff, and the parents, as we discussed earlier. We would be ... these officers would support students following law enforcement responsibilities, become an integral part of the school staff, working with their crisis response teams.

ADERHOLD:

And as we've talked with the Chiefs and the Lieutenants about, within an MOU, a memorandum of agreement or understanding, we would build a provision that the School Administration would be involved with the hiring process, even though that the ultimate hiring responsibility lies with the municipality, and with the, ultimately, the Chiefs recommendation that this has to be a partnership. We've all known police officers that are tremendous at their jobs, and you'd say, "Eh, I don't envision that individual in an elementary school." I can think of officers that I also would say, would be phenomenal in high school but maybe not in elementary, or phenomenal in elementary and maybe not so much in high school. It's a personality and relationships matters in this process, the vetting process matters.

Now, one question that might arise is does the individual have to be formally from West Windsor or Plainsboro police departments, and the answer that is: no, under the code they just have to have served as a New Jersey law enforcement officer. So that includes County, that includes State, and -- does that include prison as well? I believe it does -- but we have to double check the prison. But definitely State, County and Municipal officers. So there are the opportunity for officers to be hired from throughout. The break in service is all about time away from training, and fitness for duty. So there are requirements for officers to have clear medical, a psychological, as well as certain training requirements. So there are there are training provisions in the hiring practice that are required by the code.

Just as a recommendation in the overview, there is a uniform Memorandum of Agreement that this Board of Education supports each year. It's required. It comes from the State Attorney General, as well as the Commissioner of Education. It then goes to the County District Attorney as well as to the -- County Prosecutor, excuse me -- as well as the County Executive Superintendent, and then ultimately it's passed to the local Chief and the local Superintendent, requiring the Board of Education's review, approval, and then ultimately our signatures. Those are done every year as an annual process. Every County Prosecutor can make small slight additions, and there's one slight addition between Middlesex County has that Mercer County doesn't. But ultimately the memorandum requires an inter-agency coordination of sharing of information. So we can become aware of something, we're responsible for reaching out, and if the Police Department's aware of something they're responsible for reaching out. And, you know, we-- there are quite a few times that we have conversations, late night or early morning, I would dare to say weekly, where we're involved in a call with one another, late night, early morning, like 12:15, 12:30 in the morning, or 5:00 a.m., with a call to just say, "You know what, let's-- we need we need help talking through something, we want to let you know that something happened. A lot of times it's weekend stuff, a lot of times it's high school stuff, and a lot of times it never comes into the school. But it's still the sharing of information, and sometimes unfortunately it's mental health related, and sometimes it's actually runaway type situation, and missing person related, so it's not just, you know, it's all, it's not that it's all violence. And I don't want folks to think about that, but there is, some times where there's concerns about the whereabouts of a student, and we're coordinating on that as well.

Community policing, relationship building, we stressed it time and time again, the members of the safety team. Threat deterrent. From the perspective of the physical, having it, having the physical presence is in itself a deterrent. Threat assessment and response is a little bit different in our mind than threat deterrent. Then multi-agency coordination, member of the safety team. Ultimately the recommendation that's in front of the Board of Education, and not for a vote this evening, but the recommendation, so you know it, is to have a Class Three officer in every school, K-12. So that's ten officers, with the exception of the high schools, because of the way that high school is used, to have two officers for a second shift at the high schools, because those high schools go off into ten o'clock or so every night. So it would require a two-shift schedule at the high school. So that would be 12 officers, six on each side of town. It would require some process. So-- and this is why there's nothing to vote on tonight -- should the bored move to move in this direction, we would then need to work with both municipal governments on the Shared Services Agreement with both Plainsboro and West Windsor Township, separately. Due to their police responsibilities, and their authorities, Chief Armour cannot manage officers that are assigned to West Windsor, and Chief Garofalo can't manage officers in Plainsboro.

We also are a two County system, so we'll also have two different prosecutors involved, two different municipal governments, two different types of government structure, two different DCP&P centers, two different hazmat offices, two different-- you name it, we have two different. And ... but this is what we're used to in that coordination, and there's a lot of inter-agency conversation that happens already when respect to coordinating care for families and students. An so, you know, if a West Windsor student that goes to school at North gets in trouble in North, it maybe a Plainsboro officer addressing it, but if a West Windsor student that's in school at North reports a abuse of a family member that happened in West Windsor, it's the West Windsor officer, even though it's in Plainsboro. Right, so it's a matter of, like, where did the issue happen, but then there's a coordination, because the report may have happened in Plainsboro, but the incident was in West Windsor, so both departments need to know. So there is a lot of coordination constantly around this topic.

So you go back to the municipal governments, there is, you know, there's going to be process involved in that and I don't pretend to know every step. And there's going to be some sometimes resolutions require multiple meetings. There is also the requirement that a salary would have to be approved on the municipal side, so there's different resolutions for that. So there's a salary range, there's also a an amendment that has to be done to the police plan, so there's a lot of steps on the Township side. And then there's the posting of the positions, again at the municipal level, the hiring process, the ultimate approval, the training and onboarding. And if everything went perfect, sometime in the Fall, before the Fall is over, ideally we would be moving in this process. Realistically, I don't anticipate, if the board was to approve this and the municipal governments agreed, we would we would not have officers in place by September. This would take, you know, hopefully by that point, we're in the hiring and approval process, and we're moving forward, and then we would have to figure out which schools, at which point, as we bring officers on, we most likely would start day shift high schools, and then phase forward, with either a day middle school, evening high school. You know, we're gonna have contractors at Hawk. We might want to think about Hawk differently, with respect to having the police presence, faster or later than some of the other. So we'll have those kind of conversations in due time. But again, I just want to stress that the recommendation from both Chiefs and myself would be that we hire officers for all ten schools for a presence in our schools and our community, from a safety standpoint for our staff and our students. [To Chief Armour] Yeah, absolutely.

ARMOUR:

I just want to finish with this, because I know that there's a model for this, and the model around New Jersey is -- that's closest to us is -- if you have should have, generate questions about this kind of idea, as you leave the meeting tonight, I would highly suggest you talk to your colleagues and other boards in North Brunswick, East Brunswick, and South Brunswick. Because these sort of places, where the model is, been used, has been used for quite some time, and prior, even prior to the Class Three officers being placed in the schools, South Brunswick and North Brunswick had actually Class Two officers in the schools. The model in, to my knowledge talking to all the other chiefs -- I serve on the Middlesex County Chiefs Association Executive Board -- and in speaking to all the other chiefs that currently had this in place, they said that based upon all the steps that they've taken, all the ordinances, all the resolutions that have been passed, the model has been extremely successful thus far, and they expect it to be continued to be successful in the future. So if you should have questions, and you have, you know, friends in some of these other Boards of Education, it might be wise to ask them, just to see what their interpretation is, and see how successful those agreements have worked out with those other school districts as well.

ADERHOLD:

And to build on that, we already have the model contract from North Brunswick in our possession. So we have those templates to work from. I was an assistant principal in North Brunswick with the SRO, model many moons ago, but I we, you know, I have experienced this from an administrative perspective, as an Assistant Principal, working with police. Worked in New Brunswick, not with police, though, but with security, and, but police were there daily. And so we were constantly working with police there as well. In Bridgewater-Raritan we had SROs. So, we, I've been in touch with the Superintendents from the three municipalities that the Chief just suggested, and just recently served on a panel with the Superintendent of South-- East Brunswick. They have 71 school security personnel in, with ten buildings. Now, interestingly, that particular Superintendent's history, and his experience with school security, is such that his son was at Virginia Tech, supposed to be in the building where the shooting happened. So from a personal experience standpoint is very security-conscious. You know, Dr. Russo has talked to the Board about his experience 20-some years ago, but with a murder in the school. I've personally taken two weapons off of student in another school district. So we come from places of experience, where these things happen, and unfortunately, in our society, you know, it can happen anywhere. Like you, and like the parents that are in this room, I send children of school every day, and there's a covenant between the school and the parents that their kids come home each day. Right? I send four kids this year, five kids next year, to school, and I expect them that kids come home each day. Now, putting police alone doesn't guarantee that, but it's one measure to try to ensure that it does. And ultimately through the reconnaissance, and the information that can be provided -- and our kids are our best resources when it comes to this -- that by inserting another individual to build relationship, our hope is that this provides just another network of safety for and care for our kids.

So, with that we're happy to take any questions. You have the opportunity to talk to the officers directly. I would ask the Board if they have questions please do so at this time.

HERTS:

Would these officers be carrying a gun? And if they are carrying a gun would that be concealed?

ARMOUR:

No, as prescribed by the law that was written with the Class Three, they are, they will be a uniformed officer. The uniform might not look like the uniform that you see me in now, but they will be carrying a gun. The gun will not be concealed. It will be on a, typically like a gun belt like you see on the right now. So it'll be very similar to the uniform that we wear, that you see right now, except it has what they call a Class Three patch, that's actually on the side of the uniform. Perfect.

HERTS:

OK I have another question. Is it possible that a high school student could grab that gun off the officer?

ARMOUR:

OK, the holsters that we carry on our gun, they're called Level Three Retention Holster, I'm not quite sure what West Windsor carries on their side. But there are, there's actually two or three different mechanisms that you have to engage to actually get the firearm out of the holster itself. So it's not as simple as just grabbing the weapon and pulling it off the officers side. There's two or three active things that you have to do to engage the firearm to get it out of the belt. And, also officers are trained to, you know, in regards to self defense mechanisms, where they to be able to defend that firearm on their side. So between the defense of the firearm on their side and the other level retention holsters that they have, it's more than likely -- and I will say this, we're in the school a lot now, and we, you know our officers spend time going to the Park, Walk & Talks, that's, they're trained to make sure that they are aware, obviously, that the firearm is always on their side, and to understand that that's why we went to that level three retention holster, to be able to protect our firearms.

LEE:

To touch on that, as well, the training aspect, I think we didn't hit on enough. The training aspect of use of force would still continue to be through the Police Department. Use of force, also how to defend yourself, would still be through us, which i think is a huge advantage. Yes, for the officer, I'm sorry. The use of force training for the officers, but also how to defend themselves, unarmed defensive tactics, these are things that we can still continue to do, since they are under our umbrella. OK, thank you.

JULIANA:

Thank you, and actually Ms. Herts asked one of the questions that I had, and I wanted to thank you. A lot of the questions that I had were in your presentation. But, could you just give us an idea of just what our students would see like on a daily basis. So I now know what you'll look like as you walk through the schools, but just from a, what, you know, what can our parents expect, what can students expect to see of the SRO officer, the SROs that are in each of the schools. What does that look like from a student's perspective?

LEE:

Using Detective Jelinski again, because he is he is in and out of the schools probably more than anyone else with our department. And he is so well known with the kids, with the school administration. He's like part of the fabric of that, of the school community. Now you're talking about someone who's actually a sign there. And someone like him who does get along with the students very, very well. I mean he is the poster child for the person we are looking for, as far as dealing with the students and the administration. So on a daily basis would be someone like Detective Jelinski. If you don't know him already, some I know already do, and Gerard, I know, he can attest to, they probably talk daily, several times a day. So he has intimate knowledge of all the schools. So that's kind of what you're going to be looking at, someone who really is part of that fabric.

JULIANA:

And is it similar, you know we have Eyes On The Door now. How is that gonna work in conjunction with Eyes On The Door, and how, you know, we see our officers in the front of the schools a lot of times in the beginning of the day. How would the SRO work in conjunction with Eyes On The Door

ARMOUR:

Well I think what we envision is, we envision them to be as part of the school community. You don't want them assigned to specific, specifically one area of the building. However, I, just as-- our officers during the course of the school day now, that, you know, during the beginning of the day, of frequently you'll see our patrol cars outside of the buildings. It's not uncommon to see them out there. They've been indoctrinated into the community, into the school community. So inevitably, I believe, you know, what I envision, but particularly what this is, is that we would become part of school community, in walking the hallways, speaking with the students, addressing staff concerns, participating in emergency preparedness drills, as we do now. Lockdown drills, participating in the school activities. I, myself personally, have been called High School North a couple times to speak to classes about the law, and the Constitution. And so I think there could be a lot more of those kind of things done. When in history classes, when they when they get into the law and the Constitution, they, understanding what police powers are, we can become part of the school community in all facets of working with the kids, and become parting, inevitably part of the education community as well. So it's not just being the quote-unquote "law enforcement" or "law enforcer," it's also being the person that's walking around the building, engaging the staff, engaging the students, and participating in student activities.

My officers -- I don't know if you, anyone follows our Facebook page -- but my officers, just last week, participated in an event at Community Middle School, where we raised funds for -- what was it? the Not Just Once Program, Not Even Once opioid program -- and they were, inevitably, students were, there was, people, inevitably, put in money to throw pies in the face of the officers. So on our Facebook page, is, like a fun thing that we do, my officers participated -- I know West Windsor does as well -- all sorts of community related activities. Who would ever think that officers get involved with, you know, inevitably, having pies thrown in their faces, and having a lot of fun. I call that the relationship building. That's the element on things I think that, some of the things I that goes unnoticed in the community that we do. That's the other thing. I highly encourage you, everyone to follow both West Windsor's Facebook page, Plainsboro Facebook page. We spend a lot of time trying to show the community what we're doing besides just enforcing law, and doing other things to involve ourselves with the community. We believe in community policing. We don't just say the word and not follow it up. We truly believe in all those things. So my vision for this department, and for West Windsor as well, I'm sure chief Garofalo would say the same thing, is that we want to become part of the school community in all facets.

And that's working with the school administration, Dr. Aderhold, to, you know, do things together, maybe come up with new programs, and things that we can do, bring old programs back that we could no longer do. We used to do a program called Eighth Grade Connection, in the Community Middle School, that we had to drop because of the amount of you know the amount of our calls for service going up. So there are a myriad of things I think we can do, inevitably, to work together that, inevitably is going to make things-- it's going to enhance the school/community relationship, and inevitably relationships with the kids and the officers. I think, especially in today's day and age, it's extremely important for kids to trust our officers. OK? We've all seen the things that go on outside, of, you know, West Windsor-Plainsboro and the things that make the main line news. I think the relationships that we've built with students in our community thus far, through the D.A.R.E. program, now through the Not Even Once Program, we, Plainsboro just started again, we're re-upping our Juvenile Youth Academy, something that we stopped doing several years ago. But the point is that that we believe in the community policing efforts, and we want to continue to do that. Thank you.

ADERHOLD:

Just to build on that, this is going to require us sort of growing together in this idea, but something I would envision, would be that we'd start looking at grade-level or building-level appropriate. For instance, you may all recall that back in the fall we had a student hit by a vehicle, and that there's some there's some real concern about pedestrian safety even bike safety. We could be talking about within our PE programs, working with our officers to do bike safety and safe-walk safety training from an officer in those programs, and that would be very appropriate at a PreK-2 or K-3 building. Those kind of things don't happen in the greater community. In some communities, they have like a summer camp that's done where entering kindergartners go to. We don't have that in our community. There's some community education elements that I think we could look at from a police curriculum perspective in all of our schools from a safety perspective. Louisa, I want to make sure we get your question.

HO:

When you talk about the neighboring school districts that have SROs, I'm curious, do they have them at all levels of schools, or just the upper levels?

ARMOUR:

I believe East Brunswick has all levels schools, and I believe North Brunswick does as well. I'm not positive about South Brunswick. But I do know in the model that's been used, almost, amongst those districts, it has been extremely successful so far.

HO:

OK, I know that some members of our community are concerned, as Carol commented, basically, about there being more weapons in the schools. Have there been incidents where SROs' weapons have become a problem?

ARMOUR:

No. No, not that I'm aware of. As far as I mean ... [Aderhold points at Jelinski]

JELINSKI:

First, thank you for the opportunity to hear our voices, and see our faces, and have a working relationship. I assure you that everything that you want to accomplish as the Board of Education, we want to accomplish as the local police departments. And I can give an example. It's always good to learn by example. Just this year, we had an incident with a bunch of kids with a handgun that made its way onto Instagram. And I know I spoke with Dr. Aderhold as well Mr. Dalton on a Saturday morning. This incident happened on a Friday night at a party. It made its way to Instagram, and we went to work throughout the night, and into the morning, calling each other's personal cell phones. And, through the relationships that I have with the kids -- I know these kids from fifth grade -- and a lot of them now are seniors, and even graduates. So I was able to call some of the kids, and kids were able to give us information, while we were able to flush this -- it wasn't a handgun it was a BB gun -- but we were able to flush it out of the community. And that just happened in January of this year, so that kind of working relationship,,,, that keeps everybody safe, is something that's very positive, and something that I want to continue to do, you know, with everything that we're looking to accomplish. So, hopefully, if there's anything there's any kind of questions, or anything -- I know that I've worked with a number of individuals on the board as well as in the end the audience here -- with the kids in the in the community, and I want to do everything that you want to do for and with the kids.

ZHONG:

Yeah, I got a question. Yeah, are we going to put just one officer in each building? High School South, the pit area might be more vulnerable to the attacks. So how are we going to put two officers there?

ADERHOLD:

Right now the recommendation is to employ one officer during the day at all schools, and a second shift, one officer at both high schools, due to the way in which the school is utilized. So there would -- there's no recommendation from the Board, or even in our planning at this point, to think in terms of multiple officers. And tell you, I believe you're speaking to the pit, but it's really the open space classroom section of High School South. And there's been a lot of training done in that particular area, as there's open space in high school with no walls. So that's, from a security and Tactical Response standpoint, something that we've worked with West Windsor Tactical Team, tactical response team, we've cross-trained with the Plainsboro TAC team, we've worked with the Mercer County Rapid Response Task Force, and the County has brought officers in to take a look. Because it's a unique facility design. But at this time, from a staffing perspective, one officer per school.

ZHONG:

Okay, thank you.

HERTS:

When will the Board be voting on this?

ADERHOLD:

So, when we know that we have a sense of the Board, and the plan would be to have a conversation on committee meetings next Tuesday. And if we know that there is a consensus to move forward, at that point we would then put time and resources into working on the Memorandum Of Agreement. With three Members Of Council from the different municipalities in the audience, I should say that from a funding standpoint, we've built within the Board Of Education Budget the cost of the employment of the officers. And that the way this agreement would work, would be there the individuals get hired by the municipal government, as was required by code, but in the agreement there would be a pass-through charge, and the billing cycle would have to be, to be determined with who the agreement, but there'd be a charge to the school district, that then is paid from the district's budget back to the municipality.

So we when we looked at this, we did not want a determination to be based on an attempt at trying to figure out how to blend municipal dollars, municipal government dollars with the School Board's dollars. We saw this as a value-add with respect to a continuum, and those of you that have been to other presentations on the budget, we've also discussed mental health support, and additional staffing on that as well, so this is not just police-only. We look at this as one aspect of the idea of school safety, as we work on different types of enhancements. Should the Board of Education -- because this might inevitably be another question -- should the Board of Education make a determination not to fund the officers, or to fund a percentage of officers, and not all officers, then the additional dollars goes back to tax relief in the subsequent budget. So the dollar -- or, and/or they could be utilized for other security enhancements, out of the budget.

So it was built that way so we had the dollars available to make an informed decision. If the dollars weren't budgeted in, we'd be sitting here saying, "Yes there's something we want to do but there's no money to do it.

HERTS:

So the Board would vote on this when?

ADERHOLD:

The Board would vote once an agreement, a Memorandum Of Agreement was created. That would most likely, well, that requires us to have an agreement, a tentative agreement essentially between the municipal bodies, as well. So that's going to take some time. So first thing we would do is sort of get a sense of the feedback from the Board at the next committee meetings on Tuesday. Should we have -- next Tuesday -- if we have a sense of a consensus, we would then be working with the municipal governments with our attorneys, to make sure we work through the agreement, and then ultimately, as we move through that process, we'd be informing the Board of where things stand. And then ultimately we would be bringing the vote to a Board. Now, Ms. Herts, with respect to the timing, that's going to be contingent on the timing with the municipal bodies, and we have to work through two different calendars. In order to move this forward, in a sense to try to have officers in the Fall, I would anticipate most likely in the July or August meeting.

HERTS:

OK, my other question for the police officers is: do you have any statistics on SROs who are in schools and any accidents that may happen? Are there any studies about that?

ADERHOLD:

I know, because things are in the news, I don't have specific statistics, but every once in a while you'll see a news report on Twitter, or you'll see a news report about a discharged weapon, and usually that happens in which a weapon is utilized, not in a safe manner of which they're trained. I have not heard of any such incident in New Jersey. Those have been in other states where there's different rules and regulations that govern those authorities. But usually at the root of it, is some form of carelessness with respect to unholstering a weapon in a classroom. You hear occasionally about a state that allows teachers to carry, and so you do hear the occasional discharge of a firearm in a classroom from a teacher's weapon. So, is it possible that a weapon has been discharged in a school across this nation, that someone can try to pull a report and put it up on Peeps, and do that? Sure. I'm sure I can find a report tonight that says that there's been a discharged weapon in a school. In New Jersey I'm unaware of that in the, now 20 years I've served as a school educator in New Jersey, I'm unaware of any such incident. And I've I've worked in two different municipalities, in some difficult times, and I've never seen a weapon drawn in a school ground, even in moments of crisis. So, even with officers present, even with crisis under way, I've never seen an officer pull a weapon

With the duck hunter incident, the famed West Windsor Plainsboro duck hunter incident, post Sandy Hook, when we were at the incident command scene, was there officers in tactical gear, and did they at that point have weapons out? Absolutely. And that was because they were searching for an individual with two firearms, that was witnessed in this community.

ARMOUR:

Plainsboro is ... we have a 40-year history. West Windsor has forty-- fifty year history. In all the time that we've been in the schools, we've been doing there for 29 plus years, and all the time that our officers have been in the schools, we have 36 sworn -- West Windsor has 48 sworn -- we've never had a discharge, and in the history of our department, an accidental discharge, so I just wanted to make everyone aware of that.

LEE:

One of the things in-- the children we used to do for, back-- I think we did it back in a day, Second Grade Mystery Day. We would spend a whole day at Dutch Neck, at Maurice Hawk, and officers from Plainsboro, officers from West Windsor, together, in the school, all day, with the kids. And I'll tell you, that's one of the things that -- with the cuts, with community policing -- that's one of the things I really want to see come back. That is an exciting day for the kids. For those who know Don Edwards -- Detective Edwards, "Dink" -- he was huge into the community policing aspect as a juvenile detective, when it was a little bit easier to get these things done. He's the one who originated that. That's something we'd like to bring back. One of the things, when you talk about like the younger kids, Detective Jelinski and I were out there for our Youth Academy. We had a line, in our lobby, of parents who can't wait to get the kids into our Youth Academy. And that's 5th grade kids D.A.R.E. level, and the first lady was there at 6:30 in the morning. We weren't taking applications until 9:00. So she actually sat in our lobby for two and a half hours, waiting to make sure her child got in. And I think these are the things that, people realize like chief was saying about, what we do on Facebook, and what we're constantly doing with the children. we do two things with 7-eleven. Kids are wearing our helmets, they get they get a free Slurpee.

One of the officers will give a little sticker for it. And it's these combinations between schools, businesses, the police departments, that, long term, this is the approach we really want to take. It's not a short-term thing, and it's something we've been building for years. My children still are in the school district, went through Maurice Hawk, and I as a parent, absolutely want this.

ADERHOLD:

And I think, maybe just to conclude, the one thing that you may have heard is the officers are in our schools. That doesn't go away. The Park, Walk & Talks, the attempts for additional officers to come by. The community relationship of the patrol officers and the command structure that's on duty would still work to build relationships, and still come to the to the schools. What we're talking about is have a daily, permanent presence on-site during the school day, as an enhancement above and beyond what's happening already. So it doesn't stop Detective Jelinsky's relationship. It doesn't stop from him coming by and getting to know kids, but it does provide him with a colleague, employed through the police department on site as an extension of him, an extension of the detective bureau, an extension of ultimately, the police force, to serve as liaison to that school, and that school community. And so, unless there's any other questions, okay I see one?

HO:

Yeah, I would just love, at the committee meeting next week, if you could be prepared to just give me more examples of what it is that you would have the officers do in the elementary schools. Because I can picture it in the middle schools, in the high schools. I get D.A.R.E., but I'm having a little bit more trouble envisioning -- and it's probably because I don't know about the programs that you used to run in the elementary schools -- but I'd like just a little bit more information on what you would like to be doing with those officers.

ADERHOLD:

I will ask the officers to help me bring that to get-- put that together for you. What I would say is one of my colleagues will most likely be presenting, because I'll be in front of the Planning Board in Plainsboro that evening. But we'll make sure that someone's presenting that information.

FLERES:

Thank you very much, officers, and, thank you all.