Ramsey Schools Considering Security Radios, ‘Panic Buttons’

A presentation next week on the proposed 2013 Ramsey school budget will include a “priority list,” of security measures that the district would like to add to its schools for the 2013-14 school year, Board member Jim Meiman explained at a Board of Education meeting Tuesday night.

The wish list, which was inspired by suggestions from staff members, administration, the police department and residents, includes several technologies the board has been considering for over a year, and several that it looked at only after the school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut last December “made school districts across the country take a closer look at what we’re doing,” he said.

The first item on the list is a set of new security radios that would operate like walkie-talkies, he said. The radios would allow for instant communication between the schools, and to the Ramsey Police Department, he said.

At a recent borough council meeting, Councilwoman Deirdre Dillon explained the town is in talks with the district to share costs for setting up the radios, and creating a dedicated frequency on which school officials could communicate directly with the police department.

Meiman said the board is also considering portable “panic buttons” that could be handed out to staff members at all five schools. The buttons would give staff members that ability to call for a lockdown from areas of the school other than the main office, and alert school officials to other types of incidents, like medical emergencies, he said.

The school is also considering adding new hardware to some of the doors in the school buildings, and installing a full video surveillance system at the high school.

The board would also like to add some video surveillance at a few of the other schools. Though they would not be full systems, they would address current needs, Meiman said.

For example, the district is looking to install cameras in the center foyers of the Tisdale and Hubbard schools, since the main offices of those schools are set apart from the main entrances. With the video, school employees would be able to “immediately see if someone who is buzzed into [the school] is going where he or she shouldn’t go,” Meiman said.

Though Meiman did not comment on the specific costs of the security measure, he said they would be part of a discussion of the proposed 2013 school budget at a board meeting next week.

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